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MR: This is an interview with Alice Sumida, a Nisei woman, ninety years old, at Portland Community Media, in Portland, Oregon, on January 25, 2005. The interviewer is Margaret Barton Ross of Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center's Oral History Project. Good afternoon, Mrs. Sumida, and thank you so much for coming to talk with us today.

AS: Good afternoon.

MR: I'd like to just start out by asking the circumstances of your birth, where were you born and when?

AS: Uh-huh. Well, I was born in Oso Flaco, California, which is in Santa Barbara County, and --

MR: And your birth date?

AS: And my birthday is July 18, 1914.

MR: What did your family do in California?

AS: My father was a farmer, so that's what he was doing, growing produce.

[Interruption]

MR: Did you have brothers and sisters?

AS: Yes. I have one brother and seven sisters, no, six sisters.

MR: So there were eight of you?

AS: Yes.

MR: What position were you in the family?

AS: I'm number three.

MR: When you were growing up, did the children help your parents?

AS: Well, when I was three, my father moved to Pismo Beach, California, and my two oldest sisters were sent to Japan to study Japanese and the culture of the country. So I was the oldest, and my younger brother right below me was born, so I helped take care of him whenever I was able to.

MR: And in Pismo Beach, what was the family work?

AS: My father grew green peas. It's called dry land farming. They have to depend on the rain for irrigation, no irrigation whatsoever at that time. And so that's what he grew, and he had about five or six men working for him, single men.

MR: Where did you go to school?

AS: I was too young yet to go to school when we were in Pismo Beach. My mother in those days had to hitch a horse and, to get groceries in town, so I rode with her. We always dressed up very nicely when we went out, not like today. And she would drive the horse and buggy right onto Pismo Beach. And in those days, she just put her bucket into the sandy soil, had a bucket full of baby clams. That's how plentiful the clams were at that time. And she'd bring them home and fix them for a meal. And what was leftover, she fed it to the chickens, so they had a very good meal. And I was not attending school then. After my father moved again to Los Osos, California, which is in San Luis Obispo County, then I was placed in a children's home, a Buddhist temple dormitory. That's when I was six, and I cried a lot for my mother. She left me there, and I was there from six years to twelve years and went home only during summer vacation and winter vacation, and it was very, very difficult. I was not the only one. There were thirty young boys and thirty, about thirty girls, young girls about my age, and so we cried a lot in those days. But, we were, went to the public school during the day, learn English. Then as soon as we came home, the upstairs of the dormitory was Japanese language school, so we went upstairs and studied Japanese. And then when we, it was over, we came downstairs, had our meals, and the regulation there was very strict. We would help set the table, and the older ladies who were there would help cook the meal. Then we had to pray. They would put on a long classical record, and we had to pray until the record finished which is very long, but I learned a lot of music like the "Traumerei," different classical musics. I am glad for that. But it was a very difficult life there. The daily life was very, very strict. And after we had our meal, we help clean, and then we had to go to the temple and pray because it was a Buddhist temple. After we prayed, we came back to the dormitory, and we had to study, do homework for Japanese school and English school, two schools, and we had to finish by nine o'clock; otherwise, they put the light out at nine, so we tried very hard to do both. And then we had to brush our teeth and go to bed.

Then next morning, we had to get up early and make our bed, clean our room, and help with the breakfast table. After we finished, why we had to clean everything up before we went to school. And for our lunch, we had one sandwich, buttered sandwich and one fruit, apple or orange, and no sandwich meat or cheese or anything inside. So lunchtime at school, we would sit on the porch, and children from outside of the home would be eating such delicious sandwich with the meat and all kinds of delicious food, and they would have cake and cookies, and so we just, oh, we just looked at them, wish we had a little bit of it. But that's, that was our life there, very frugal, you might say. And when we came home from school, we were so hungry, because the lunch was not much of a lunch, and we had to go straight upstairs to study Japanese. There was a Japanese cook hired there. He was so nice. He would slip us one hard piece of candy like quietly so the lady of the house wouldn't see, and we would be so happy to get that hard candy. I remember that so much because we were hungry all the time. Anyway, that was the gist of our life at the dormitory I lived in from my six years old to twelve years old. And the children there were so unhappy living there. They were hungry all the time. They missed their parents, so they decided to disband the dormitory. And so when I came home to my parents, I was so happy, and there was a country school.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2005 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

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AS: So now, I was, what, going on thirteen years. I was in the eighth grade in the country school. And the teacher who taught there, he taught from first grade through the eighth grade, every grade. This one teacher taught us, and his wife was a musician. She played the piano. So whenever we had Halloween or Christmas or holidays of any kind, she would play the piano. There will be a potluck. And after the meal, everybody had to dance. The teacher was a great big man. Oh, he was so big. He was from New York City, quite elderly, but very intelligent man. And even the six years old, he said, "You have to dance too." And so, I thought that was great fun, you know. And so I went through grade school. And at the time, my teacher, everyone in the eighth grade write an essay, whatever you want, so I wrote an essay, and he was quite impressed. And he helped me finish writing, and he reported to the county graduation banquet that I should be the valedictorian of the whole class, of all the schools, so I represented all the schools. I was the valedictorian of that class. Yeah. He wrote, he helped me write the essay, and he said, "Silver and gold may vanish away, but that which you learn will never decay." And everybody, oh, they thought that was wonderful, you know. So that was the high school year.

