Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Ted Hamachi Interview
Narrator: Ted Hamachi
Interviewer: Kirk Peterson
Location: West Covina, California
Date: March 4, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-hted-01-0003

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RP: Ted, we were talking a little about your early remembrances of living and working on your dad's farm. Where did the water for his farm come from, do you recall?

TH: Yeah, the place I was born is Whittier Narrows Golf Course, on the northwest corner of the total golf course there, there stands a well there. And when my dad first leased the ground, he needed water, so they stuck a well down. And that well turned out to be an artesian well. They put the well in with a casing and it ran day and night, unless you put the cover on it. And then later on they did put a well and a tank above the pump. You could also get pressure by filling the tank, you could have a hose on there, and then the pump pumping the water out. And pumping it up to the water tank on top created enough water pressure that you could wash vegetables and get the dirt off the roots.

RP: Is that something else that you did?

TH: What's this?

RP: Cleaning the vegetables?

TH: Yeah, I didn't do it but I remember my dad doing it. I just went there and waited for him to finish what he was supposed to be doing.

RP: How many acres did your father farm?

TH: I think when he farmed the area I was born, that was around thirty acres. Then he moved only about a quarter mile up the road and that might have been a twenty acre piece, or more, I don't know but it's around there.

RP: Did he have additional help or hire seasonal labor?

TH: He did, yes.

RP: Who did he hire?

TH: He hired people that lived in San Gabriel. And whether he had to go after 'em or they came on their own, I don't remember. But I remember going near the old mission in San Gabriel, a family by the name of Gamino. Because I went numerous times, they got to know who I was and so I ate Mexican food. They offered lot of stuff that they had to eat.

RP: So, Mexican labor?

TH: Uh-huh. And I remember the year I got a scar here, a burn scar. We were woken up early in the morning, everybody went out to the field, they got a bunch of crates, they were shipping some mustard green. It was early in the morning so they built like a bonfire and all the kids sat around this bonfire. The crate I was sitting on sort of wasn't on level ground and it tilted and I fell into the fire. I got a scar here. It's been a nemesis all my life because as a kid you want to rake your hair over that scar so it won't show but today it doesn't matter. In the olden days it was something to hide.

RP: Did you have to make your own crates for your produce?

TH: At that time I don't remember but I think that you could get used crates, those that were used once or twice. That was a problem. Coming back to that time I fell in the fire, a lot of friends were there because they had a big order and they were bunching these mustard greens. This was during the Depression I guess, about 1931.

RP: Since you lived on the farm, you mentioned that you did have a fair amount of food to survive on. Did you feel any other, as a kid feel that, you didn't quite have as much as you did before that? Did the Depression affect the family significantly?

TH: I think up to the 1933, although, the time we had to move away, the flood time, up to that time, I think we had pretty much a normal life because during the roaring '20s, people did quite well. And if you were an immigrant and you're saving money to go back to Japan, you had a little bit of money stashed away. I'm pretty sure he did well because he, I think the year I was born he bought a 1927 Hudson, like a touring sedan with a soft top. And that was our family car until we left for camp. I wrote in that paper that I was the guy that we loaded all we could into that touring car and I drove to the Pomona Assembly Center.

RP: So were there other Japanese American farmers working in the vicinity of your father's farm? What was the makeup of other farming operations in that area?

TH: It was mostly a lot of orchards, like walnut orchards and orange orchards in the West Covina, Covina area. But wherever there was open land, you would see a Japanese family farming and very few Mexican farmers. There was one Filipino farmer, but mostly all Japanese families and did you know before the war this area in West Covina used to... the farmers used to get together and for the local school, they used to put on a chow mein dinner? It was usually in the wintertime when the things weren't too busy. They put on a chow mein dinner for the PTA and it was all voluntary and it was a fundraiser for the school. So before the war, we did have a pretty good relationship with the community.

RP: Did your father, was he involved in other community activities in the Japanese community as well as...

TH: There were two Japanese associations in the San Gabriel Valley. One was called Nihonjinkai and the other one was called the Sangyo Gumiai. And there were two associations, you belonged to one or the other, they were both farm type of organizations. And each group would put on a Japanese movie and they would have this at Columbia Grammar School in El Monte. El Monte was sort of the center hub of the community. So maybe you meet six times a year, I don't know, I don't remember that part but we'd spend a Saturday night going to a movie, the old style movie where it was a silent movie but the voices were put in by the old commentator or whoever. But it was real interesting to hear that person speak in the ladies tone of voice and a man's later and the kids.

RP: Were these movies in Japanese?

TH: It was in Japanese, yes.

RP: Sometimes the samurai movies would be shown?

TH: That's right.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.