Densho Digital Archive - Minoru Yamaguchi Interview (denshovh-yminoru

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KL: We're here in tape three of a continuing interview with Minoru Yamaguchi on June 21, 2012. And we left off talking about experiences in Chicago, but I wanted to backtrack a little bit and ask you about your departure from Japan. I know your dad said that you should go back to where you belonged and you had some trouble getting the paperwork, or that was a process to get the paperwork, but I wonder how it was leaving Japan.

MY: It was difficult. My dad was already stricken with a stroke, and I had a young sister and my mom, so we, the day of my departure, our ship left the port of Kobe, which is a little bit south of Yokohama, just one night sailing time from Kobe to Yokohama. My parents and sister came to see me off, all the way to Kobe, and then I got on the ship and then we just said goodbye and I left. And then the ship stopped over in Yokohama, then I met with my friends and relatives there for one day.

KL: That's a kind of help, to get to see them.

MY: Yeah, it was kind of, to kind of calm my nerves, so that was kind of nice. And then we left Yokohama. It was an immigrant ship called Argentina. I guess the ship was taking on the immigrants to Argentina this time. And I was in the second class, and all those other passengers who were going to South America was down in the bottom, and my gosh, second class passengers, like first class, it's very fancy, I mean, the food and a nice, comfortable bed. And every breakfast, lunch and dinner you go up in the restaurant and then have dinner with, a meal with ship's engineers or navigators or executive people, and then some of those foods I've never eaten before, seen before. I didn't even know how to eat grapefruit. I never seen grapefruits carved out like that. And the waiter bring me, I mean brought me the sugar with the spoon stuck in it -- I didn't know what to do. I kept on looking at it and the guy just scooped a little bit of sugar and then sprinkled over the top of the grapefruit, so I thought, "Oh, that's how I eat the grapefruit."

KL: What'd you think of the grapefruit? Did you like it?

MY: It tastes awful. Bitter. [Laughs] Well anyway, all the foods are like that, but anyway, other than that, roast beef to lobster to, my gosh, I never seen anything like it.

KL: Were there any other people who were kind of similar to you, who were going to the United States for the first time in their memory?

MY: I was the only one. And then all the other people, they were taking the trip to Japan and then coming back, those retirees or older people, and they were together with me. They kind of told us -- I mean, they told me about the way that California live in, "we do this, we do that," so I had some idea.

KL: Did you just communicate as much as you could?

MY: Yes. Yes, most of 'em spoke half Japanese and half English, so they had been living in California for so long.

KL: Were they Japanese American?

MY: Yeah, Japanese American. But they were pretty nice. They were so helpful. But one thing they couldn't do is to help me in Immigration, 'cause immigration officer wouldn't, won't accept nobody to help, but anyway, I said goodbye to them and then... when, after I walked out the gate, my brother, we walked over to the parking lot where the car was parked and then, gosh, to my surprise, my brother had a 1960, brand new, again, 1960 Ford Fairbank, I think it was. It was so huge. It was awesome. And then once we got on the road, the freeway, San Pedro Freeway and the Pacific Coast Highway for a little while, to get to Torrance, the road was so wide and straight, just, it was just something to see, the first time, first experience. God, it was nighttime, so I couldn't see much of anything else, but the road was all brightly lit and I was able to see some of the things. And the one thing I will never forget was the boat approaching the port, I see a big ball right in, up in the air, big, huge ball and it says 76 in blue letters. I didn't know what that was. "What is that?" Somebody says, "What? That's 76." And I found out later that it was Union Oil's sign, because in San Pedro there's a lot of oil refineries there, and I think one of the refineries was 76, Union Oil refineries. That's what, I guess, I was seeing. So anyway, that was my impression, the first impression. And I'll tell you, after a day or so, just, my sister-in-law, the first time I met her that night, and she's originally from Lodi, California -- in fact, she and her family was in internment camp in Jerome. That in Arkansas?

KL: Uh-huh.

MY: Okay, that's where they were. But anyway, she's Japanese American, spoke mostly in English, a little bit of Japanese, but anyway, she took me to the, two, three days, probably about three or four days later, after I got here, she took, drove me over to Sears Roebuck in a place called Del Amo Center. It's just one of the department stores that's... and then they got me the jeans and the work boots. "Oh my gosh," I thought, "This is what America's all about?" I mean they wear such nice clothes and then wear leather boots, and I thought, this is, this is fantastic. But actually start working at the nursery was pretty hard.

KL: Did you live with your brother and sister-in-law?

MY: Yeah, there was another house in the nursery, another pretty nice, comfortable house. They sometimes, my uncle from Malibu'd come in and spend, have lunch there, and that's where, the house that I stayed. They had three bedrooms and had a nice living and dining, so that's where I stayed. But not being able to speak that much English, and then I wasn't able to move around too much, as far as, I didn't, I wasn't even driving then. I didn't know how to drive, so I pretty much stayed around the nursery and then walk over to the shopping center, food market -- let's see, the grocery store's called Food Giant -- buy little cookies or apples or whatever.

KL: Was it nice to be back with your brother and your sister-in-law? I would think it would be, kind of help you catch up to living with them.

MY: Yeah, they were very helpful. And sometimes she fixed me Japanese food and cook rice, and that was good. They were, I owe a lot to her and to my brother.

KL: She sounds very welcoming.

MY: Yeah. And it was just like Mom and Dad, second mom and dad. Took care of me and washed my clothes and did all that for me, and then drove me, my brother drove me to night school, to Redondo Beach three nights a week, back and forth.