Then, time to have a, have more education, so my oldest sister, she thought, well, Mother and Father worry so much of us seven girls in the family, and why not go to Mills College which is a women's college, and they wouldn't have to worry about us. So my oldest sister went through Mills. And then it was my turn to go. And she was a senior and I was a freshmen, so I entered Mills, and it was very sad to part with our parents for the very first time for me. Well, I was there for three years, and then my youngest sister, Mary, was ready to come. She wanted to go to Mills. Well, I knew it was a very expensive college, and it would be very hard for my father, and I didn't care for school anyway, so I decided, heck, let her go, and I will just quit at three years. So I just went three years to Mills. And then I went on to San Francisco. I liked music so much, I studied voice lessons there for a while.

And then my parents thought, well, it's time for you to get married. In a women's college, you don't get to meet men much, you know. The house mothers used to make dates for us from University of Washington which is, I mean University of California in Berkeley and also Stanford University. We had men, our house mothers would make a date for us. And my very first date from Stanford, he brought me nine corsages, like so long, you know. I was the talk of the college. "Alice, what is that?" [Laughs] But it was fun. That was quite an experience for me. And you know, when we entered Mills, all the freshmen class are taught us a song, should I sing it? And this song has always remained in the back of my mind and kind of kept me going when life got tough. I would remember this song. [Sings] "Oh, Evalou, oh, Evalou. There is nothing in this world you cannot do. You took the monkey and you made it into men long since 'tis true. But now you brought a greater phenomena today. You took the class of '32 and made the freshmen class. Oh, when you're fame and glory, your name will not surpass. Oh, Eva, Iva, Ova evolution." I thought that was such an inspiring song for me. And so whenever I felt blue, I would think of the song and think, well, I have to go on. And in the old days, the parents' friends on the girl's side and the parents' friend on the men's side, they find a suitable person, and the go-betweens get together and arrange a date for us to meet, so that's the way I met my husband. When I first saw him in San Francisco, well, that's where they came from Portland to San Francisco, I thought, "Oh my, he's so old," is the impression I had, and he was so much in favor. He says, oh, he wanted to get married right away, and I said, "May I have about two weeks to think it over?" And he kept saying, "Oh, let's get engaged now." You know, he insisted. And my mother took me aside, and she said, "You know, you are not going to have opportunity meeting people too much because you're getting older. So maybe it will be a good time for you to get married." And I listened to her, and oh well, it is true. I am. I was quite up in my age, nearing thirty. That was very old, you know. And so, I decided all right. In three days, I had an engagement ring given to me, and in two weeks, we were married. That was really quick.

Then, when I was, after I became pregnant, I was having trouble, so I went into the hospital. Then I had a real bad stomachache, so I rang the bell and rang the bell, but no nurse, no doctor, no one would come. Later, I found out that Japan had struck Pearl Harbor. All the doctors and nurses were all by the, radio listening to what happened and what was going on, so I had miscarriage. And after that, I was very unfortunate. I had never been able to conceive, and so I have been childless all these years. Anyway, after I got married, we had to, soon after our marriage, six months later, we had to evacuate. General Dewitt announced that all Japanese, regardless of your citizenship, must vacate your home and go inland, so we were all at first the Portland people. They gave us two weeks' time to get ready, very difficult to sell your property or get rid of your things in two weeks' time, but we did the best we could. They gave us only two suitcases to carry with us. That's all. Everything we had to leave behind. So my husband made arrangement with his attorney to watch the house for him since his mother owned the house in Portland, so he asked him if he would watch the house. He was supposed to put one renter in there, but we later found out there were seven families living in the house, just wrecked everything. Anyway, we were evacuated.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2005 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

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AS: But we were first evacuated into the assembly center, temporary center, which is now the, which was the stockyard converted quickly into rooms. And they built rooms with just wall, no ceiling, no door, and every room looked alike. People would pop in and out, because just a small cubicle, just enough for your bed to fit in there. Well, after two weeks, the infirmary they had built for sick people was just full. Everybody was coughing and sneezing and very, getting so sick, and you could hear every word the next door neighbor was saying because just, a wall, thin wall, no ceiling. And in the meantime, the sugar beet company from Nyssa, Oregon, came, and they wanted to recruit young men to work in the sugar beet field. They were really behind in the work, and they needed people to get that sugar beet thinned down. So my husband said, "You know, this is a great opportunity to get out of here. So many people are getting sick. So shall we go?" I said, "Yes. I'll be glad to go." I was the only woman. There must have been over twenty young men.]

