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RP: Tell us a little bit about your father, first of all. His name?

FH: My dad's name was Yajuro Nemoto.

RP: Can you spell his first name?

FH: Y-A-J-U-R-O.

RP: And do you recall where he came from in Japan?

FH: Fukushima. They call it ken or state or whatever. The state is called ken and it's Fukushima. And he came to America because his dad came to America earlier. And he came to the land where they pick money off the trees so to speak, but when he got here he had to work, and he'd work whatever was available. Like I think a lot of them did some railroad work. Some did seasonal travel from one city to the other to follow the, the agricultural season, and that's what he did. And his family didn't know where he was 'cause he wasn't writing. He should be coming home with all this money, but he didn't come home, so they couldn't find him. So they sent Dad to come to America to find where this guy was. And he was working. He had... trying to pick that money, so that's how he ended up coming to America. Then he went back because my grandfather didn't want to go back, and he went back and brought a bride and they lived here. So that was back in 1922 or something.

RP: That's when your father came back with his, with his wife?

FH: Uh-huh.

RP: Do you have a rough idea of when his father came to America?

FH: No, I have not. He said he was a young lad, so... let's see, if he... 1920, he was born nineteen, 1898. He must've been a teenager.

RP: So did your grandfather ever return back to Japan?

FH: He did, in a box. He passed away quite young considering how we live. I think he was, like, sixty-five, sixty-six, something like that. Because, you know, we all live longer now. Most of us. And he passed on in '30, I think it was '36 when he passed on, so that's quite a ways back.

RP: So he left a family back in Japan and he never saw them again?

FH: They, I think they took his ashes and took it back to Japan. They have the family plot in Japan where they keep putting relatives in the family plot. He's back there, I'm sure.

RP: Was your father the oldest of the, of the siblings in the family?

FH: I think he had a older brother, but I'm not sure. I think he had a older brother.

RP: Your mother's name?

FH: Was R-U-I, Rui.

RP: R-U-I, Rui. And her name...

FH: Her last name was Nemoto, too.

RP: So they married in Japan and came here, and where did they settle when they got here?

FH: I think they were up in the San Francisco area, and they worked themselves down because there was a hotel in Los Angeles where majority of the seasonal workers would come back when there was a lull. And so they came back and then they found job working with the flower industry. They'd been in the, they had been in the flower industry a long time.

RP: Both of your parents?

FH: Uh-huh. They worked for a family named Muto, or in, they were big time growers in -- actually, Mr. Muto was, was a pioneer of the flower market in L.A.

RP: Was his first name Tak, or Tak?

FH: Tak, no. That's his son. And he was here. He lived here in Encinitas, too.

RP: Tak Muto?

FH: Tak was the youngest of four sons. He had a brother named Sam, George and Fred.

RP: Well, they went to Manzanar, too.

FH: They were all in Manzanar, yeah.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.