http://ohms.lib.berkeley.edu%2Fviewer.php%3Fcachefile%3DInterview42214_part2.xml#segment293
Keywords: Chicago; Chicago IL; Chicago, IL; Fort Lee; Fort Lee VA; Fort Lee, VA; Japanese Americans; Mitsubishi; Oakland; Oakland CA; Oakland, CA; Richmond High School; Stanford; Stanford University; University of California; army; discrimination; engineering; military
Subjects: Community and Identity; Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front
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Keywords: Berkeley; Cal; Cal Berkeley; Chicago; Chicago IL; Chicago, IL; El Cerrito; German Americans; Japanese Americans; Japanese Free Masses Church; Richmond High School; San Pablo; UC Berkeley; University of California Berkeley; University of California, Berkeley; army reserve; discrimination; racism; the reserve
Subjects: Community and Identity; Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front
http://ohms.lib.berkeley.edu%2Fviewer.php%3Fcachefile%3DInterview42214_part2.xml#segment4526
Keywords: Cal; Cal Berkeley; Cutter's Flowers; Home Depot; Interment Camps; Japan; Japanese Americans; Japanese Internment Camps; Parks Service; Swiss Americans; UC Berkeley; YMCA; army; education; lease; leases; leasing; military; volunteer
Subjects: Community and Identity; Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front
http://ohms.lib.berkeley.edu%2Fviewer.php%3Fcachefile%3DInterview42214_part2.xml#segment6021
Keywords: 442nd Infantry Regiment; California Flower Market; Gilroy Hot Spring; Issei; bento; bento box; bento boxes; business insurance; car insurance; discrimination; fishing; fishing contests; flower growing community; insurance; picnics; undoukai
Subjects: Community and Identity; Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front
OISHI: There weren't too many. Our industry was very small throughout the whole
United States, people growing carnations.GRAVES: This is Mrs. G. Kawai of Richmond.
OISHI: Yes, yes. They're in north Richmond there, you know, on Brookside Drive.
She is one of these girls {inaudible}. One of them is Mrs. Oshima, she married into Oshima family now, Honda-Oshima.GRAVES: Oh, okay.
OISHI: She's a Honda! [Laughs] {inaudible} She's a wealthy woman today. She owns
the Honda property. She owns part of the Home Depot property.GRAVES: Hey Tom, are there any lights? What can I do to make it a little bit
lighter in here?OISHI: Maybe David can open--. Me and my son, this is ancient times. Just like
I'm feeling interest in my grandfather in Japan, he might have passed on before my father came to this country. We're just presuming now.GRAVES: Yeah.
OISHI: We don't know.
GRAVES: We don't know, yes. But you'd like to find out?
OISHI: Yeah, yeah. Some things. Did I tell you, my sister in--.
GRAVES: She's the
one in Berkeley right?OISHI: Oh, you got a memory! [Laughs]. I better be awfully careful what I say!
[Laughs]. There's not many people that have memories like you! [Laughs]. I have a stockbroker--GRAVES: Who's a stockbroker?
OISHI: No, no, I have a stockbroker.
GRAVES: Oh, you do? Yes.
OISHI: Dean Witter. Oh, sharp man.
GRAVES: You guys are like this?
OISHI: Yeah, yeah. Things I talked to him maybe ten years ago, he still remembers.
GRAVES: Wow.
OISHI: If I asked him, he'll help me come--careful if I commit myself, I say I'm
going to buy a stock offers. Oh, he remembers me. He's sixty-five years old but--.GRAVES: So that's fresh brain, right?
OISHI: Oh, he has a good memory, amazing. Some people are that way, maybe you're
00:01:00one of those--.GRAVES: Some details stick with me. I never remember the rules to card games.
When I play, like, poker with my sisters, I go, "Okay, what is it?" And they go, "One pair, two pair." And when they get to whatever my hand is, I go, "Okay." So I let them all know what I have. So wait 'til he tells you to go, okay?OISHI: [Looking at old photographs] I've got to find a {inaudible}.
GRAVES: Oh, you have more in back.
OISHI: Yeah, oh yeah. I went through a lot of trouble.
GRAVES: Oh, thank you.
OISHI: See, like this here is a local photo so it's not too good. But we had
some good--.GRAVES: That's a nice one.
WASHBURN: Okay, we've got to do one clap here again so this is on track three.