So we were put on the train at night. They pulled the shade down so we couldn't see where we were going. We didn't know where we were going. But we arrived at Nyssa, Oregon, the next morning, and there, they had tent camps, camps made out of tent material in hundred-degree weather. They gave us a wood stove to cook with and no place to hang our clothes. We only had two suitcases, nothing much to hang anyway. But, everything stayed in the suitcase, so, got damp. Well, they said, "You'll have to have work shoes, work clothes, a short handled hoe, a file to file your hoe and a steel lunch box and a hat." So we went to the hardware store, and work shoes, yes. So we went to the hardware store to buy all the things we needed, and by gosh, the hardware store man was so happy. He just sold everything out. Here we were all ready. And next morning, a farmer from one of the farms who had sugar beet came to get us on his pickup, so we all piled up in the back of his pickup. There was one family called the Uchiyama family; their father, mother, maybe about four or five boys, very experienced worker, and then my husband and I, so there were, what, about six, about eight of us or ten of us. And we went to the beet field, and the beet field should be about six inches high when you thinned them, they're very easy to do. They were about, oh, at least twelve inches or higher, very bushy. Well, my husband and I had never done this sort of work. Oh, that's the hardest work I ever did, so back breaking. You have to stay on your back crouched all the way from this end of the field to the other end, and you just knock this out and leave one plant, then knock another and leave one plant, and the Uchiyama family are so experienced, go boom, boom, boom. They just kept going back and forth. And here, my husband and I had never done. We'd be crawling around. And one day, here I was all ready to whack, and here, bull snake curled up right in front of me. I was ready to whack that bull snake. Oh, it scared me. I just screamed and yelled and ran out of the field as fast as I could. And I said to my husband, "I don't want to thin beets anymore. I hate bull snakes." So by that time, the other family was so quick, they finished up this field. And after this field, this farmer's field was finished, why another farmer came after us. He took us for a very long ride. We rode and rode and rode on his pickup and finally came to this, his farm. His beets were three foot high. We were just so shocked to see that, and the Uchiyama family said, "No way we could make money." It was on a piece work basis, and they were fast, so they could make money; whereas, we were so slow, we couldn't even make a living on 35 cents an hour they paid us. Anyway, we refused to do the work there because it was impossible. You had to pull it out and, couldn't do that kind of work, so he brought us back to our camp.

Then about this time, there were other men, young men doing other fields, and everybody had finished thinning of the beets, so the manager in charge said, "Well, you all behaved very well, so you are now free to do whatever you want. But do not go into town, stay in the country." So we looked around for a place to stay. And along the county road, there was an old shack. The windows were out. The door was out. It was very, very sad looking house, but at least it was built of wood, not tent, canvas tent, so we said, "Let's fix that up and live there for a while." So that's what we did. We made arrangements to rent the place, and we fixed up the windows and the door, put the door on and lived there for a while. Then, the farmer from the last farm where he had his three foot high beets came and my husband's name was Mark, he said, "Mark, you want to buy this farm? You know, I'm seven years behind in my rent, and the owner is getting very, very angry with me." So Mark was laughing. He thought that was a big joke. Then all the young men, they said, "Yeah Mark, you buy the place, and we'll work for you because we don't have anything to do." So finally, he decided to buy the farm. We had to go to a real estate. We had to go to the bank to borrow money. But in those days, the federal bank, they loaned money to the farmers to start or to help the farmers if they needed money. So after we heard about that, why, we borrowed some money to get started. And the farm where we went, it was just hills and valleys like this, you know. It was not level, and you cannot irrigate a farm that's hills and valley, so he had to hire big tractors to level the ground, and that's what he did. And when they leveled it, why, big rocks would come out, you know. The place was full of rock, and you can't plant anything where there's lot of rocks like that. And so he hired men to pick those rocks, put it in these fertilizer sack, empty sacks. And farmers around there, "Hey Mark, what's all that stuff that's standing in your field?" And my husband laughed, and those guys went to see what it was and rocks in the bag, picking rock, you crazy? They made fun of us. But we did the best we could to get rid of all these great big rocks, and we dumped it alongside the river because we were right along the Snake River, and across the river was Idaho and this side was Oregon. Anyway, we grew onions and potatoes and sugar beet like all the other farmers grew there.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2005 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

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AS: And a time came where there was an over production of onions and potatoes. The people in business who shipped these to Chicago and New York and all other big cities, they couldn't move all the potatoes and onions that were grown there. I guess too many. So these beautiful sweet Spanish onions that we grew had to be dumped. And some people stored them, but the prices never came up, so eventually, they all had to be dumped. So my husband is a very avid reader. He loves to read. He's always reading. He read about in Florida, they grow gladiola, and they shipped the young cut flowers. They ship it to the West Coast in the winter when the West Coast has no flower. So he thought, well, maybe that might be something that we could get into. And there was a very kind grower in Florida who told us where we could go to get bulblets. You start out with the bulblets, very tiny bulblet that grow beneath the bulb. There's a lot of baby bulblets that grow. Those are the ones we grow for bulb. So, and then he was kind enough to let us know the seven basic varieties to plant because you don't know what to plant. There's so many, 60, 70, 100 different varieties. And after we found out what to plant, we, he said to go to Medford, Oregon. There's a very reliable farmer there that he will not cheat you. He will give you the real thing. So that's where we contacted the person, and we got the bulblets to plant. Well, the farmer, before that my husband sent these beautiful Spanish, six bags of these, sweet Spanish onions to Florida Chamber of Commerce and told them, "You know, we grow these beautiful onions here. I'm sure we could plant very healthy gladiola bulbs." And so the Chamber of Commerce let all the gladiola growers in Florida know what we sent them. They all got excited, and they came in their private planes to see us. They gave us a great big order, 100,000, 200,000, this and that, and we didn't know what they're talking about. But we thought, well, this is wonderful. We're getting order before we even plant them, you know. And so we planted them very carefully. Well, time to harvest. Here we had this great big order from, what, so many growers. Every grower wanted 100,000 of this, 200,000 of that, this grower, that grower. Here our plantings were so thin and so scarce, we couldn't even fill one quarter, one grower. It was very embarrassing and disappointing. Well, it took about five years before we were able to get the knack of how to go about it. And so finally, we were able to fill this party, that filled.

