Densho Digital Archive - Aya Fujii - Taka Mizote Interview (denshovh-faya

<Begin Segment 3>

RP: So your father possibly worked on the railroad or worked in Washington for a while perhaps acquired enough money to invest in a farm?

TM: Well, I think they, after they got married they lived in Sumner, Washington, which is another small area outside of Seattle and then they ventured into Oregon. And they, I think they farmed in a little place near Hillsboro and I don't know how far it was from Hillsboro but I remember Dad saying that he walked into Hillsboro over the hill, I don't know whether he had a horse, he didn't have a car. Because he says, I climbed, you know, the hill and went way down to buy bread. I remember him mentioning that.

RP: So eventually he was able to acquire a farm?

TM: Right.

RP: And did he... at that time Isseis were not allowed because of not being naturalized citizens to own land so how did he get around that?

TM: Well, you know, I think if my oldest brother was still living but I think he homesteaded, where the farm is now, and it's still there. Because that's how they acquired... and then my brother has ownership.

RP: That was usually done to get around the discriminatory aspect of that.

TM: That's right.

AF: But that fifty acres is what they have now that it's come down the generation and it's the very original farm.

RP: And so who runs that farm now?

AF: It would be George's son. And they want to... it's quite a big operation, it's a nursery and they want to keep it in the family so the grandson's daughters are involved in it, yes.

RP: So that's, what, over eighty almost ninety years?

AF: Yes, James Iwasaki is the son.

TM: It's also in Ike's kid's names too.

AF: Huh?

TM: It's also in Ike's children's names too.

RP: So what do you remember about growing up on that farm?

TM: Well, we... I think we got a long okay, I mean, you know. [Laughs]

AF: Well, we had to get up early when we... I remember having an asparagus field and we had to cut the asparagus field before we went to school, and after we came home we cut it again because that asparagus just grew during the day. But we had to get up and cut the asparagus and change our clothes and catch the bus and start all over again here.

TM: See, we had, the main crop was strawberries and our dad rented acreage away from our farm to raise strawberries and then on our home place we had truck garden so it was green beans and tomatoes and cucumbers and, you know, asparagus and all this other truck farming. And so after, you know, summer months all my friends would be going on vacation or... we could never go on vacation, we had to work. So, you know, it just seemed like we always had to, you know, work. But I think we're better for all of that, I think.

RP: Now tell me a little bit about the Hillsboro area, the community. Was it primarily Caucasian, where there other Japanese American farmers?

TM: There were very few, maybe --

AF: One family that had that grocery store.

TM: Yes, they had a fruit stand. And actually that's about, well, there was another family that lived close by but they went and moved up to Banks, see, the Banks is the area where all the Japanese owned strawberry fields. And so they moved up there but outside of that, we were primarily, you know, one of the few.

RP: So you had a farmhouse on the property?

TM: Oh, yes.

RP: And what was that like living, did you have electricity, did you have running water?

TM: Well, no, we didn't have electricity I remember when we first got electricity though. [Laughs] But yes, barn and we had, I don't know how many buildings we had on there. I remember we had a smokehouse because we didn't have refrigerator or anything like that. No, I remember... do you remember?

AF: Mom made root beer.

TM: Yes, but we had a smokehouse where Dad hung, you know, the bacon, not the bacon but the ham and sawdust underneath and outhouses.

RP: All the luxuries of farm living.

AF: Well, just before the war, this was in 1940 I guess, evidently the folks started to build a new home and it was built and just when the war broke out we were still in the old house, but they were building the house and before the new house was finished, Dad wanted us to move in, you know, so we could just live there. So we only lived there just few weeks into this brand new home that had indoor plumbing and all that and it was pretty sad that... and then we left it to rent it out to a physician and two little kids and locked all of our storage thing in one room and padlocked it. I guess it was still there, somebody came to check, one of the missionaries came by to check on it one day and I think it was okay but the house was --

TM: Well, also, every time our brothers had furlough they were able to go and check on the farm. And because, you know, our farm was the only one that we had the farm, the neighboring, the Japanese that lived in the outskirts, they wanted to store their things in our barn and stuff too.

RP: Did they?

TM: Yes, 'cause we had greenhouses and we had several greenhouses and like I say, barn and then there was another -- shed.

AF: Shed.

TM: Well, it was more than a shed because that's where when they had hired help, to house hired help, and so there were quite a few dwellings on the farm.

RP: So who would be hired for extra help on the farm?

TM: Well, if it was strawberry time, they would get the school kids and then they would come down to Portland, my brothers would come down and get the street people. And then we had I don't know how many steady people that would work year round. It was a little, there was one man, he was kind of like a hermit, but he was the one person that always, the farm could always depend on him to do things.

RP: And what was growing in the greenhouses?

TM: Flower and tomato plants, seedlings?

RP: So you started the plants in the greenhouses and then set them out? Was your father as a farmer very innovative in terms of, I mean, a lot of these Issei farmers had to be, you know, like part carpenter, part mechanic, part farmer. Was he kind of progressive in the way he worked his land?

TM: I think so, yes. Gosh I don't remember him, in his older years he just spaded a whole, it looked like a whole acre by hand, you know. But I don't think it was a whole acre.

AF: He always had a hoe in his hand and was always scratching weeds, you know, even into the ditch he'd be scratching the weeds out. But he always had a hoe in his hand.