OISHI: Wait, wait. And this is a Japanese School. The Japanese School is
different here, not the ancient one.GRAVES: Right. The one--.
OISHI: The one I went to.
00:02:00GRAVES: Right, right, at Wall and Forty-second.
OISHI: Yes, yes.
GRAVES: Are you in there? Who's in there?
OISHI: I'm not sure. You can pick me out.
GRAVES: So Tom, do you want to start with these photos?
OISHI: I don't know. Oh, this one my father was awfully proud. He brought these
back from Japan. Maybe, I don't know--. And kakeji this is. You know what a kakeji is?GRAVES: The scroll?
OISHI: What?
GRAVES: No, what is it?
OISHI: Kakeji is--this is a kakeji.
GRAVES: Okay. Kakeji.
OISHI: Yeah.
GRAVES: And your father brought those from Japan?
OISHI: Yes, from his house, I think.
GRAVES: When he first came over?
OISHI: I don't know if when he first came over or when he got married. And he
was awfully proud of these pictures, so every time, if you have a little party--Flower Market would have a party--we would bring this over there and that would be at a hotel, it would be at a restaurant.GRAVES: So they wouldn't be hung all the time, just for a special occasion?
00:03:00OISHI: Yeah, special occasion. He was awfully proud.
GRAVES: And is that your father?
OISHI: That's my father on the end there--youth.
GRAVES: Do you know anything about those pictures? I mean, do they have any
special meaning to you?OISHI: Well, in Japan, every year, like this year or something--every ten years
or something, maybe a tiger is one year, maybe this eagle is another year, next year is monkey or something.GRAVES: Like China?
OISHI: Yes, yes, yes. So every year, they have one of these animals as the year.
GRAVES: And what's he holding on to? What's right there? Can you see?
OISHI: I don't' know what that is. I don't think this was at home. This might
00:04:00have been at some restaurant or something, I'm not sure.GRAVES: Where would these dinners have been?
OISHI: He was very active in the flower industry and he liked parties let's put
it that way, see. He didn't like to work too much. [Laughs]. But he liked parties, and he would put on his good suit and go to these parties.GRAVES: And they were flower market or nursery.
OISHI: Yeah, mostly flower industry.
GRAVES: Okay. Here, let me move this one so--.
OISHI: Oh no, you don't want this.
GRAVES: Oh, what a handsome man!
OISHI: This is my Army days. [Laughs]
GRAVES: Tom, wait a minute! Tom, look at you.
00:05:00OISHI: I would think to take these out of there before someone raids the--.
GRAVES: Move that one, move that. Can you get it Dave? Oh it's just wonderful!
You were so handsome.OISHI: I don't know. Yeah, yeah, compared to now. I'm--.
GRAVES: No, you're still a good-looking man. So this was 1945 it says.
OISHI: Does it say '45?
GRAVES: Yeah, right down at the bottom.
OISHI: This was in Virginia.
GRAVES: Yes. Did they take photographs like this of everyone or was this a
special portrait you had done?OISHI: No, I guess we all had to take it or something. I don't' know, I didn't
have no money to take pictures {inaudible}.GRAVES: Yeah, that's a fancy one too. Chicago, it says Chicago.
OISHI: Does it?
GRAVES: Yeah, would you have had that done in Chicago?
OISHI: I don't think so, I don't know. Might have been done, maybe in Chicago.
This is my platoon, Second Platoon. This is in Fort Lee, Virginia. 00:06:00GRAVES: Right. Where are you?
OISHI: I don't know where I am. Right there maybe. I don't know where.
WASHBURN: Yeah, that looks like you.
GRAVES: I can't see. Do you remember, is your commander, whatever you would call
them--. Being so militarily up on it. [Laughs]WASHBURN: Right, exactly. You know everything. I feel like I have to sync this
really quickly here. I need to another one of these claps. Sorry, you guys. Clap! That was track three.OISHI: Why did he have to clap for?
GRAVES: Well, since the sound is there and the picture is there, when they want
to put them together, they have to be able to start them at the same moment together.OISHI: I'm right there, I believe.
00:07:00GRAVES: Oh, okay. Yeah.
WASHBURN: Does it list your name there, Tom? Yeah, it does. Oishi, T.
OISHI: Yeah, yeah.
GRAVES: Yeah. Were you the only Japanese American?