And they would come in their private plane, land right in our field. We had a big road, so the tractors and equipment could turn around, to work. So they would fly right into our field. And they see all, whether, what they are looking for is a, all the pink should be all pink, no red, white, or other colors mixed in there. That's what they're looking for, and that was my job to go up and down the row and pull out any mixture. That was hard work. At first, you have one, two, three. Before you come to the end of the row, I have a big load like that. Oh, my god, I have to dump it, you know. And that's the way we kept the field very clean. The growers like that very much because then when they plant, they know exactly what they are going to get. A pink is pink. Red is red. So we would get bigger orders every year. One called June Bell, that particular white, very popular. Everybody wanted that, and that variety was a weak variety. It died in the ground a lot. So we plant a lot, but we would lose a lot of that. However, I know that this particular grower was very unhappy. We couldn't deliver the full amount of the order. Well, we were getting along pretty well, but my nephew, who was our right-hand man so to speak, decided to get married. And we said, "Well, we will give you the farm if you will stay here, and we will help you, continue." But his wife didn't want to stay on the farm. She was a city girl, and she wanted to leave. And so we said, "Well, if he's going to leave us, I guess we will have to leave too." It was very sad after we had built this up to this stage.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2005 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

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AS: However, we decided to leave, and we came back to Portland. And just before we settled down in Portland, we took a trip to Japan. When I was in college, I took a trip to Japan. The Buddhist group took a trip when the Tsukiji Hongwanji, Tsukiji Building was built in Tokyo. There was a world Buddhist convention there, and it was a big convention. The speeches were spoken in English, then translated to Japanese, Chinese, Laos, all different countries. It was a long, long dragged affair, and my cousin's husband was a Buddhist minister, Nisei minister. He spoke Japanese and English very, very fluently, so he was one of the men to be appointed to do the translation. Anyway, at that time, we had a free time to visit our relatives if we wanted to, so I went to my home, my father's and mother's country which was in Kumamoto, real southern part of Japan. And people in those days were so nice. They were so kind, and they talked to us and made us feel at home. My father's older brother I visited had, he had what, the silkworms in trays, and they were piled up in the living room because they had no other space. And when they found out I was going there to visit, he just threw everything out to welcome me. I felt so badly, that he would do that, but that's what he did. Then my cousin, my father's oldest brother's, one of the daughter, she brought me breakfast, American breakfast, bread and a scrambled egg and butter to toast the bread. I thought that was pretty nice of her; although, I enjoyed the Japanese breakfast. But the Japanese breakfast, was rice and a tiny bit of fish and a piece of that seaweed. They always served that, and umeboshi, red plum and hot tea. That was about it. So that was really a treat to have that American breakfast she brought me. Also, what I felt kind of amusing, all the young children would come and, "Oh, we have to go and see the lady from America." So they would all come and they looked in my suitcase and they looked at my hat and my American clothes and shoes. "Can I have your hat?" So I said, "Oh, yeah, you may have my hat." "Can I have your dress?" "Oh sure, take my dress." "May I have your shoes?" I had to part with all my clothes, but I had extra so that was okay. And I thought, my, do they like American things that much, you know. I really was quite impressed. And then we, when I took my first trip to Japan, it was on the Taiyo Maru ship, took two weeks to get from San Francisco to Japan. Then came back on the Taiyo Maru, Tatsuta Maru, took two weeks again to come back. Going out of San Francisco, it swayed like this, and all the dishes go to the left and all the dishes go to the right, just sways, and everybody got sick except me. I was not sick. It was amazing. And so, I had to take water. I have to help this person and that person. There were about six of us traveling together, and Reverend Terakawa, he is now deceased, but he took us all. He guided us to this Tsukiji Hongwanji, the first big building that they built for the Buddhist temple.

MR: When was that first trip that you took?

AS: 1932, I think it was.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2005 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

MR: Well, before we go much farther, I would like to ask some dates and get details. I'm wondering, let's see, when you went to Nyssa, what year was that?

AS: Let's see, that was soon after we went into "assembly center," and it was what, let's see, 19, we were married in '41 and the war started. So let's see, '42 I think, yes, uh-huh.

