<Begin Segment 14>

SG: My understanding is not a lot, not a lot of Japanese came back to Portland after the war.

JO: Well, a lot of them did. A lot of them ended up in Ontario, a lot of Gresham people. Some farmers on the Columbia slough, they're still there. A lot of them are already passed away. But so I do go there, Ontario, once a year, and I see the people there. I guess most, a lot of Japanese did come back to Portland, but there was no more Japanese community, no more, you know. Before the war, they had bath, ofuro thing, and they had noodle houses and stuff like that, but not no more.

SG: That must have been sad to see.

JO: Yeah, it's all gone. It's a sad deal, I guess. Now our kids are all got other things going. They won't take over the job no more. Even the farmers, they all sold out. Just yesterday, I was out there visiting. It used to be nothing but farming out there, but not there no more. Mr., I don't know if you know Maz Kinoshita. I was out there just yesterday visiting him. He looked pretty good, but he's paralyzed. The whole left side is paralyzed. And Mr. George Toya is out there too, and he's kind of paralyzed too.

SG: How about your parents' farm?

JO: Whose farm?

SG: Your parents, your brother's farm?

JO: Oh, it's still there, but it's all built with house now, yeah.

SG: So they sold it?

JO: Where I was and where he, after the war, the farm is still there, used to do it way out there in Troutdale, so the farm is still there. My brother, my brother passed away. Before he got, I don't know how many years ago now, been maybe about twelve years he's been gone.

SG: He was still farming?

JO: No, no, no. He died twelve years ago farming. Then my mother was there for a while too, the house that I built.

SG: And so now they sold the farm?

JO: Yes. The ground, they saved some ground up on the hill where I built the house.

SG: When did your mom pass away?

JO: She was ninety-two. I got few more years to go, but I don't know if I'll make it. But anyway, she was ninety-two.

SG: So after, you didn't have anything after the Vanport flood. What did you, what was your next step?

JO: Well, I just kept on working, and I built the house over there in North Portland which I still got. Then I lived there from 1952 to '80s, thirty years, I guess. And then I moved over here now, and that's been twenty years.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.