OISHI: Yes. In those days, the black had their own camp. But here in California,
when you were inducted, there weren't too many blacks. We were all together. But when we lived back East, there's a black camp and a white camp.GRAVES: Really? But here, you were inducted together, everybody, and trained--.
OISHI: They didn't have no black camp in California, I don't think.
GRAVES: Really? Did you have training here too or you just were inducted?
OISHI: No, no, I was just inducted here.
GRAVES: What's this?
OISHI: This is a good picture, see?
GRAVES: Yeah.
OISHI: Look there, this is my cousin.
00:08:00GRAVES: What's his name?
OISHI: Mas Oishi. Is he taking a picture?
WASHBURN: Yeah, I'm taking a picture, yeah.
OISHI: This is Ta Oishi, they're brothers.
GRAVES: Yes, where did they live?
OISHI: Mas passed on, he lived in Oakland.
GRAVES: Were they both nursery people?
OISHI: They were nursery in the early part but their dad went into something
else. He was in retail flower and then he couldn't stick to one occupation. He had all kinds of ideas. He's always moving around.GRAVES: So Mas and what was his brother's name?
OISHI: Ta.
GRAVES: Ta.
OISHI: Ta was educated in Richmond. He went to Richmond High School.
GRAVES: Yes, is he older--he was older than you right?
OISHI: He might be sixteen years older than I am. So you picture sixteen years
00:09:00older than I am. He got his high school diploma at Richmond High School.GRAVES: In the early '20s.
OISHI: And then he went to the University of California. Then he wanted to
become an airplane engineer or something, so he transferred to Stanford. In those days, there wasn't too much discrimination, I don't think, because the war was not coming on. So he thought he was it. [Laughs]. He thought he was it. He would box, fight and he was a brain. He came out with a Stanford degree, engineering. He went looking for a job. He was surprised someone gave him a job, no one gave him a job. He was very depressed. So he had to work at Adachi's. 00:10:00Mrs. Adachi gave him a job. Then his uncle says, "Well, Ta why don't you come to Japan? We have family--good roots or something. Get you a job at Mitsubishi." So he went to Japan and got a job at Mitsubishi.GRAVES: As an engineer?
OISHI: Yeah, and he was an engineer. And then, when the war broke out or
something, Japan says, "This guy, here might be a spy." He might be American spy, see. They had agents on him at all times.GRAVES: Wow. Was he married, did he have a family?
OISHI: Yes, yes, yes. He got married late. He got married in Japan.
GRAVES: In Japan? Yes.
OISHI: He might have been twenty-five, thirty years old or something, when they
went to Japan.GRAVES: Is your wife in here?
OISHI: She's not in this picture.
00:11:00GRAVES: So where was this taken, do you know?
OISHI: This is Mas and Ta--Ta came all the way from Japan because his father was
having an eightieth birthday or something at Tokyo--at Sukiyaki in Fisherman's Wharf. Tokyo Sukiyaki, you know, right on fisherman's wharf. They had a big party there, so he came for that occasion. This all might have been in 1952, 1951 or something.GRAVES: Is that his father back there?
OISHI: No, that's not his father, it's someone else.
GRAVES: Any other Richmond people?
OISHI: This is Sam, my cousin. Lives across the street from me.
GRAVES: Now?
OISHI: Yes.
GRAVES: What's his last name?
00:12:00OISHI: Sakai.
GRAVES: Oh.
OISHI: That's my brother George. He's in between Joe and me. And that's my
brother in law, {Harley}. He's married to my sister, but he's passed on.GRAVES: Which sister?
OISHI: Sister next to me, Lucy. Lucy and {Harley} passed on. And this is the
same party. That's my wife.GRAVES: Oh, okay. What's her name again?
OISHI: Kate Shizae.
GRAVES: Shizae.
OISHI: And that's my sister Amy in Berkeley. That's my sister Hannah in Richmond
here. That's Fumi, that's my brother's wife, George's wife.GRAVES: What was her last name before she married?
00:13:00OISHI: Nabeta. She's {inaudible}.
GRAVES: So she was here in Richmond, Nabeta.
OISHI: Her picture's there. They were pioneers, her folks. And that's Joe's
wife. Joe, my oldest brother's wife.GRAVES: What was her name?
OISHI: Masako.
GRAVES: Masako what?
OISHI: Matoi.
GRAVES: Was she from Richmond, her family?
OISHI: No, she's from San Francisco. And that's my oldest sister Miti, she's in Sacramento.