MR: And then you stayed in this tent camp for a while. Then you were saying you went to, you found this vacant farm, this house that you fixed up.

AS: Oh, that was, yes, just a house with a small farm. There was nothing grown on the farm at all.

MR: And when did you buy the farm?

AS: Oh, this farm we just rented. And then the other big farm, 200 acres, we bought from a lady in Spokane, Washington, I think. I've forgotten her name. The real, we bought it through the real estate. He arranged everything for us.

MR: And was that in Nyssa as well?

AS: Pardon me?

MR: Was that farm in Nyssa?

AS: No. This farm is in a place called Dead Ox Flat which was supposed to be very fertile between, situated between Payette, Idaho, and Weiser, Idaho, right along the river, Snake River.

MR: I read somewhere that that was the largest gladiola farm?

AS: Yes. You probably read my book, Music For Alice. Yes, we were the largest.

MR: And that is in the country, right?

AS: Yes.

MR: When you left the farm after working so hard at building it all up, how did that feel to leave that farm?

AS: Yes, it was very sad. I thought that I would be living there forever. We were the first ones to build a new home. After about seven years later, we built a new home, brick veneer they called it. We got the bricks from Salt Lake City. I understand it came from there. It was a very beautiful brick and kept us warm in the winter and very cool in the summer. The basement was very cool. Yes. In those days, before we built the house, the house we moved into was full of holes and the, this particular house was insulated by rocks put between the walls, and the rocks were so heavy. They were bulging out. And every time the wind blew, the wind blew right through the house, and oh, was it cold in the winter, you know. And I remember then no washing machine, no electricity there, so I had to use those washtubs and washboard to wash the men's overalls, work pants. It was very hard. But one nice thing, it was so hot there, 100 degree weather in the summer, so we had a line and you hung it up on the line. It dried very quickly. That was really nice. Then we had lamp in those days, no electricity, no lights, no hot water. For bath, my husband built a bathhouse which was all by itself. They had a tin underneath the wood tub, and I had to feed the, to get hot water, I had to feed the woods, underneath. Oh, it was so smoky. My eyes would really, get smoke in your eyes. That was really it. And then to wash clothes, I had to heat water in the bathtub and scoop it out into the washtub to wash clothes. It was a rugged life. But I was younger and I was able to stand the rigors of hardship at the time. Didn't even think about any hardship, have to do it, just did it. And every morning at 6 o'clock in the morning, my husband would be ready, so I had to have his breakfast all ready and finished before the men came to work. We had men to irrigate. We had men to drive the tractor. We had men to do different jobs.

We had twenty families living on the camp, and we had to build the camps for each family. And they wanted to work for us because at that time my husband was, before the war, he was in a vegetable seed business. He had a store on Union Avenue. And if you were in this business, the government considered seed as a very useful, necessary since it would produce food. It was necessary, so boys that worked on our farm were able to get deferment from going to war, so everybody, they want to come and work for us, but we were able to take care of only twenty families. And every night, my husband will be staying up all night. This man will do this. This man will do this. This man will do this. He'll be up all night thinking what each one will do because he had to give work to everybody that was working. He couldn't be choosy and tried to be fair, and I think we got along pretty well.

One thing that happened, I don't know what, whether I should even mention it, but it is history now, so I will. When we first moved there, we needed tractors. We needed all kinds of farm equipments, didn't have anything. Then he read in the paper a man was having an auction sale, and he had all kinds of equipments on sale. So he called this man, and he offered him so much money for the whole thing, so he got all the equipments he needed. But the people who are planning to go to the auction were very disappointed. They were mad I heard later. [Laughs] But that's how we got started, you know.

Well, all kinds of things happened while we were there. We had the Bishop and Lady Otani from Kyoto, the headquarters of the Buddhist temple, come and visit us and stayed with us. So I had to buy all new bed, new mattress, and new blankets and pillows, everything new, new rugs to welcome them. The Japanese community at that time, Ontario, they asked us to house them, so we did. Since we had just built our house, it was clean and nice enough to welcome them. What else happened? Oh, and Tanaka Kinuyo, she was a foremost actress in Japan, and she was in New York and she was going to stop in Ontario, so the Japanese people in Ontario asked if she would put on a show for us. So they asked us to house her when she came, so we did. And I had to be kind of a stagehand, to be her assistant, you know. While she was dancing, I have to give her this or that or take this away, you know. It was kind of interesting for me. Well, I don't know what else we did there.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2005 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 7>

