<Begin Segment 9>

MH: When did you come back to Portland?

KK: 1945.

MH: In 1945 you brought your family back, and you had two small children. How about your mom and dad?

KK: They had returned earlier.

MH: They left earlier. Where did you come? Where did you go to?

KK: They were living in the farm.

MH: Did you ever leave camp to go out and work or anything?

KK: Yeah, I did. I worked in Northern Idaho, and I worked in Eden, Idaho.

MH: Eden? And what did you do?

KK: I was pruning the apples trees.

MH: Did you harvest anything?

KK: I harvested, I stayed there all summer, so I harvested peaches, apples.

MH: Where did you stay in Eden? Did they have a house for you?

KK: No. They had a labor camp, labor camp.

MH: And who did the cooking?

KK: They had a cook for the labor camp.

MH: So you came back to Gresham in 1945 back to the farm, and what kind of condition was the farm in?

KK: See it was a dairy farm, so they raised hay. It was okay. Raised hay so they had all kind of weeds all year come up. We had a lot of work to do.

MH: When you first started working for your father on the farm, where did you go to sell the produce?

KK: There was a market down on Belmont.

MH: On Belmont. What time did you have to get up to go?

KK: Huh?

MH: Early. Did you go to the early market yourself before the war?

KK: Yeah.

MH: Were there other Nisei?

KK: There were a lot of Issei at that time.

MH: Did you have to do a lot of haggling to sell your things?

KK: No.

MH: Just had a set price? Okay. When you came back, then where did you sell your produce?

KK: Different peddlers like Safeway, Fred Meyers.

MH: And did you take it to them directly?

KK: Yeah.

MH: So you didn't go to early market?

KK: Take order and sell to them directly.

MH: When you came back to Gresham, was there a lot of racial prejudice yet? Did they want you back?

KK: It was hard to buy gas. So one time, once in a while, delivered gas, helped us out.

MH: So you had a gas tank on the farm and --

KK: Yeah, we did.

MH: How about going to buy groceries and things like that? Did you have any problems?

KK: No, we never had that.

MH: What did you raise?

KK: I raised cabbage and cauliflower, strawberries.

MH: Berries?

KK: Uh-huh.

MH: And who came and helped you harvest it? Did you have to go and hire people?

KK: We had to hire.

MH: Who took care of the children? Did Amy help you on the farm too?

KK: Uh-huh.

MH: So who took care of the children? They were quite young.

KK: Grandparents.

MH: Your grandparents or your mom and dad?

KK: My folks.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.