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So eventually your, your father ended up in the Cortez area farming? Now, did he buy land in that area or did he lease?

SY: With the aid of... what's his name? I can't remember his name. But there was, there was a 80 acre field in Cortez that was divided into four equal parts of 20 acres. So Asai brothers, Asai, Kiyoshi Asai, had the, had one. The... man, my memory's gettin' terrible. Hirose family had another one. Nakagawa had another one, and we were the last one on the, on the south, southwest corner. Yeah.

RP: Uh-huh. And you told me the other day there was a Nisei gentleman that would sell his name to, to families who couldn't purchase land. They'd put it in this gentleman's name.

SY: Oh, I know what you're talkin' about.

RP: Do you recall that?

SY: Is it all right to mention names? Or...

RP: Uh-huh.

SY: Okay. Mr. and Mrs. Shimizu was a very, very humble and very personable persons, both husband and wife was real, real nice. And they had daughters, Mari and Teruko. Which is... they, they both live in L.A., but the father and mother is gone. Now, the wife, Mrs. Shimizu, was our Japanese school teacher at that time. And I was probably about seven at that time. And when... in order to purchase that piece of property, Mr. Morimoto loaned his name to Mr. Shimizu, Mr. Shimizu so that -- he was at legal age, over eighteen, so he can do this -- and signed the name so that they could buy that piece of property. However, after many years, after all the crops were in, peaches were in... and it was a nice piece of property. One of the, one of the best prime properties at that, at that locality. And it was right across the street from the, where the complex where the, where the grammar school, I mean, from the, from the Japanese school and all of the other things that was for community. And it was consisting somewhere around 7 or 11 acres. And it was right across the street from that, and Albert one time wanted to become married or so, and asked Mr. and Mrs. Shimizu to depart. He said, "This is my piece of property. It's in my name." And chased those people out of that property, you know. So, and in the meantime, what are they to do but to depart, and they went Los Angeles.

RP: Really? That's an incredible story.

SY: Without, without paying one penny for that piece of property. Isn't that terrible? Isn't that terrible? Yeah. I mentioned that to, to a person that I had lived with in, in Cortez. But then, it's his son that I was talking to just recently about this incident. He says, "No." He says he never knew that that was the cause of their leaving. Yeah.

RP: Huh. What did your father farm on the acreage at Cortez?

SY: Mainly, mainly grapes, like Thompson seedless, Malaga, which is a, it's supposed to be a table grape. And also lots of strawberries, eggplants, green peppers, and lots of carrots also. So, you have so many acres open so you make it into a truck farm and Mother really worked hard in order to make it successful. Yeah.

RP: And I suppose you were helping out on the farm at an early age, too.

SY: Well, I was still a youngster then. So, you know, I was a real brat then. I'm telling you.

RP: [Laughs] Why did you... what kind of trouble did you used to get into? I know you got into something.

SY: Never went to school, Japanese school. Lot of times I'd skip school and then I'd, instead of going to school I'd go climb the trees, pick their crops and eat it, you know. So, I was, I was pretty brat at that time, yeah. Friend of mine and I, we were on, on a piece of property where the school is, adjoined not north, north of where Mr. Shimizu was. We're up in the trees and yelling, "Ho Hi" you know, raising all kind of cain. And my friend fell out of that tree and broke his arm at that time. But at that year, he was supposed to go to Japan because he was a pretty good kendo student and they were supposed to go to Japan to represent the area.

RP: Really?

SY: But never got to go because of his broken arm.

RP: No kidding. That's bad timing. So how about you and your brothers? You must have got into some mischief or... with, with your brothers huh?

SY: My... not my brother Min, nor Sam. But Ben, I fought with him daily. I chased that guy all over. Since I'm so young, it's five years' different, he could out run me and tease me all the time. I was so angry. I was a nervous wreck when I was a youngster. [Laughs] Fighting all the time... my goodness. [Laughs]

RP: Uh-huh.

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