AS: Many things happened, and we finally came to Portland. And my husband said, "Gee, I can't just sit around and wait till I die. I have to be doing something." So he was reading again, and we read about this Japanese koi, nishikigoi, brocaded fish. Now people here call them koi for short. Well, he had contacted the nursery in Japan, so he asked them if they would go to the best koi grower and send us the best parent stock. So they went up to Niigata, Japan, very cold country, northern Japan. They had the best at that time. So they shipped us 37, I think, 37 parent stocks; gold, silver, red and white kohaku sankei; red, white, and black, five, let's see, anyway, six basic varieties of the koi fish, parent stock. And when it arrived in the airport, my husband and I went to the airport to pick it up which was about 2 o'clock in the morning. They called us, but they wouldn't release it until about, we had to wait about four or five hours before they would release it. Finally, they released it. We took it back to the farm. In Woodburn, we had bought a farm that long time ago someone had been growing kingyo, goldfish, which is entirely different from koi. Goldfish grows only so big and just all gold color. And the place had 37 ponds already built, mud ponds, but big faucets like this. You just open the faucet and the water just dashed out. It was ideal for the koi. So we bought the farm. It was just full of weeds, and so we had to fix it before the koi came, and we were all ready for them. But, we received the koi at night. We couldn't see what was what, so we put this variety here. We put the gold in this pond, the silver in this pond, red there, and red, white and black there, each one separately because we wanted to breed them. And we hired a man from Japan where we got the fish to breed these. We had millions of babies, but you have to sort them out. You only keep the good ones with the clear color, with the good shape. All the basic varieties of a good fish you keep, and others, you just throw out. And after a week or two, you sort them out again as they grow. So in the end, you don't have very many fish left. But in those days which was about forty years ago when we introduced this fish here and to most of the country in this country, they didn't know what koi was. They say, "Is it a goldfish?" I said, "No. It's not a goldfish. It's koi." And now today, I think most of the people know what koi is. Many of the Caucasian people are in business, say, "Oh, if Mrs. Sumida could do it, I could do it." So, they all started their own business which is very good, and I'm glad they are enjoying, you know.

MR: When did you buy this koi farm or the farm you turned into a koi farm?

AS: Yes. Let's see, what year was that? We came in, we sold 1961, I think. We came and then we sold the place in '61 and took us a few years. We looked around for a place and found this place in Woodburn. Maybe around '66 we bought the place.

MR: And was that Woodburn, California?

AS: Woodburn in Oregon.

MR: Oregon.

AS: Yeah.

MR: Oh, okay.

AS: Right close to the, big shopping center. I don't know what you'd call a shopping center or what. They built this big area. What do they call that?

MR: It's an outlet mall.

AS: Yes, outlet, right close around there.

MR: And how long did you run that koi farm?

AS: Oh, until my husband got sick, maybe ran for about five or six years, and then he got sick. He had a stroke, and so I had to keep feeding and taking care. Well, maybe about ten years. I kept going, you know. I kept the best I could. And finally, we had to get rid of them. We sold most of it. And we had a farm in Cedar Mill. So my husband was sick, so I hired a man to build six basic ponds quickly. And whatever that was left, we put in there, and I was taking care of them. But it's very hard work. It's a man's work, and so I decided I will not keep them and sold them and donated quite a few to the Japanese Garden when my husband was still alive.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2005 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 8>

MR: You have started over a lot of times. What do you think made it possible for you to keep starting over?

AS: Well, my husband was a man full of energy, full of ideas, and he wanted to be doing something all the time. He didn't want to sit around and do nothing. He says, "I don't want to sit around and wait 'til I die. I got to be doing something." So mostly his idea. After we, I got rid of the fish. I had to because to, when I sold the place, I kept five acres for the fish, and let's see, I think my husband was still alive when he sold the rest of the farm to this Korean man. And he went into developing, and he came to me and said, "You want to sell your farm?" He is going to develop the whole place, and he said he will put in a Sumida Road right in front of your house. I said, "You will"? And so there's a Sumida Lane there, you know. Well, anyway, after I sold, I looked for a place to stay downtown where it will be more convenient to attend operas and symphonies and things I enjoyed, and finally found this place on First Avenue, this American Plaza Condominium. And when I was there, one of my friends said, "Alice, you want to go to a free dance?" I said, "Free dance? What is that?" In Tigard, the Fred Astaire Studio, they were introducing, they wanted to get new people to come in, so they advertised a free dance for this particular Saturday or Sunday, Saturday I think it was. So I said, "Yeah, I'll go," and I went and I had a good time dancing. So after that, I signed up for a class. And at eighty-eight years, when I became eighty-eight, that's a very important date for the Japanese people, I signed up for ballroom dancing, and I have been dancing ever since, enjoying going to different cities for competitions. You know, competitions always make you want to do better and better, you know.

MR: When you think back on why you danced, does that eighth grade teacher, the dancing teacher, have anything to do with it?

AS: Maybe because it was so much fun the way he encouraged us to dance, and it really was fun.

MR: When you're dancing, how does it, how do you feel when you dance?

AS: How do I feel? I feel wonderful. I feel like I'm dancing in air, makes you forget everything, you know.

MR: And you take classes how many times a week?

AS: Just once a week, uh-huh, eight o'clock in the morning because my teacher and his two friends, they bought a, well, they started a sports shop right underneath Todai on the second floor of Pioneer Square, PDX, Oakley Product, and so he has to open his shop at ten. So I go at ten and another student goes at nine, and then he goes to the shop to open the store.

MR: And do you have a regular dance partner?

