<Begin Segment 6>

KP: So do you remember the end of World War II, VJ Day?

MJ: When it ended?

KP: Yeah, I mean, do you have any memories of that? You were still pretty young.

MJ: Not really. Probably would have if I had lived in Salinas with everybody celebrating. But we lived out there in the country and it, it just wasn't that much celebrating. No, I don't really remember it.

KP: Do you remember the, the Japanese farmers coming back?

MJ: Uh-uh. No. I doubt very much that I even remembered too much, you know, I knew too much about it at that time. I've heard about it later, what, what had happened. And I've had lots of people come up to me when I was in Salinas tellin' me, "Oh, your dad was so nice to the Japanese farmers." And, and he was very well-respected.

KP: People from all walks of life?

MJ: All walks of life, yeah, knew my dad. There was one thing he used to do during the war. In fact, I think even after the war. Is when... he didn't, one thing he didn't like about farming is you were always wishing bad luck on somebody else. You wished bad luck on somebody back east that their crops wouldn't grow, it would turn hot or something, so that you would get a good market for lettuce in, in Salinas. He didn't like that part of it. So when it got to the point where he couldn't sell the lettuce, there was no market for it, he would load this big trailer he had, flatbed trailer, and he'd load it, have the helpers load it with lettuce. And then on the way home he went down through Chinatown -- I don't, there was no Japanese town that I know of. There was a Chinatown, it was called. -- and he'd park that thing there and unhook it and go home. And when he'd come back in the morning he'd hook it up, it would be empty and he'd take it back. Well, he kind of did it on the sly because the other farmers didn't like that because that was, that wasn't helping the market at all. But he hated to disk it under, you know. So he would do as much as he could. He'd take anything he grew and put it out. He also grew some, some corn and stuff on the side by the house. But that's one thing I can remember. In fact I remember ridin' with him when he did that. He'd just unhook that big trailer and he'd just leave it there. And it would be empty in the morning. [Laughs]

KP: So do...

MJ: He always was, my, my wife asked my mother one time if you had to explain my, to say what my dad was with one word what would you say? She said, "Gentleman." He was always a gentleman. So he would open doors for ladies, and I remember when I was a little kid, he'd be holding my hand, we'd be walking down the street and all of a sudden he'd go off to the side and he'd open the door for a lady to, to walk in. So... I think she hit it pretty close.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.