Densho Digital Archive - Ted Hamachi Interview (denshovh-hted-01-0016)

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RP: Do you remember the day you left Heart Mountain?

TH: Yeah.

RP: What was that like?

TH: Like you're liberated. You walk out of San Quentin or something like that, you got out of prison. I never experienced walking out of San Quentin but I feel that it's sort of the same, the prisoner would feel the same.

RP: Where did you come back to? Did you first go out yourself?

TH: Uh-huh.

RP: Where did you go?

TH: I went to the Evergreen (Hostel) on Euclid Street in LA and I think I stayed one or two nights there. Then this friend that lives on 35th Street, or 35th Place, came and picked me up. I helped him doing gardening work, he came out earlier and he was sort of established himself as a gardener and so at that time he had a push mower. He was cutting people's lawns and stuff. I tagged along and helped. One day he brought me to the Kranz family, and I came back and it was like, "Oh, hi, haven't seen you in a long time." It was good greetings, there was no ill feelings at all. And so I talked to the farm tenant that was farming, and I think from then I stayed at, I don't remember exactly but I think I brought my clothes and I knew where I could stay above in the loft. So when you got out of camp, you had nothing, no baggies, no nothing outside of maybe one suitcase. Everything you own is in that suitcase. I got a job right away so I was able to write a letter to my mother and I used the Japanese alphabet and I was able to converse, write a communicative letter.

RP: And you were able to encourage them to come out?

TH: Uh-huh, yeah.

RP: Did they come back to the property as well?

TH: Yeah, from I think the railroad station in Los Angeles, they got some kind of a ride over to West Covina. I don't know how they came but I didn't go after them I don't think.

RP: You eventually were farming there?

TH: We started farming again.

RP: Did you ever own that land?

TH: No. But in 1951 I made enough money to buy a ten acre piece of ground right by there. I asked my mother, "What do you think?" and she went back a few years and said something like, "After World War I, there was an economic boom, and there will be probably be the same after World War II, history repeating itself." So she says, "Let's hang on to the money." I said okay, it didn't matter, we had a partnership because we farmed together. My dad was around but he was unable physically do any farm work or anything because his legs, he had a balance disorder, and that balance disorder, all in my family, all the siblings have it except me. It's something that came from Japan, a genetic thing, that it affects your legs and here my kid brother is fourteen years younger than I was, he used run four miles after work every day because he got divorced and he had to release some energy. He ran four miles every day. There's a place called Miles Square in Orange County, he ran a mile each tangent and so today he's, he was a bicycle enthusiast, he's fourteen years younger now and he rides a tricycle, the three wheel bike. He tilts when he walks, gets out of his pickup, he has a styrofoam hat so he won't fall and hurt his head.

RP: You farmed for a while, then you shifted careers, kept your hands in the dirt but --

TH: It so happened that, I was sort of fortunate that I continued to take off where my dad left off. He was something like fifty-five, no when we came back in '45, he was like fifty-seven years old. He didn't have the energy to lease the ground, so I took his place and my mother was still about in her mid-forties. So it was a mother and son effort and when I didn't wake up in the morning, she was out in the field working already. If I played all night, I couldn't get up in the morning. Later on, the partnership made money because she looked after the field and the orchard and I took care of the business so it came out good. We used "wetback" labor, illegal immigrants, later on we needed help so we expanded the field gradually. So when 1951 came around we were farming enough acreage that we were able to save. I had friends that also made money but they were like a four way partnership, so what they got was one-fourth, where the amount of money that my mother and I made was still in one pool.

RP: Where you also growing cantaloupes at that time still?

TH: Yeah, in the summer we made more money on cole crops, cauliflower, and this area is known to grow hard heads of cauliflower. We used to ship it from here to Modesto. We had an organization called the Snowball Cauliflower Growers Association, and I happened to be the youngest grower. This Hurst ranch I was telling you about, he was the president of this Cauliflower Growers Association, in 1974 he asked me to join his group of elite friends that he went to USC, college with and people that were like bankers or CPAs, I joined his group. I was there for a purpose and that was to grow vegetables in his plot of ground that's left over there. And for thirty six years I'm still there. It's a continuation from the invitation. I had accumulated some equipment to continue... I wanted to try growing some crops again... and he told me, he says, "If you want, just stay here and just till this soil, that's enough to monkey around, farming." I'm still doing it today for the last thirty-six years.

RP: How did you end up getting into the landscape business after you're a farmer?

TH: A farmer? Well, as you know, I owned tractors, and so part of landscaping is you have to relevel or break up the soil, so the machinery work was no problem, it was just learning how much seed per thousand square feet and that was all through experience. The part about being a gardener is you have knowledge of farm basics so you had help problems, so it's a related field, agriculture and landscaping is sort of related. The busier it gets, the more labor you need. You don't worry about tomorrow, if it's going to rain or snow, you gotta take care of things today. In farming it's the same way, if today's the day to irrigate, you gotta irrigate. You can't do it next week.