AS: For competition, we have to dance with our teacher. That's the regulation and, which makes it nice because you're used to practicing with him. And so if I do well at the competition, then the teacher gets rewarded too, so he is all, enthused also.

MR: Going back to eighty-eight, when you started dancing in your eighty-eighth year, why is eighty-eight an important year?

AS: Well, gee, I don't know. The older generation celebrate eighty-eight years. They say it, maybe you make it or don't make it, I don't know.

MR: And how did, there's a book written about you, Music For Alice, and it focuses on the dancing. How did Allen Say decide to write this book?

AS: Yes. You know, I was in a car accident, and I hurt my shoulder. I went to several different doctors, and they were unable to help me. And one doctor said, "Well, the surgery would be the only way to fix it," and I didn't want surgery. And one of my friends said, "Why don't you try shiatsu? He might be able to help you." So I went there, and Allen Say was also going there for treatment because of his writing all the time. His fingers get numb, and he had to get treated. So this shiatsu teacher told him about me, eighty-nine years old at the time, that he should meet me. And he expected, someone real young to be introduced to, and here he introduces me to an eighty-nine-year-old woman is the way he said, you know. [Laughs] And then he came for an interview to the condo where I was staying and asked me a lot of questions. And I don't know what it was that he found in me, but he decided to write a book about the story, based on my life, and I was very flattered. I was very excited, honored.

MR: Well, it's a delightful book. The pictures in the book look so real. Did he use real, did he base them on your real photographs?

AS: He took many, many, many, maybe about one hundred photos. He's a photographer also in San Francisco. That's what he was doing, so he's a great photographer. He's a great artist. He's a great artist. He studied in Japan with a very famous artist, and this teacher was very happy that he took all, he's continuing with this work because last year I think his teacher died in Japan. And he's working on another book now, and he just concentrates so hard on what he's doing. He has no time for social life, all work, beautiful work. Have you seen his other works he's done? Grandfather's Journey is an excellent, oh, the pictures, the art he has done on it is so beautiful. In fact, all of his books, the artwork is just exquisite. And he's spent, what, eighteen months finishing my book, he said. That's quite a long time.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2005 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 9>

MR: So I'm wondering during the war when you had people working on your farm, had they been in the camps, some of the people on your farm?

AS: Only in "assembly center," very beginning. We were all herded into that stockyard.

MR: So did you have any contact with people who were in camp?

AS: Well, unless you had relatives or close friends. My mother and my sister from California were there in Minidoka, and so I stayed in contact with them, yes. And also the whole, my brother, his wife, my mother and father, and my two sisters who were not married yet, they all stayed with us during the war in Eastern Oregon.

MR: So did they go to camp for a while and then they had --

AS: Yes. They were in Manzanar, and then they got permission to come to our place.

MR: When the war changed, or ended, when the war ended, did anything change much for you since you weren't in camp in the first place?

AS: You know, in Eastern Oregon, you don't even know a war is going on is the impression I got. Everybody's so busy working, working so hard in the hot sun, you know. Winter, it's so cold, you stay inside. And one year, the Snake River froze up. It went way down to 20 below, and there were rocks standing, ice cakes standing up like that. Some people attempted to cross to Idaho side but very dangerous because underneath, the water is running, and very deep sturgeon live in there.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2005 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 10>

MR: I have a couple of questions also about when you went to the Buddhist school or actually it was a Buddhist boarding house. Did your parents explain to you why they sent you there?

AS: Yes, to study Japanese and the culture, and also, so that I'd be able to talk to them. Otherwise, if I went to public school from home, I would start speaking English, and they wouldn't understand what I was saying. They was afraid that I might do that.

MR: So they sent your sisters, two of them to Japan --

AS: Yes.

MR: -- and you to this school. What about the rest of your brothers and sisters?

AS: Yes. My younger brother Masa, Mary, Susie, and the young, two youngest did not go because the war started, and they I think eventually went to business school on their own.

MR: At Mills, what did you study?

AS: Yes. I wanted to become a teacher so I studied education, and also I liked home economics. I like to cook. I made bread for the first time and also used, what do you call that, made a curtain. You know, you make the material, what do you call that?

MR: Weaving.

AS: Weaving.

MR: When the war broke out, were any of your brothers, well, your one brother or your sisters, were any of them in Japan at the time?

AS: No, no. My two older sisters were, came back when I was still in the Buddhist temple dormitory, so that's why they came.

MR: Mills is a very expensive college.

AS: Yes.

MR: And so your parents had three daughters at least who went there. How was that possible?

AS: Yes. My father sacrificed a lot. He, I noticed he never bought any suit for himself. And my mother, she grew everything in the garden, all kinds of vegetables, and we had fruit tree, all kinds of fruit tree in the backyard. And only meat I ever remember eating is the stew and wienies. [Laughs] I think that's the only meat Mother bought for us.

MR: Through your story, I hear just lots of hints that education is very important to your parents.

AS: Yes.

MR: What were their aspirations and hopes for you?

AS: Well, I think, I wished that he had sent my brother to college instead of us girls, but he needed my brother to help on the farm. He was the only man, and all girls are just no good for him, you know. We couldn't help him at all and maybe to keep us out of mischief, I don't know. You know, you could get into mischief.

