Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Minoru Yamaguchi Interview
Narrator: Minoru Yamaguchi
Interviewer: Kristen Luetkemeier
Location: Ventura, California
Date: June 21, 2012
Densho ID: denshovh-yminoru_2-01-0004

<Begin Segment 4>

KL: So you were born in -- oh, I wanted to, your dad grew beets first, but did he grow something else later in Spreckels?

MY: Yes. According to my mom, in all those years it was very struggling. I mean, you were just scraping and having trouble financially. By the way, when he was growing sugar beets, right after my brother George was born, and in the sugar beets, the field, I understand there were a lot of pheasants. Whether they were, the pheasants were eating some foliage or eating, doing some damage or what, well, he like to hunt. For some reason he was carrying that loaded gun in the back of his tractor, and my brother George was riding with him. I think he was about three years old. And for an unknown reason, that loaded gun fell off the tractor, just exploded, and the bullet hit my dad's spine, back spine, and he ended up in the hospital for a long, long time. So I used to see his scars when I was growing up in Japan, right, right about the waist. So anyway, but anyway, he was recovered from that injury, and then in 1939, I believe, he was growing five acres of lettuce, which happened to hit a big market and ended up making a lot of money. It was 1939, just a year before I was born. And of course, I was born in 1940, so by that time he was financially pretty stable, for the first time in his farming life. And in the meantime, the relationship, the government relationship between Japan and the U.S. was going downhill, I mean deteriorating, because the, I guess Japan was asking U.S. to give them, give Japan a supply of oil and the U.S. kept on refusing. Then that relationship was just... you know. So I guess there was, around 1940 there was rumors flying there might be a war soon. And then --

KL: So your parents were keeping up with developments in Japan in between, yeah.

MY: Right, I guess. So I guess his buddies, farming buddies, like I told you before, they were going downtown Salinas and over the drink and then they'd talk about politics. It's, I don't think it's no different from now than then. And then my dad started to think about, worry about what's gonna happen and then the sake of family safety, the kids, he start thinking it might be better for him to just pick up family and go back to Japan.

KL: Because he was worried about your safety if war began.

MY: Right. Not only that, his desires, and at that time many Japanese people desire who have a kid, they wanted to educate their kids in Japan, for Japanese, they get a Japanese education. And maybe that was my father's desire too, to take the kids to Japan and to give them a Japanese education. That would be, he thought that was pretty nice to do that. And another thing was my mom hadn't seen, ever since she came over, hadn't seen her sisters for a good ten years or so, or more. So they thought it was a good idea, not only to keep the family in safety just in case something happened, so, and the financial situation's no problem for him because they just happened to have a good income from the sales of lettuce field, lettuce crop. So I'm just thinking that, what if he didn't make the money in 1939? He would've stayed on. He wouldn't, no way there'd be enough money to be able to buy tickets to go on board, on the ship to go back to Japan. We would probably end up in Poston, in the camp. So that's how fate is determined by the parents', the fathers' decisions.

KL: Or by world events.

MY: Yeah. So anyway, that's what he did. He just decided to go back.

KL: Do you have a sense for whether he might've stayed if relationships had been better between the two countries?

MY: Oh yes, most definitely.

KL: You think he would've wanted to stay.

MY: Yeah, most definitely. He would've stayed. He wouldn't never go back. And then, if he stayed back here, although we had to go in the camp, well, what if after the war's over, we'll probably, but we would've been in Salinas and Spreckels and all three brothers farming. I don't know.

KL: Yeah, you might not have had your sister either, or she might've been a different person.

MY: Right, right. So that is something that I always think about. What if?

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.