Densho Digital Archive - Rose Tanaka Interview (denshovh-trose

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AL: What are some of your earliest memories, yourself, as a child?

RT: Oh, well, it was a very nice life. We were about one or two blocks from the ocean, our property was, where my father was farming, was just off the coast of California. And when I went to bed every night with the surf in my ears, and that was my playground. We were very poor, we were very, lived very frugally, as I said. But my friends and I went out and splashed around on the beach all the time. I mean, we didn't need any toys or anything like that. Of course, it was Depression-era days, so we lived very frugally. But I was happy, and I was kind of a tomboy, I guess. My friend and I, Maxine and I, and Maxine was of Italian descent, but she was my best friend. And we used to buddy around, she lived in town, her mother was the postmistress of the town. But Maxine and I were real close friends, and all our free time we spent, we were in the same class together in school and all that. So we went fishing together and clamming together, played in the creek and swam in the dam, all that sort of thing. So it was a nice life.

AL: And what was the name of the town?

RT: Cayucos, C-A-Y-U-C-O-S, Cayucos.

AL: And where is that?

RT: It's about halfway between, close to halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, about fourteen or fifteen miles north of San Luis Obispo. If you've heard of Morro Bay, it was about three miles of Morro Bay. Going northward, it was Cambria Pines and San Simeon. And San Simeon, of course, was where Hearst built his castle.

AL: Do you know how your family ended up there from San Francisco, like when and how that took place?

RT: Well, my father knew, or built relationships with other farmers, and they all helped each other. And he knew people in Arroyo Grande and Santa Maria and various places, and located a place that would be a good farming area. And actually the land that we lived on, Cayucos, was leased land. And I don't know if people know too much, that the Issei -- my parents were Issei, first generation -- were not allowed by this country to own property, well, California. They were not allowed to be naturalized citizens. As a result, the alien land law that was enacted in California and probably other parts of the western states, did not allow, if you were not eligible for citizenship, you were also not eligible for owning property. And so he was not allowed to buy property, and therefore leased land. Now, he had a small farm in Morro Bay, for instance, but he bought it under the name of my brother, older brother, when he reached majority. Originally it was also owned by an even older friend's son, who was older than... before that, before our children reached age twenty-one, an older Nisei would offer to buy property in order to transfer it legally to a family member. And that was how they were able to buy property in Japan, I mean, in California.

AL: How much land did you have on your farm? How big was your farm?

RT: Oh, I really don't know in terms of acres, but I don't know, fifteen, twenty acres.

AL: Compared to the other farms in that area, would you consider it a small farm?

RT: Well, yes, it would be a smaller farm. In Morro Bay there was a rather prominent family of three brothers, two of them, they all had different names, but that's a different story. The Naganos in Morro Bay were known as the "artichoke kings" of California, because they raised artichokes there. They had quite a large piece of property, and did very well financially. And were also related to the Etos, I think, in Arroyo Grande. But you know about the way people get different names?

AL: Could you tell us?

RT: Well, if you have a lot of sons, and then there's another family that has all daughters, and they like to pass the family name on down. But if you have a daughter, you can't pass your family name on down to keep the family name if the daughter gets married, unless you find a family that has more sons, and the sons can agree to what they call go yoshi, and will take the woman's last name. And therefore any family that resulted from that would have, would maintain the woman's family name, and that's how they maintained their name. So if you had three brothers, and I always wondered why they all had different names. And only one retained the name, and then the other two went yoshi and were, gave their... well, became the husband and took on the name of, a woman's family name. And that's why they had three different names, but were really brothers. [Laughs]