GRAVES: Dave would it help if the pictures were--if we folded the book on his
lap and laid the pictures on them so they were more still and flatter. Or does it not matter?WASHBURN: Yeah, no. That would be nice.
GRAVES: Okay. Yeah, why don't you do that Tom. I'll just you hand you some, okay.
OISHI: See, that's my father and mother. I don't know what year must have been.
GRAVES: And their names again?
00:14:00OISHI: Seizo and Ryu Oishi.
GRAVES: Where do you think that picture is?
OISHI: I don't know. I have no idea. It's not at the nursery. This must be
before the war.GRAVES: Because of the clothing?
OISHI: Well, his posture is much better. It was pretty good there, but in the
latter years, his posture was very bad.GRAVES: Was the posture because he had a physical thing?
OISHI: No, no, it was age. He was fifty years older than I am. When I was born,
he was fifty years old.GRAVES: Wow. And your mother was how old?
00:15:00OISHI: My mother was about thirty-five years old when I was born.
GRAVES: Do you want to look at this one? Does this bring back any other memories
of your--?OISHI: No. This picture, just by my looks there, I might have been twelve years
old, fourteen years old.GRAVES: You look more like a teenager there. You're the second one right?
OISHI: Yeah, that was me.
GRAVES: Yeah, with the open sweater. Handsome.
OISHI: Yes, and there's our
Japanese School teacher.GRAVES: What was her name?
OISHI: Kawamoto.
GRAVES: Tell us about the language school, which one that is.
OISHI: Her son was about a year older than I was, but he didn't come to this
00:16:00something. They lived in Berkeley and she taught her son the proper way to speak and to write in Japanese. I guess he was pretty smart man, he listened to her. And when he became adult, he went into the language school and I think he played a big part in Japan as an interpreter during the war years, maybe when MacArthur went over there.GRAVES: Oh, after the war.
OISHI: Yes. So he was in there before the war, in the army. He wasn't like me.
He was drafted, maybe right out of college. He didn't go to camp, see.GRAVES: So this is the school that replaced the first one that became your home?
OISHI: Yes. This was roughly built '27 and this picture was maybe '35, this
00:17:00picture might have been taken in '35.GRAVES: How big of a building--how many rooms in there?
OISHI: It was only the one big room. We had a kitchen and we had maybe two
bathrooms, that's about all. The room was maybe, I don't know, twenty, twenty-five by forty or something.GRAVES: That's pretty big.
OISHI: And they used that as kind of an auditorium too.
GRAVES: That's why I was going to ask because you said they had a kitchen, so
there would be parties and--OISHI: Yes, well, when we have any social--. But the neighbors--the nursery
people, they bought the land. They bought the land and the put up the building themselves.GRAVES: What kind of parties do you remember there? New Year's?
00:18:00OISHI: No, no.
Because Richmond was--there were Christians and Buddhists, see. So the Buddhists stuck to themselves, and the Christians would have their everything. They were more or less separated that way. But in Japanese School, it wouldn't be a Buddhist or a Christian, we all came at that age.WASHBURN: So birthday parties, Tom?
OISHI: Well, maybe in Japanese School they would have a little birthday--but we
used to have movies, Japanese movies.GRAVES: At the school?
OISHI: Yes, somebody would come around with a film or something. Maybe it was
fundraising. And the committee would get together and see the Japanese movies.GRAVES: So everyone would come, the kids and the adults?
OISHI: Yes, yes.
GRAVES: Fundraising for something in the community?
00:19:00OISHI: Yeah, maybe fundraising for repair or making payments for the school. I
think they were pretty well--I think they all chipped in to buy a lot of land and put up the building.GRAVES: Do you see any other people in there you recognize?
OISHI: I recognize all of them.
GRAVES: Everybody. Were they all nursery family kids?
OISHI: Mostly. Mostly nursery. I think all the pictures in this book here,
nursery people would be in there.GRAVES: Was that picture in this book or was it separate?
OISHI: No, no.
GRAVES: No, that was your own picture.
OISHI: Yes. That I got from grandma's house, my mother's house.
WASHBURN: Is that the teacher there in the middle?
OISHI: This is the teacher there.
GRAVES: Yeah, the seated.
WASHBURN: What's her name?
OISHI: Kawamoto.
GRAVES: All right, do you have any siblings in that picture?
