Densho Digital Archive - Minoru Yamaguchi Interview (denshovh-yminoru

<Begin Segment 14>

KL: And you two met, you and your wife met because of your wife and --

MY: Yeah, after four years of nursery operation, because of the economy, the housing and all that thing was not doing good, well, it kind of made the nursery business slow down too because people didn't hire my brother to do the landscaping on the yard. 'Cause it's just like right now, not many housing transactions going, so that made the business kind of tough, and there wasn't enough profit to share all three brothers. So my brother just kept the nursery. He had it going. And my brother Bob just decided to just go on his own independent gardening business. Then I, since I was trained to become a flower business, I had a lot of floral knowledge, so one of the salesmen told me this man in Camarillo, which is down south here, about eight miles down south here, this man was looking for flower growers to work in his farm to grow chrysanthemums. So, well, I'll take it. So I went to see him and I was hired just in a heartbeat, says, "Well, can you come tomorrow?" Said, "Sure, I'll start tomorrow." [Laughs] So that's what I did. Then it worked out pretty good. We had a lot of flowers, and one day he asked me to, he says, "Well, can you find flower harvesters, or do you know anybody?" And then I asked her sister -- I knew her sister, my wife Kayo's sister -- and then I said, "Do you know anybody who wants to work in the flowers to harvest?" She says, "Yeah," she says, "as a matter of fact, my sister just came from Japan and she's looking for a job." Said, "Do you want, do you want to hire her?" Said, "Sure, why not?" So I took her over there and then said, "You want to do this and this?" Okay, she says she wants to work there, so I hired her. And of course, that was that first meeting with her, and then while we were working together, then we got kind of involved and then we decided to get married. So that was 1990 -- 1970.

KL: Had she just arrived in the country?

MY: Yeah, she was, she got here 1968, and then that was just months or so after she got after here, I hired her. So she worked where I worked, and about a year and a half or so later, 1970, we decided to get married. So we didn't have very much money, we didn't want to go through all that elaborate weddings and this and that, so I says, "Let's drive over to Vegas," and that's where we got married.

KL: Oh yeah?

MY: Yeah. Then we came back and, we came back and invited relatives and friends, had a little reception. So that was, that was our wedding.

KL: Tell us her full name for the tape, if you would.

MY: Pardon.

KL: Tell us your wife's full name, her maiden name for the tape, if you would.

MY: Okay, her name, first name is Kayo, K-A-Y-O, and last name is Yanagihara. It's a big family here, Yanagihara.

KL: Really?

MY: Yeah. And then their families have a U.S. connection too. Yeah, her uncle, two uncles worked here in U.S. before the war, and then they all moved to Colorado.

KL: They were on the outside; they were not in a camp either.

MY: I think Kayo's mom or dad was here one time or another, and they went back. But those two other brothers stayed here and then relocated to Colorado, not in the camp, but like my uncle. So they stayed there until 1950, and then they came back here in Oxnard.

KL: Do you know where they went in Colorado?

MY: Denver. Denver area. So our families, my wife's side and my side all have a connection in U.S.

KL: And you were neighbors in Japan too, the families were neighbors.

MY: Yeah, it was, well, there was some...

KL: Business together.

MY: Yeah.