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KP: So did you ever have any contact with your Japanese neighbors? I mean, any friends or...

MJ: Yeah, yeah. I knew 'em after I was in high school. I used to go out and check the wells and stuff. And Tommy Miyanaga, he was a, just a real likeable guy and that's probably the grandson of the, of the Miyanagas that were there during the war. I can always remember he always was fun to be around because he had a Harley-Davidson, and he would irrigate with it. And he would start water and he'd want to down to the other end, he'd get on his Harley and he'd go down about six rows where it was dry and he'd just charge down there in those furrows and it always got me. How in the world do you keep... never fell off. So that's how he irrigated, back, he'd go back and check it and then he'd go back the other way on his Harley. [Laughs] And then Hibino, he actually was at my mother's funeral. He was a big part of our ranch after my dad died because he, he leased the ground from her. And, like I say, that was the same Hibino that my dad helped, Frank Hibino. Let's see, was there anymore? No, I think that was the two that I really knew that, that were right close by. But Hibino Farms became a huge corporation.

KP: Primarily, what would they grow?

MJ: All agricultural.

KP: What, what kind of crops?

MJ: Oh, well, when, after he took over our ranch he started doing a lot of strawberries up in the Watsonville area. So he did a lot of, got into a lot of strawberry stuff. But I don't think he ever grew strawberries on ours. He grew lettuce, celery, and sugar beets. I don't think he ever did strawberries, grew any strawberries there.

KP: You mentioned that your father... do you know that he got advice from the Japanese on how to farm, what to farm, or... what kind of, what kind of support did they... do you have any idea?

MJ: No. I think most of the, I think he just got basic things from them. I don't think he had a clue on, on really how to go about this. You know, other than he was a great reader so I'm sure he read a lot of books on farming. But, I think they helped him a lot. I think they told him how to, how to set the rows and what to plant and what to look out for and I think any time he had a question he probably went right there to Hibino and asked him, "How do you do this?" Because they'd been farming there a long time before my dad bought that ranch. And I don't know who farmed it before my dad bought it when it belonged to Mr. Carr. In fact, I don't even know if it was farmed. Probably the back part probably wasn't. It was probably, that's where the sand and the tulles were, where they kept washing them out. So he probably cleared that. Like I say, there was a canal through it so I can remember one time we went out there to, to get him to go to a movie. We were gonna go to a movie and all of us kids were, were the three kids and my mother. And we got out there and here the tractor was stuck down in the canal straight in. And he had another farmer there with another tractor and he said, "Well, I fell asleep." And he went right across the little road and into the canal. Well, he says, "It won't take us long. We'll get it out and we'll still go to the movies." So meanwhile we're playing around and there's a little irrigation ditch. It's only about three feet wide. Well my brother, he's jumping across and my sister, they're jumping across. Well, you can guess who didn't make it. I landed in the canal. And now I'm soaking wet and my Dad, my mother had brought clothes for him. So the whole thing got scrapped and we went home. And my sister and brother weren't very happy with me, I can remember that. [Laughs] And it was, that ground was adobe, most of it. And it just stuck to you. Your feet would get that big around. You just, you know. It was horrible. But you never wore out any equipment. The tracks on our, on his tractors were the original tracks. He never wore 'em out. The stuff was just like goin' through silk. You know, it was just smooth. No, no gravel in it whatsoever. After he retired we took the, the tractors up to the ranch in San Benancio and we wore 'em out a lot more up there than we ever did down in Carr Flat. So it was interesting soil, very good soil. Peat soil and adobe.

KP: And refertilized and replenished on demand.

MJ: Yeah, right. He had to fertilize too. He had, I remember, those old cylinders laying around. He'd put fertilizer into the water as he irrigated. So, you know, this was a risky business. He had, some years he did well and some years he didn't do so well. So, but he did fine. He was able to buy that ranch in San Benancio, just a piece at a time. He just kept adding to it. So I think he was pretty smart when it came to, to business. He knew how to, how to get it done. He just didn't live long enough. He had a heart attack in '55 and when he was fifty, when he was fifty... no sixty-two. I had a heart attack when I was fifty-seven and had bypass surgery. If they had had bypass surgery back then he'd have lived a lot longer. So, it's hereditary. My mother had a heart attack also. But, so I'm doing fine. But, if it wasn't for modern medicine I wouldn't even be here probably. [Laughs] That goes for a lot of us I'm sure.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.