OISHI: Yes, but it's hard to {inaudible}. This picture here is a picture that's
00:20:00supposed to be in here, but maybe we have another photo of it.GRAVES: So this is your family?
OISHI: This is our family. That's Lucy, she's two years older than I am. That's
my mother. That's Hannah, which is two years older than Lucy. And there's Amy, two years older than Hannah and George is roughly two years older than Amy, and there's Joe. That's my father, my mother.GRAVES: And you.
OISHI: And me. Maybe I was, I don't' know, ten years old, I'm not sure.
GRAVES: And is that in front of your house?
OISHI: This is in front of the house. This house here is the old Japanese School.
00:21:00GRAVES: Right. So there were stairs up to the second level on that south face.
OISHI: Yes.
GRAVES: And what's planted around there, what are those--do you know?
OISHI: That's the old garden. My mother, she had a lot of interest in plants.
And this tree here, when I was born, I was told he planted this tree on both sides of the house, on this side of the porch and then on the other side of the porch. And when I was, roughly 1980s, tree was way up there, maybe thirty feet high, hazard, you know. So I got in there and I got my men and we chopped both of those trees down.GRAVES: Were they planted to mark your birth?
OISHI: Yes, yes.
GRAVES: Oh. What kind of tree is that? Do you know?
OISHI: I don't know what the name of tree is. Like a Christmas tree.
00:22:00GRAVES: Some kind of pine.
OISHI: Yes, yes.
GRAVES: And is that, what's that, oleander?
OISHI: I don't know what that is. Might be camellia, might be a lemon tree. This
is in thirty-two.GRAVES: Yes. So your mother liked to garden?
OISHI: Yes.
GRAVES: For beauty as well as vegetable garden?
OISHI: Well, she liked plants and I think that was her way of letting
frustration out. You know, she had a lot of kids, and a hard time feeding them, stress and she used the garden. When she passed on, she had a nice garden. She had all kinds of different plants. Her good friend was Oshima and Oshima had a retail nursery on San Pablo Avenue, where the Home Depot was. They had a retail 00:23:00plant nursery and her and Mrs. Oshima were good friends, and they would go over there and they'd get a new plants and bring it home and plant it.GRAVES: Did you have any water in the garden, like with koi or anything like that?
OISHI: No, we had no fish in our garden.
GRAVES: Do you remember having that picture taken? It looks so formal.
OISHI: I think this picture was taken--maybe the nursery people hired a
photographer and he came, and maybe he took the picture.GRAVES: So should we look through the book a little bit now?
OISHI: Should if we just pick out the--. {Inaudible} picture there.
GRAVES: Who's that?
00:24:00OISHI: That's my father, my uncle, Mr. Sakai. I don't' know who this fellow is.
GRAVES: These are so great. So tell us again about this book.
OISHI: This book was the California Flower Market--I guess they decided on
making a book for the flower industry--families of flower industry--because we didn't know one another. Maybe like my father knew all the people there, but the 00:25:00families themselves never met one another. So they decided on making a book. Maybe they hired a photographer, went to every nursery that was connected with the California Flower Market--had shares in the California Flower Market. They went to individual homes and took pictures of them and this was the book they came up with.GRAVES: So it was a way of kind of reinforcing the whole nursery community, the
flower community.OISHI: Yes, yes.
GRAVES: So that--.
OISHI: And this is the--I'm just going to pick out the Richmond nursery people.
This is Adachi, Adachi family, and they were one of the pioneers that came into Richmond. Mr. Adachi, Sono Adachi, Ruby Adachi, the mother, Toshio Adachi and 00:26:00{Ryu} Adachi. But they have another older sister, maybe when the picture was taken, she might have gone to Japan. Her name was Elsie Adachi. But now, the sisters, they were married and her name was--I don't recall.GRAVES: Where was their nursery?
OISHI: They were on San Pablo Avenue. Home Depot is located on their nursery now.
GRAVES: And what--you were telling us about their nursery and how well it was regarded.
OISHI: Well, in the--these pictures were taken in, does it say?
GRAVES: I don't think so, you were guessing thirties, early-thirties.
OISHI: Yes. Adachi started off with {bedding} plant nursery. I don't what year
00:27:00they started off with. And then they went into retail cut flowers and Adachi family, Mrs. Adachi was very neat and particular. Maybe in Japan she learned flower arrangement, and she put out real good work and the whole Bay Area knew Adachi's funeral work and flower arrangements and something. They had a real good name. They had a real good business here in Richmond.GRAVES: So when they moved to cut flower, did they continue to maintain the nursery?
