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

YW: Seiichi, S-E-I-I-C-H-I.

RP: Where did he come from in Japan?

YW: He came from Fukui, Japan, and Fukui is on the west coast of Japan overlooking the Japan Sea side of Japan, and it's about, if you draw a line from Tokyo due west, where it intersects the western coast is about where Fukui-ken is. And in fact, today it's become famous because Obama City is nearby, so he also used to mention Obama City as one of the ways, I guess, they used to get in and out of that area, so there must've been a train route or something. But he came from there and all he can remember about that area is it was very cold in the wintertime because they got the Siberian winds, and in the summertime it was very hot, humid. He says Arkansas kind of reminded him of the humid part, but Arkansas wasn't as cold as he remembers it in Japan. When he got to Southern California he thought he hit heaven, 'cause the weather is perfect. He says, "I'm not going, I'm not ever going back." And true to his word, the only time he went back was to visit his parents.

RP: And your (grandfather) had an interesting profession. I guess his father had a profession where you were dealing with crafting agates?

YW: Yes. My grandfather was, I don't know how far into the history of our family this goes, but at least he was involved in crafting agates, and my dad says his job as a student, as a young child, was to cut big pieces of agate into smaller pieces and then they would sell off the smaller pieces to other craftsmen. Now, the problem with all that is that's kind of a very narrow kind of way to make business. And he says that's kind of why he left Japan, because he couldn't make any money. At the time, when he, my grandfather left Japan, he said the economy was so bad you couldn't sell things like that to anybody anymore. It was, it was very slow, and he was looking at his bank account and he said, "I could count the days when the money was gonna run out." So he decided to take a chance and come over to the U.S. So he came in the early 1900s, and I can't remember quite when, maybe 1915 or so, and then he and my father were communicating by letter and he says, "By the way, if you're interested in coming over here you might consider doing it pretty soon because they're talking about closing immigration to the Japanese," which finally occurred in 1922, I guess. But not knowing when it was gonna happen, I guess my dad jumped ship and left Japan in his junior year in high school, I believe, so he cut off high school to get over here and he basically stayed here the rest of his life except for the few times that he went back to visit his parents.

RP: Now, your father's father got sort of a foothold in the flower growing industry.

YW: Oh, I don't know how they were able to arrange this kind of occupation, but my grandfather was able to get hired by some Japanese florists up in the Montebello area -- that was an open area in those days -- and I guess somehow he was able to get a job there. And then when his son came, he also was able to be hired there and they worked in the flower farming business for a while. And somewhere along the way my grandfather went home because he still had, left behind a wife, two daughters and a younger son, and my father was the oldest of them all, so, and here he was over here. Now, the plan was, I guess, Grandpa could go home, try to take care of the home front, and my dad was working here and sending money home. And that was typical of many Japanese families, try to get a foothold in the economy that way.

RP: Did your father have, have any plans to return to Japan?

YW: Not to my knowledge, because after he was working in Montebello, for whatever reason he changed jobs and signed on with a fellow named Mr. Satow over here in Hawthorne. And Mr. Satow had about a thirty-five acre carnation enterprise going on on El Segundo Boulevard and Kornbloom over here in Hawthorne. Today, that property of his was taken over by the school board and they bought it by eminent domain, so now it's a schoolyard. But he had a big organization going there. He had many sons, one daughter, and he was able to afford the labor 'cause he didn't have to pay his sons, I guess. [Laughs] But it was about thirty-five acres of carnations under glass. You know, it's quite an expensive enterprise he had going.

RP: You said that he had about ten greenhouses?

YW: Yeah, at least, as I remembered it. And these were glass greenhouses, right? Very expensive. But he didn't have to keep rebuilding it. A cheesecloth greenhouse every year, which is cheaper, but it's a lot of work to rebuild it every year, but cheesecloth doesn't last very long, but that's what my dad eventually ended up doing when he left Mr. Satow's farm and started on his own in about 1938, '39 time period. And he leased five acres of land from the Johnson Ranch people and his property, if you would look at it today, it would be just underneath the Western Golf Course, directly across from, if you looked across from Western to Crenshaw you'll see the Grumman Aircraft Company there, right, (east) of Grumman, and so he was up on the slopes and that's where he farmed his carnations. And he had about five acres, but he had about two acres under cultivation. The rest of it was being rotated. So typically, of the two acres, one was in flowers, other was being planted, so you just keep rotating around.

RP: Yo, what do you remember most about your dad?

YW: Hard working. Very honest and hard working individual. I remember one time my mother took him to a movie, said, "Let's go see a movie." He said, "What's a movie?" You know, this, here's a country kid who never went anywhere, worked, worked, worked. And he says he was appalled to see the pictures talking. It was a brand new experience for him. And my mother, on the other hand, knew a little bit more about the world than he did, I guess, and that was kind of a shock for my father, when he first saw a moving picture. I remember my mom telling me about that, says, "Hey, when a guy has his nose in the grindstone all the time and doesn't go anywhere, he doesn't know what's goin' on out there. All he knows is farming." And he had an obligation to send money home, so he was workin' hard.

RP: Was he a small man, physically?

YW: About five feet three, maybe, five feet four. [To wife] How tall was he? Five-one? about five-one, five-two, something like that. I was the tallest of the group. I'm not much taller than five-six, so very small family.

RP: Was he a quiet man or an, he had an outgoing personality?

YW: Outgoing, yes. But depends on who you are.

RP: How about with the kids? Did you have a pretty strict upbringing as...

YW: Japanese upbringing. Obey your parents, behave, don't bring disgrace upon your family name, study hard, work hard, be straight with your friends. Standard, standard growing pattern, right? Yeah. And on top of that they sent us to language school after regular school, so you get some of (those) ideas hammered into your head.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.