<Begin Segment 23>

TI: Okay, and how many children, Yosh, did you have?

YS: I got three boys.

TI: Okay, good. So that's the end of my questions. Is there anything else, any other stories or anything else you want to talk about? Maybe a little bit maybe about what the Japanese American community in Ontario is like? I mean, how close are people? If you were to compare Bainbridge Island with Ontario in terms of community, what are some of the differences?

YS: People here are a lot older. No, this was a nice community, I thought. I mean, they have their problems, too. They used to have their bad people, too.

TI: But I'm thinking how do you keep, like the Sansei generation, how do you keep them here to keep farming?

YS: They won't; they're not.

TI: So that's hard because they would all leave?

YS: Yeah. They'd get better jobs. There's a few farmers, but not many. So like they say, in so many years' time period, there won't be any Japanese farms.

TI: That's what I was going to ask you. So what's going to happen in, like, twenty years?

YS: There probably won't be any. Because then the Sanseis' kids won't take it up.

TI: So did you sell the farm, or do you still have it?

YS: No, we sold. I just got my house out in the farm, out in the country.

TI: So many of the Japanese have been selling their land then.

YS: Yeah, a lot of them sold. Like they say, probably the Mormons and Mennonites and Mexicans.

TI: Because these families are buying up these farms, and they're doing the same thing that your, you did and your parents did?

YS: Yeah. They're doing pretty much the same thing, what we were raising.

TI: Now how do they keep their children in the farm? I mean, once they start, why is that different?

YS: I don't know. Like I say, Mennonites, they do pretty good. And the Mexicans... there are not a lot of 'em, but just certain families of Mexicans, like [inaudible] and Rodriguez and them, they're doing pretty good. It's not a lot of the Mexicans, just some of them.

TI: Now is farming easier today than it was...

YS: Yeah, everything is easier, because heck, they got so much equipment nowadays. We was getting by with two tractors, heck, they got ten tractors nowadays. We had to get by with one or two, move your wheels and change your cultivator bars and everything. Now they got everything so they could just go and drive another tractor and another cultivator go with... we had to change it all. Oh yeah, there was lot of difference.

TI: Yeah, it's a whole life I don't really understand.

YS: It's a lot of difference. That's why I suppose that the Sanseis, they're getting different jobs. I don't blame 'em. Whatever they want to do, and heck, if you get good pay...

TI: So, Yosh, thank you so much for doing this interview.

YS: I hope I did all right.

TI: No, you did a great job. This was good. Getting Bainbridge, Manzanar, Minidoka, Ontario, so it was a long, rich life that you had.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.