Densho Digital Archive - Ayako Nishi Fujimoto - Kyoko Nishi Tanaka - Nancy Nishi Interview (denshovh-fayako

<Begin Segment 27>

RP: How long did your father remain in the nursery business?

AF: All his life, huh?

RP: He retired?

NN: Well, until, let's see, we sold it in '79, '80, '81, something like that.

AF: I don't remember that.

RP: And to what extent did it grow during the years that, the time you came back to when he retired?

NN: That was, what, a four acre, four and a half acre?

RP: Oh, and then he built all those greenhouses.

KT: And then he had, I guess he rented the greenhouse in...

NN: Manhattan Beach.

KT: Manhattan Beach, and also in Oxnard. Remember Mr. Nakashima?

AF: Oh, yeah, yeah.

RP: Did he, did he shift in terms of what he grew? Was he growing, still growing gardenias?

KT: No.

AF: It was celery, he changed to celery.

KT: And then later on, I guess when all the farmers came back and had their farms, he grew celery plants to sell to the farmers.

RP: And so he eventually sold his business?

NN: Yes. But...

AF: No sons. [Laughs] Four daughters.

NN: He lived to be ninety-seven, and he was still driving in his late '80s. And we were quite concerned because his eyesight was failing. But he would travel to California City where he had a property all by himself.

RP: California City?

NN: That's quite a distance for...

AF: Oh, yeah.

KT: I think he bought that sight unseen. I remember someone came around, it was a Japanese man that came, and he was selling property in California City. And I remember Grandpa bought forty acres, ten acres for each girl, each daughter. That's what he told me.

AF: Oh, he told you that? He probably meant it.

KT: He used to say, I remember him telling me, he said he bought this property, forty acres in California City, and he hoped that something big would come out of it.

AF: Whatever happened to it?

NN: Oh, he's still hoping. [Laughs]

RP: Yeah, there is a little bit of a community out there, but not too much.

AF: No, it's slow grow.

RP: There's a prison, I think there's a prison.

NN: There is, yeah.

RP: Do you still have the land?

KT: What did we do?

NN: No, we have it?

KT: Oh, we still have it?

RP: It might be worth something.

AF: We ought to go down there and see.

KT: I thought we sold that.

AF: [Addressing someone off camera] Did you know we had the land in California City, the girls? The Nishi land in California City.

Off camera voice: What about it?

AF: Do we still have it?

Off camera voice: Yes.

AF: Oh, we do. Oh, he knows more about it.

KT: I haven't been paying taxes or anything on it, or maybe I have.

NN: Yes, we have.

Off camera voice: I think you should do something with it.

KT: Is it worth anything now? More than what...

Off camera voice: Because it costs you tax every year.

RP: Did your, did your father ever become an American citizen when he had an opportunity to in 1952?

AF: No, he never did. He just never learned English. He was so busy working all the time, I think. I think that was probably it. And he had his own family and own community and own business, so he just never got around to it, I don't think.

NN: But I think this was home for him, because he had no more relatives in Japan. Well, he thought he didn't have any more close relatives, his parents. And so I often asked, "Why didn't you go back to Japan to visit, to tour?" And he says, "I wouldn't recognize anything. Everything's changed." Because he's been gone how many years. He says this is home.