OISHI: Yes, they had a cut flower--.
GRAVES: So both.
OISHI: Yes, they had a cut flower gift shop and they had a big retail outlet there.
GRAVES: So these--this is Damoto in Berkeley?
00:28:00OISHI: Damoto, I don't know too much about them but I hear they were the
pioneers that came to California from Japan, early pioneers.GRAVES: None of the rest of these say Richmond, but San Francisco.
OISHI: This is Damoto Hayward, I guess that there. Same {Damoto}. No, this is a
K. Damoto, and that's M. Damoto.GRAVES: Okay. Fujita in Berkeley, Hayward.
OISHI: This Fuji, I believe, it says
Berkeley but they might became Richmond, to San Pablo. 00:29:00GRAVES: This says Fukushima.
OISHI: Fukushima was our neighbor.
GRAVES: Where?
OISHI: Just east of our nursery. Taro and Sab was the other two boys. Taro and
Sab and there's their father, {inaudible}. They were real good carnation growers. Father was a good grower.WASHBURN: So this is the greenhouse right there, right by yours there at the end
of Thirty-seventh?OISHI: No, I think this one here. I don't know where this one here is taken.
WASHBURN: It says there, up there, F. Fukushima, Richmond.
OISHI: Yes.
GRAVES: Or S.
WASHBURN: S. Fukushima.
OISHI: Taro was a good pitcher in the high school days, Richmond High School.
GRAVES: Baseball pitcher?
00:30:00OISHI: Yes, yes, yes. He played with Lloyd Christopher. Lloyd Christopher played
professional baseball, Philadelphia or something, major league baseball. Lloyd was the outfielder and Taro was one of the pitchers. And Taro and I used to carry Taro's bat. You know, we were young kids and he would carry his bat. Taro would let me carry his bat. [Laughs] Go down to the baseball game or somewhere, we'd carry it there, and we'd go to Nichols Park to see the baseball game.GRAVES: These were high school games?
OISHI: High school games. Yeah, he played American Legion baseball too. American
Legion is junior high school, I believe. They had a pretty good team, they had some good players on that team.GRAVES: Was this all Japanese team?
OISHI: No, no, this was Caucasian. Taro was probably the only Japanese on that team.
00:31:00GRAVES: This is Hoshi, Richmond?
OISHI: Hoshi, yes. This is the Hoshi family, they had a nursery north of us.
They were good carnation growers. Mr. Hoshi and his two children.GRAVES: So did
you go to school with either of those girls?OISHI: I think the girls were a little younger than I was.
GRAVES: You know, you told us about that string when we were in the greenhouse,
can you describe it so that?OISHI: Well, the string for the carnation is to keep the carnation in line so
that it grows up straight.GRAVES: It's like a grid, a vertical grid.
OISHI: Yes, yes, yes.
GRAVES: And that was one of your chores when you were a kid?
00:32:00OISHI: Yes, yes. My sisters and I, we had to put string on, you know. We were
kept busy. We had a big family but, come down to think of it, we got along. You know, with a big family, you all have to learn to share. Or like a little family, they get very independent and. We had to struggle, let's put it that way, which is good for us. A little struggle and hardships is good for a person. Person have nothing but leisure, luxuries throughout their whole life, they're born that way. Throughout their whole life, they set their mind that way. But when you have a big family, you have to share everything, you used to have a little amount money. They share whatever you got. We {inaudible} one another. 00:33:00This is the Honda family. Honda family--there's May, Sachi, June, mother, father, Sue Honda. They grew carnation here in Richmond. But they--.GRAVES: Where was their greenhouse?
OISHI: Their greenhouse was Potrero Avenue and San Pablo Avenue, south of
Potrero. That's where the furniture store used to be now. I believe the freeway 00:34:00came by and bought most of their place out.GRAVES: And this was a related Honda?
OISHI: Yes, this was related. That's their brothers.
GRAVES: You know, you told me something, I think about this family, earlier,
what happened during the war?OISHI: Yes.
GRAVES: Can you tell that story again?
OISHI: Oh, the Hoshi family, maybe they owed money on their property when the
war broke out and they were not able to pay for the land so the bank took their property away. So when we came back, the Hoshi family was not able to come back because it was no longer their's.GRAVES: So they didn't come back to Richmond at all?
