<Begin Segment 7>

RP: Where did you, where did the family move to next?

TM: Oh, after that we went to Japan in 1930. And we came back and my father had a house built in Costa Mesa.

RP: Built?

TM: Yeah. They built... he had his friend -- some of 'em were carpenters, old time -- so he built this home in Costa Mesa, three-bedroom home. Yeah. He wanted to try farming. Yeah, I guess he got tired of fishing. [Laughs]

RP: Where did he find the money to build a house?

TM: Oh, it didn't cost too much, couple hundred dollars. Yeah. This is 1929, 1930, yeah.

RP: And so he tried his hand at farming. Was it mostly truck farming or...

TM: Yeah, truck farming. You know, the tomatoes and stuff, what you call truck farming.

RP: And he leased land because he was --

TM: Yeah right.

RP: -- he was not capable of becoming a naturalized citizen.

TM: Right.

RP: Uh-huh. What do you remember about that part of your life, growing up on a farm?

TM: Oh, very busy. Yeah, I had to, I was eight years old, ten years old. I used to help him cultivate the field and things like that, yeah. It was work for me. [Laughs]

RP: Were you using any tractors or were you using horses?

TM: Oh, no, no. Just the horse, horse and hand equipment.

RP: What, were there specific crops that he would grow at certain times of the year?

TM: Yeah, tomato and strawberry, peas, beans, and things like that.

RP: You said he, he was trying his hand at farming. How successful was he?

TM: Just made a living.

RP: Scraped by?

TM: I don't know. My father never... I guess money didn't mean too much to him. He just made a living out of everything he did, yeah.

RP: Like you said, you never seemed like you were in want of anything?

TM: No.

RP: You always had --

TM: Yeah.

RP: -- enough to survive.

TM: Yeah.

RP: Uh-huh. Were you living in an area where there were other Japanese farmers around you?

TM: Oh, yeah.

RP: Mostly a farming community?

TM: There were quite a few Japanese at that time living in Costa Mesa. Yeah.

RP: So you had kids to play with there?

TM: Oh, yeah.

RP: And without the smell of the fish.

TM: Yeah, right. [Laughs]

RP: Was that a happy time for you on the farm?

TM: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright (c) 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.