Densho Digital Archive - Minoru Yamaguchi Interview (denshovh-yminoru

<Begin Segment 10>

KL: We took a quick break and are back. We're getting ready to talk about Minoru's older brother and sister's return to the United States.

MY: Yes, I was eight years old in 1948. That's when I first started my elementary school, that was first year. And I don't remember after I started school, but it was 1948 when my brother George and Amy left to come here, because my dad wrote a letter to his brother, Uncle Hiroshi, who was here in L.A.

KL: Did they write other times during the war?

MY: Uh-huh.

KL: They wrote a lot.

MY: Uh-huh. They were communicating with each other. Somehow the letter was going back and forth during that time, but anyway, my dad asked Uncle Hiroshi that he's sending two kids over to him and please, to bring the kids over to his house and educate 'em, put 'em back to high school, whatever. And Uncle said yes, go ahead, send 'em. So they were, they came here and then immediately after that George started high school.

KL: Your uncle was back in California? He had left Colorado already?

MY: Yeah, right.

KL: Do you know when they left Colorado? Was it during the war?

MY: Yeah, he was, he was in Colorado working in the farms during the war, and then he, after the war he came back and took over Auntie's brother's business, because the brother was having some health problems. But anyway, my brother started high school and then Amy decided to, well, I guess Uncle decided to send her to live with an American family somewhere in the West Los Angeles, this American family, to learn how to speak English and get used to the American way of life. So she did that, she stayed with the family and then she did whatever household chores, like cleaning the house on the weekends or whatever, and then she went to school from there. And I understand that, she was telling me later years that the American family that she lived with, one of the sons became an American Major League Baseball player.

KL: Really?

MY: I didn't find, I didn't know the name of the baseball player, but she told me that. So wow, that was, I said that was pretty fantastic.

KL: Yeah. Were they an okay family to live with?

MY: Yeah, she was happy there. Then she graduated from... Dorothy High School? Anyway, the high school down in West Los Angeles. It's still there.

KL: You think it's called Dorothy or something?

MY: Yeah, Dorothy High School, I think. And then after that, she was able to get a job, pretty well-known insurance company. I think it was the New York Life Insurance Company, but I don't know. Insurance company, it's pretty well-known. George, after the graduation, went in the army.

KL: He went back to high school in the U.S., you said?

MY: Yes.

KL: Okay.

MY: Yes, and then he was inducted to army and he served in Korea, so he was in Korea for two years. That was from 1950 to 1952. And... yeah.

KL: How was the transition back to the United States for them? Was it hard, or were they happy to be back?

MY: Yeah, my brother was telling me that Uncle Hiroshi was pretty rough on 'em. I mean, I respect Uncle Hiroshi. I know he, he's good at heart and he was willing to be in charge of bringing some of the kids, including myself, my brothers, and not only our family but his other brother's kid, he did that. But maybe because he felt he needed to be strict, to keep everybody in...

KL: Keep 'em safe, since their parents weren't there.

MY: Right. So, but everybody turned out pretty good. There was no problem. And he had a good business going. He had a transplant nursery business, where he transplanted from seed, the celery seedling to the regular planting so that the flat, put one of the ten plants in regular flat and then after the plants were grown about six inches or so, then they would load 'em up on the truck and then deliver them to the farmers all over, like Seal Beach, nearby farming community like Seal Beach. And when I was still there in the '60s there was a lot of farming ground down the beach area, and he even used to come up here to Oxnard -- my brother, that is. My brother used to drive a big truck.

KL: He delivered, did the deliveries.

MY: Right. But anyway, he did real well in business and then I was, he was something that I was really looking up to. I wanted to be a successful businessman like him. Then George, after the army, he came back from Korea, he went back to work, working for Uncle and he became the manager for the nursery that they were operating in Torrance. And he stayed there until 1963, I believe, because, reason why he left there was Uncle Hiroshi wanted to sell the nursery to a big development. That was corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Hawthorne Boulevard, just right on the corner, right next to Torrance Airport. And I think he, I don't know how much he sold it, probably so that he just made a pretty good, pretty good money. And then he, by that time he had a business, another business going in Malibu, here in Malibu, and my brother --

KL: He had them both at the same time?

MY: Yeah. He was, and him and his son, Tosh, was operating the business here in Malibu. And then my brother George and Bob moved up here and started the nursery, the plant nursery business, sell trees and shrubberies. I, when I came here --

KL: Was it, when they left Japan and you guys were still there, were, was it hard for your parents, or were they happy they were back in the United States? How was that?

MY: My parents?

KL: Yeah, to have your brother and sister leave.

MY: Yeah, it was, wasn't easy, especially my mom. Well, I'll go back a little bit now. After I graduated from high school, well, the same day that I graduated from high school, everybody's celebrating, my friends, and my dad told me, he said, "Son, you go back to where you belong." He told me. That meant you go back to U.S. "You go back, because I already told my brother Hiroshi," my uncle, "I got the permission for you. Your uncle Hiroshi will be willing to have you there and get you going." My mom was just devastated to hear that because, because my brother Bob was already gone, he was here, and I was the only one that, left in the house. And my dad was already sick. I mean, he had a stroke when I was sixteen years old, I believe. I was, just got into high school, and he's stricken with a stroke, and then he couldn't do much farm work anymore. So my mom was saying, "Who's gonna do this, who's gonna take care of this?" But my dad insisted that I should go back. "We'll manage alright. Don't worry, we'll do it alright. You go back." So that's, and so that was February 1960. And then seventeen days later, I was here.

KL: Wow.

MY: Yeah, I was here.