00:35:00OISHI: No, they didn't come back to Richmond. This coming back was 1945.
GRAVES: So these are more--.
OISHI: Hondas had their own property--they came back to their own property and
they built it up. When they came back, most of the glass in their greenhouses was broken. They had a lot of damage done to their nursery. So they had to come back and pick up every glass and put new glass on. It was a big--lots of work for them. It took them quite a few years to get back to normal.GRAVES: Why do you think that happened to their nursery and not yours?
OISHI: It depends on who was leasing your place. In our case, I think we just
about told a man to take care of this place and make sure no damage was done, 00:36:00and so he took care of it. But in their case, maybe they were getting lease or something, and the person who leased it, maybe wasn't able to maintain it and then you give the lease up.GRAVES: These are Redwood City.
OISHI: Yes, Redwood City.
GRAVES: More peninsula. San Leandro. Did you want to look at something a little more?
WASHBURN: Tom, can you flip back one page? All of these greenhouses, like this
one, they all use the same system of growing carnations. So who taught everybody 00:37:00to do this? People have traditions but when new techniques come about, how do people share the kind of ways of growing the flowers?OISHI: I think this is not the Japanese way. This is a nationwide or United
States-wide, in our case. I don't think it was nationwide. But New England states, Denver, Colorado and then Ohio State and stuff, they were growing carnations there and we would get books from there. They had books on how to grow carnations and we would follow that.GRAVES: Did they use that string grid?
OISHI: Yes, yes.
GRAVES: Oh, okay. So you learned a lot of it from books?
OISHI: Yes, yes. The heating system and everything was more or less from the
00:38:00books. And these different universities would come up with books on it. Mostly it was New England states and Ohio State and Michigan State.GRAVES: So these would be like university agricultural extension publications?
OISHI: Yes, yes, yes.
GRAVES: And when you started to use more packaged fertilizers and pesticides you
would get it all from --.OISHI: It wasn't our idea, it was researched work. State of California didn't
have any research out on cut flowers or anything. They came out after the war. But mostly it was New England states and I think there was Boston area, and maybe it was good growing conditions in Boston area. And Colorado was there too.GRAVES: That's really interesting.
OISHI: Flower industry, you know, there's not too many in the United States
00:39:00that's in the flower industry. You break your people who grow carnations, just grows carnations. People who grow roses just grow roses, see. So it's a different something altogether. People who grow bedding plants, you know mums are in their own association. So it's a small--not many people in the United States are specializing in wholesale cut flowers.GRAVES: Who put these on? Do you know?
OISHI: I don't know.
GRAVES: So they weren't notes that you came up with. Boy, that's pretty isn't
it? With the mountains behind?OISHI: {Inaudible} Half Moon Bay. That's Half Moon
Bay isn't it?GRAVES: That's what it says. More peninsula, look at those chrysanthemums.
00:40:00OISHI: All these people we don't even know--I don't even know.
GRAVES: Redwood City. Oakland. Richmond, Kawai.
OISHI: Kawai. Kawai was in north Richmond on Brookside Drive. Mrs. Kawai, that's
Dorothy Kawai. One of the sisters, I don't know her name. This is Hide Kawai--no, this is, one of these is Hide Kawai, now she's Mrs. Oshima. That's Henry Kawai.GRAVES: A family like that with one son and a bunch of daughters.
OISHI: Yes, yes.
00:41:00GRAVES: What--?
OISHI: Well, Kawai eventually sold off to the Ninomiya family.
GRAVES: After the war?
OISHI: After the war, yes. Henry was running it.
GRAVES: Now would people have felt like those parents were unfortunate in a way?
OISHI: Yes, I guess they did.
GRAVES: Because they couldn't continue the family business in the same way.
OISHI: Yes, yes. They lost their father when they were fairly young.
GRAVES: Before the war?
OISHI: Yes, before the war.
GRAVES: Oh, so she kept that business going with her daughters and son. But
after the war couldn't sustain?OISHI: No, after the war, Henry took over and he built it up, and he went into
Salinas to expand the operation.GRAVES: Wow. Do you know the mother's first name?
OISHI: No. San Pablo was quite a distance from Richmond. You know, that's pretty
00:42:00far {inaudible}.GRAVES: Right. These are San Francisco and the peninsula. Here's Richmond, Maeda.
