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RP: Talk a little bit about your growing up on the farm and the farm life. But your father didn't own his own land, he actually leased it from --

GK: Yes, he leased the farm, and we were on this farm where the owner was a local doctor. I think my dad tried, tried to buy part of the land, but the owner, Dr. Monismith, was very satisfied with us just leasing, and so that's what they did. But eventually, well, my dad and my two brothers were partners in this, in the farms, and eventually my brothers did buy parts of the farm. And I think we must have been, they were truck farmers, so they grew cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, cucumbers, I mean, the whole gamut, the onions and everything. And eventually, I think one of my brothers bought some land that was near the Platte River, we lived close to the Platte River. And just a mile from Fort Lupton, but only about a half-mile from Platte River. And I remember when the Platte River would rise, all the crops in that area would get flooded. So I guess maybe in a lot of ways, it was good that we didn't own some of that land at that time, but yeah, they never, they never owned as such. And I think, I was asking my sister about how much land that was, and she thought it was probably around 180 acres or so, of just nothing but truck farming.

RP: Truck farming.

GK: Yes, uh-huh. And so that meant transporting all the crops to Denver or there was one company in Fort Lupton that they were just really against the Japanese. But when they were in a bind, they would call and ask for, for the crop, for the crops. And it goes both ways; we needed them, but they also needed us. But when you think back and realize that they didn't want our crops because we were Japanese, it kind of, kind of hurts, yeah. But all in all, they needed us just as much as we needed them.

RP: Was that an attitude that prevailed before the war, too?

GK: No, I don't think so. I think when the war started, that's... I kind of think that they, just recently, this book that came out, Adam Schraeger, who wrote that book?

[Interruption]

GK: Yes, he wrote this book and he's having a book signing this Friday. And we had bought one when it first came out, and we bought one in Boulder, and we read bits and pieces of it, and it's just amazing. He wrote a book about the governor, Governor Carr, and it was amazing to Frank and I, I think, to realize how many people did not like the Japanese. It was like, really, you know, they just were very vocal about it. And I think it was good that we didn't realize it, because I just remember my life was affected. When the war started, I was only eleven, and I was in the sixth grade, and of course, we couldn't believe that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor, and there was a lot of sadness. And being Japanese, you're an American, so you're loyal to the Americans, but you're Japanese. And I remember when war started, they said they would come out, but we had to get rid of some of our, we didn't have any shortwave radio, or we didn't have a good camera and a shotgun or any of that, but I do remember my mother having a little fire in the yard, and she was burning the emperor's picture and just some of the items that we didn't feel like we could keep, in order to show our loyalty to America. And when I think back on that, it's kind of sad.

But I would hear little comments about Japanese, and I just remember that one remark that one of my classmates made in the sixth grade when Frank's second cousins, five of 'em, were killed in a train car accident. And it was in cold February, and they were riding, all riding, the father had picked up the four children at school and they were on their way home. And I think they were all in the cab and one side of the window was cardboard or whatever, and the other side was window, but it had fogged up because it was so cold, and didn't hear the train whistle, and they were all killed. And next day, when I went to school, one of my classmates said, "Well, that got rid of five more Japs," and that just really affected me, I think. And after that, I just never really felt like I was as good as I thought I could have been, I think. I always felt like I could never be anybody. But that's, when I think back, that shouldn't have kept me, because my brothers were active, they became, my brother was, my oldest brother was on the school board at the school, and my second brother was a marshal in the parade. I mean, they've done so much for the community. So, but at that time, it really did affect me. And I think about that, and when we had our thirtieth class reunion, that was the first time... we went through high school, this fellow and I, we went through high school and I never really felt very close to him, and I didn't see him after our class graduated. And our first class reunion was thirty years after, and when I saw him, the it just brought back a lot of memories again. And he's no longer around, but I think how that affected me.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.