Densho Digital Archive - Henry Fukuhara Interview (denshovh-fhenry-01-0014)

<Begin Segment 14>

HF: When I was in, we went to Shelley, Idaho, and then I excused myself from Shelley, Idaho, and I went up to Ogden, Utah, to visit a friend of mine because they were farming up there. So I thought, well, go up there and visit them and see what was in that area, and there was nothing that appealed to me in that area either. So then after being in Denver for a few days, I went on to Chicago, and in Chicago, Togo Tanaka was there that I just mentioned about, one that was taken out of camp, he had settled in Chicago, so I went to Chicago and stayed at the Wabash Y. And the first thing I experienced was that no sooner you stepped out of your hotel, your collar was black, and I said, "Boy, I don't think I want to live here." But there was a War Relocation Authority office there that had places for you to go and investigate if you so chose. So I went here and there in the Chicago area, but nothing appealed to me.

So from there, then I got on a train and went on to New York. And then New York, I stayed at the Sloan House, that's a men's hotel, and it's a Y rather, and the War Relocation Authority office was in the Empire State Building. So I went there immediately and to see what was available there, and I went all over -- when I say all over is I went looking all nearby in New Jersey and I went as far as Philadelphia, and then I went out on Long Island, and then I found a place on Long Island that had possibilities. So I returned to New York -- I mean, returned to Manzanar and told them that I had located a place and if they wanted to move there, relocate there. So the family decided that's what we will do.

So, we moved to Long Island in Farmingdale, Long Island, and so the government paid our -- paid our way to Farmingdale. And then it was a greenhouse operation there, and it was a place that had been going bankrupt, and the owner was the deputy health commissioner of New York City, and his family owned that property, and so it seemed like a good opportunity so we went there and we started to fix the place up and work there, and I was to be the manager there. And in the meantime, we couldn't get any labor, so it was the same situation as when we were in camp with the farmers in Utah. So I told Dr. Caldron that I think I could get some help from the relocation, the internment camp in Arkansas. So he said to go and try, so I went there and I managed to bring back three families to come to Farmingdale from Arkansas, and these families that came -- one lived in Pasadena before the war, and the other lived in Downey, the other two lived in Downey before the war. So they came to Farmingdale, and there was a house for them to live in. It wasn't a very nice place but it was a place to live, and so, so we managed to get the place in order to plant.

But in the meantime, my father was always self-employed all his life ever since he was -- ever since he started farming in Fruitland, he has always been self-employed, so he didn't like the situation of being employed. And then, and then the situation that was -- I shouldn't say promised -- but was to work out, but it didn't, it didn't look like it was going to materialize. So since I was in charge there, I was in contact with all the salespeople that came in, and one of the salesmen that came in did horticultural real estate on the side. So I told him our predicament, and so he would come on a day off and take us around. He would take us over to Brooklyn, New York, and then take us over on parts of Long Island. And finally there was a place 8 miles away from Farmingdale, a place called Deer Park, and a widow had been running this place and she was hoping that her son would take over, but the son wasn't interested so she had the place up for sale. So we were able to buy the place, and she gave us the opportunity to, to continue that, her business. And that's how we happened to end up in Deer Park, and we were there for over forty years. We started growing carnations as we had -- that's the only thing that we knew how to grow because we learned how to grow carnations when we were in Farmingdale, but it wasn't a very good crop to grow, so we started growing chrysanthemums and we stayed with chrysanthemums to the day that I retired and my both brothers retired. So we raised our family in Deer Park, raised the family, went to school, and went to college from Deer Park, and so... and my brothers were all in the service when we went to, when we moved to Deer Park, except my youngest brother, he was still going to high school. But I had three brothers that was in the service, and when they came back to Deer Park, two of them stayed in Deer Park and the one decided to go back to Santa Monica. And so he had his family in Minnesota because he was, he studied for the intelligence, but he didn't go over, he didn't go overseas, by that time it was all over, so he came home. But he decided that he was going to go back to Santa Monica, so he went back to Santa Monica.

JA: When did you go back to Santa Monica?

HF: I came back, we came back from Deer Park to Santa Monica in 1987. So it's like fifteen years now since we've been back, but it doesn't seem that long to me.