MR: So you didn't help on the farm at home as a young girl?

AS: Well, we tried to, like when they had asparagus, my mother would say, "Let's go help a little bit." So we'd go in the warehouse, and the men will be packing the asparagus in crates, so we help do that a little bit, not too much. We weren't much of a help, but we did what we were able to. And then what else did we do? Gee, not very much.

MR: So, since farming turned out to be your life and you did a lot of work on your own farm, what do you think he would have thought of that?

AS: My father?

MR: Yeah.

AS: Oh, well, he like all the Japanese first generation would think I guess it's up to the husband whatever he wants to do, and the women is supposed to help him, so I did my best to help him. I didn't do anything for myself. I didn't even go to church. The church members say, "Alice, come over on Sunday at least, and we'll come after you." My husband says, "We have to work." So I stayed and helped him every Sunday. Every day of the week, I worked.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2005 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 11>

MR: I was just about to ask you what you did for a social life?

AS: Well, during our married life, we didn't have much social life. We worked all the time except if we were invited to a wedding or some Buddhist thing was going on. If my husband was interested, then we went. But I did everything what he wanted to do. I never demanded for myself.

MR: Did you have any neighbors that you could visit with while you were farming?

AS: Yes, yes. Neighbors on the farm is far apart because the farm is so big, you know. And across the road, Itami family, just had a letter from her daughter. Both father and mother passed away in Ontario, Oregon, and they had just one daughter and two sons. She just wrote to me from San Francisco. She's living there now. She never got married, and her two brothers are, let's see, one is in Southern California and the other brother is in Corvallis, I think she said, so I thought I'd write back and tell her maybe I could meet him, you know. It's been a very long time, but it will be very nice, yes.

MR: So you worked and you cooked and you did a lot of washing. Did you have time to do any creative things for yourself on the farm?

AS: Not very much, no, not very much. Everything was for my husband.

MR: So that brings me back to dancing because that's what you do now, and you say you traveled. Where have you gone with your dancing?

AS: Yes. Well, I've gone to Memphis, Tennessee. And in the spare time, I went to see the famous rock dancer, what's his name? Elvis Presley. He has a whole place there in his name. And it was raining so hard that day we had to run around in umbrella, and the water was just rushing all over, but we made a quick trip there. Then I went to Charleston, is that North Dakota or South Dakota? And then I went to Florida, Miami, Florida. They had a national, world competition there, then, also, to another Florida city, I'm trying to think. Then where else did I go? I went to so many places, oh, and they have a national competition at Las Vegas. I think I've been there twice and also to Bahamas. I went there twice. This time next month, I'll be going to Ireland for world competition. I don't think I'll be able to participate since I didn't have enough practice. Then the national competition will be coming around to Las Vegas again. We kind of repeat many of the cities. And we'll be going to, oh, and I also went to Alabama, Birmingham.

MR: It keeps you pretty busy.

AS: Yes.

MR: Can you tell us about your last trip?

AS: My last trip?

MR: To Washington.

AS: Oh, that was really exciting. I thought I was going to the big party, but I was not invited to the big party. The one I was invited to was the western music, and there, too, so many people, no room to dance. You just stood in one place and just move your body left to right like this. And this famous band leader, I should remember his name. I understand he is very, very famous, and everybody went up there to shake hands, so I thought I'd better go too when I had the chance. So I went up way up front, and everybody he just tap them like this. When he came to me, he looked at me. He bowed to me, and he shook hands with me so low. I was a queen. [Laughs] I thought, my, how nice of him, you know.

MR: And this was an inaugural ball that you went to on the 20th of January of this year?

AS: Yes.

MR: Was President Bush there?

AS: No. He, there were two events going on the same day, so he was at the bigger event. [Laughs] They invited 70,000 people, and the place was just packed. I hope I could get to the next one, the big one, I'm hoping if I still live that long.

MR: How do they choose who to invite, do you know?

AS: I don't know how they do that. No, I don't know. I felt very honored.

MR: So looking back from how you were treated during the war 'til being invited to an inaugural ball, what do you think about all that, how things have changed?

AS: Yes. That really is unbelievable. When I was in the Guadeloupe Buddhist Temple, people used to throw rocks at us from behind. There's so much discrimination in those days. And when our class was invited to go swimming, I could not go in. I had to wait till the others finish swimming and come out. And now, the feeling has changed so much. I just cannot believe, but I think it is changing for the better, and it makes me so happy that it is. And I do believe President Bush is doing his very best to have the Democrats and the Republicans all work together. I do believe that is a wonderful thing.

MR: Is there anything else you'd like to talk to us about?

AS: Well, I think I covered things pretty full.

MR: Or is there anything that we talked about that you think you need to say more about?

AS: Oh, well, I can't think of anything right now.

MR: Well, I've run out of questions, and I just want to thank you so much for coming here and sharing your story with us. It's going to be a nice addition to the Legacy Center's stories.

AS: Thank you. Thank you, very much.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2005 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.