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LD: This is April 25, 2003, and we have the pleasure today to interview Hiro Takeuchi, who was born April 9, 1915, in Troutdale.

HT: Right, yeah.

LD: Yes. Hiro, will you tell us who your father was and where was he from?

HT: My dad was, his name was Sakajiro Takeuchi, and he's originally from Hiroshima, Japan.

LD: How did he come to the U.S.?

HT: Well, in those days I guess especially the people from Hiroshima, they were more or less probably agricultural people, and they were more or less, poor. I shouldn't say poor. So the young kids youth people, they all want to adventure to America, you know. They thought money grow on trees or something. Anyway, he left for Hawaii when he was sixteen years old. And then from, and he worked in the, for the majority of his youth he went originally to Hawaii, I think. Then he worked in the sugar cane. And then after a year, he came to Oregon. Well, he came to San Francisco, and from San Francisco, he came to Portland. And my uncle was here already at that time, so he came and joined his brother in Portland.

LD: How about your mother? How did he meet her?

HT: Well, there again, my dad, my uncle had a barber shop, so he joined in the barber shop business, and then I guess they were getting to marry. There again, in the old days, so-called "picture marriage," and my mother came over when she was sixteen years old, and they got married in, well, evidently in Portland. That's where they met, and they were in Portland at the time, yes.

LD: So was it an arranged marriage with people?

HT: I think so. Yeah. There again, so-called baishakunin in those days too. They know some people, then they get them together and everything like that. But being separate from over here she was over there, they send, communicate with the picture, you know. That's where they get the old "picture bride marriage," not anymore. [Laughs]

LD: After they were married, where did they live?

HT: Then after they got married, they had their first child, that's my older brother Masao. After there, they purchased a property out in Troutdale and went out to start farming, you see. And that was, I would guess 1913. My brother was born in 1912. And so they bought this property out there in Troutdale, 21 acres, it was just nothing but timber, and they just start clearing the land and year after year and they start farming. And here again, row crops, so-called row crops like lettuce and cabbage and carrot and so forth, yeah. So that's what they got started in their livelihood, you might say.

LD: In those years, it was difficult for Japanese to purchase property. Were they able to do it, was it in your brother's name? Do you know?

HT: No, no. That early stage, there's no so-called haiseki or anything. That all started I think in 1923, see. So prior to that, they were able to purchase the property, yeah.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.