<Begin Segment 17>

RP: Now, your father was eventually able to lease some of his own land on this farm.

YW: Yes, uh-huh.

RP: And he continued to grow strictly truck vegetables or...

YW: Yes. Onions. Onions became the staple in Rocky Ford. They had mostly onions and the melons and tomatoes, cucumbers.

RP: And, did you, did you take any or were you asked to take responsibility for farm chores or as you grew up on that, on the farm there?

YW: When I was small, I didn't do too much except watch my brother. I kind of had to babysit him. But we'd still be out on the farm. But I didn't have to... I don't remember having to weed and... oh, we had to top onions. I remember we went as a family and we topped onions. Do you know how they do that?

RP: Tell me how they do that.

YW: They, they'd pull the onion out of the ground and they'd let it, leave it until the top's kind of dry. And then once the tops get relatively dry then we'd have these shears and we'd just top 'em and then put 'em in crates. And then they'd let it sit in the crates for a few days 'til they dry a little bit more and then they put 'em in gunny sacks. And then they'd put 'em in the truck and bring 'em to the, the shed and then they would sort them. And then bag 'em for sale. But I remember my mother getting sick from the smell of the onion. 'Cause we'd have to sit there and, and chop the onion and she'd, she'd get real sick. And it really is strong smell. But, I don't remember having to weed while I was in Rocky Ford, but I had to, as I got older in Las Animas.

RP: Las Animas. That sounds like the, the bane of the, of the kids who worked, was the weeding.

YW: Oh, I know.

RP: Try anything to escape the weeds.

YW: There was never an end to it because once you finished the field then it'd start to, it's time to start over again, the beginning of the field. So there was just never an end.

RP: Even during the wintertime, was there some --

YW: Oh, in the wintertime we didn't farm. We went to school.

RP: So you, did you graduate grammar school in Rocky Ford?

YW: Let's see, I was... I finished junior high. I finished eighth grade, so, we moved to Los Animas when I was in ninth grade.

RP: And what was the, the motivation for moving to Las Animas?

YW: Well, my father and another family that, that moved to California together, went back to see if there was anything left in California that we would want to go back to. So they went back to the farm and my father couldn't find his house and he couldn't find his packing shed and he couldn't find his Caucasian friend. They were all gone. Everything was gone. So he couldn't find his friend so then he decided that there's nothing to go back to so that's when he came back to California, I mean, Colorado and decided to buy some more land. And he found some land he could buy in Las Animas. So that's what took us to Las Animas. Then he later learned that the Caucasian friend had died but he had sold his property before he died. So, he was never able to follow up on what happened to the money --

RP: There was no follow up to do that on his part.

YW: Right.

RP: He just, he just took that action and sold it without...

YW: Right, well, there was nothing legal to start with because that property was --

RP: Right, you just had a verbal agreement.

YW: Right. Even if he paid for it, he got nothing in return.

RP: So your father harbored hopes that the, that he would be able to go back and then when he did go back and realized what had happened...

YW: Right.

RP: ...that, that book was shut.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.