<Begin Segment 18>

YW: So I think it was back in '47 when he went back.

RP: It was '47 when he went back?

YW: 'Cause I was twelve years old. Yeah, so I was...

RP: Did you go back with him or was it just...

YW: Uh-huh. He took me and my little brother and then Mrs. Konishi went with us. Yeah, I can't remember who... no, Henry stayed home. Henry is the oldest son to Mrs. Konishi. He stayed home and took care of my two sisters that stayed. So my oldest brother drove us back to California to see if there was anything left.

RP: And do you know who owned, who this Caucasian gentleman had sold the land to?

YW: I, I never did know the name and I asked my sisters the other day and they had never heard the name either. So I guess our parents never talked about it.

RP: But everything had been removed.

YW: Everything gone. Everything was gone, the house, the packing shed, and the people were, were gone. I don't know whether he had family or, or what. It's be interesting to find out what the name, what his name was. I don't know how we'd ever find out.

RP: Do you remember your father's reaction when he saw the farm sort of completely, you know, gone? All that work and effort that he'd put into to establish a successful farming operation?

YW: I don't remember. He didn't break down and cry or anything like that.

RP: But he was Issei and part, part of being Issei was stoic and...

YW: Yeah.

RP: So, he, he didn't show outwardly any emotions.

YW: Uh-uh.

RP: But, you could, could you sense that he... did, later on, he share with you any thoughts or feelings or anything?

YW: No. I guess it's, that's the way it is.

RP: Life in California's over and you've gotta find a, create another one in Colorado. So Las Animas was the place. And, and he purchased, what, about a hundred acres?

YW: He had a hundred acres. Uh-huh.

RP: And what was his intentions to develop on that land?

YW: More truck crops, onions, tomatoes, watermelon, and he had a roadside stand. So he would always... I, I got to work in the roadside stand so he'd always say, "Okay, who made most money today? Did I make more money selling to the truckers or did you sell more at the stand?" And of course he'd make a lot more money than I did. And sometimes we'd have to wake up in the middle of the night to have help load a truck of, truckload of cantaloupes. We would pick 'em and he would have the truck all loaded in the yard and the, but the trucker somehow wouldn't be able to come until the middle of the night or something so my dad would wake us up and we'd put on our jeans and get out and get on the truck and help the trucker transfer the cantaloupes from our truck to his truck. And then he would, the trucker would give all of us a silver dollar for a reward. So then we'd go back to bed.

RP: That happened once in a while?

YW: Yeah. I just remember that one time that we had to get up. Usually it's in the daytime. But that one time, I remember, we had to get up.

RP: Life on the farm.

YW: Yeah.

RP: Uh-huh. Yoshimi, I think we'll, we'll stop here for today and, and pick it up next time we show up, but thank you, that's great.

YW: That's about all of my story.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.