OISHI: Yes, Maeda. This is Maeda family. They were close by. Fukushima was east
of our nursery and Maeda property kind of touched our nursery. We had a little there--southeast of us. That's the grandpa Maeda and that's Mrs. Maeda, Asako, the mother, Junko and Meriko. They grew rose at first and then they converted 00:43:00into carnations.GRAVES: Now, did the grandfather and the son come from Japan or just the
grandfather, do you know?OISHI: I think the grandfather came from Japan and I think this is the Yoshi
case too. The grandpa was Maeda and she was a Maeda, and then she got a Yoshi from Japan.GRAVES: Hey, would that be Fred Korematsu's family?
OISHI: Yes.
GRAVES: Is he in there?
OISHI: I believe that's Fred there.
GRAVES: Can you talk about Fred Korematsu?
OISHI: Well, Fred Korematsu, I don't think he was even growing carnations or
not. I believe they were carnation growers in San Leandro. 00:44:00GRAVES: This says Oakland.
OISHI: Oh, Oakland, yes. And Fred was next to the youngest. He had two older
brothers and he had one younger brother. They operated a nursery. His father and my father were--maybe they grew carnations, they knew each other in the flower market. And Fred, like me--he was about my age--he was very Americanized, I believe. And he didn't know what discrimination was. So he became a welder. He became a welder.GRAVES: Do you know where?
OISHI: In the Oakland somewhere. Maybe he worked in the shipyards. I guess he
was making good money and the war broke out. I think he had a Caucasian girlfriend and the war broke out and, you know, he was maybe naïve. He didn't 00:45:00know about discrimination. He thought he was an American citizen and he didn't go into camp and the FBI got him. He was {inaudible}, put in jail and stuff and for two, three years, Fred was kind of ashamed to go with the rest of us. We all went at the government's command, "Let's go to camp," we all went. Fred refused to go.GRAVES: He tried to sue, didn't he? Didn't he bring a lawsuit?
OISHI: No, no. Then throughout the whole country, we thought Fred was different.
But Fred turned out to be a hero. He has enough guts to say, "I'm an American citizen. I'm entitled to stay here. You have no business putting me into camp." He refused to go. And maybe fifty years later, he won his case. That's Fred 00:46:00Korematsu. I met him just the other--we had a Topaz reunion in San Jose about three years ago and Fred was there. He was honored. But, in the war years, it was kind of shame because Fred refused and he was put in jail. It was kind of shameful for the Japanese because Fred's name always came up.GRAVES: Is that the way you felt about it too?
OISHI: No, I didn't. I did not. I thought Fred had a lot of courage, but a lot
of other people did not because we tagged along. Government says, "Come on there," we go there. Government says, "Eat this," we eat that. Government say, "Go inside here, we're going to have guards around you, shoot to kill." We 00:47:00accepted it. Every time we go into camp, they search our lunch, they search our pockets, everything. We were like prisoners.GRAVES: Did you know Fred before?
OISHI: Yes, we played basketball. No, we used to play basketball. Richmond--our
entertainment was we played basketball against different cities--San Leandro. Well, it says Oakland, but I think they were in San Leandro. They didn't have too many people to choose from. Maybe they were one of the teams that was more or less comparable to our team, so we played against one another quite often. And I said {inaudible}, you know, I didn't see Fred for fifty years and I met him there and we had a good long talk. Fred is old, he's getting old, but he's sharp yet.GRAVES: So he didn't go, he refused to go but his family went to Tanforan?
00:48:00OISHI: His father--yes, yes.
GRAVES: Were you there with--?
OISHI: No, I knew his brothers, and I knew the father--I knew who the father
was. And he had, Toy and what's the other called--. He was in wholesale flower shop. He used to--maybe one of the brothers {Randy} nursery after the war and one was in wholesale flower shop and he used to buy flowers from the grower and sell it. He used to ship flowers out.GRAVES: These--.
OISHI: This is Maeda family.
GRAVES: And it's spelled differently than that?
OISHI: Well, I guess--.
GRAVES: Same family then?
OISHI: I believe. He was the grandpa of maybe their mother or father or
00:49:00something. I think they're cousins anyway.GRAVES: Yes. And where was their--?
OISHI: They were next to them. They were on Wall Avenue, south of this Maeda here.
GRAVES: Wall and?
OISHI: Wall--Well, their nursery was bought out by the freeway. When the freeway
came by, they were bought out.GRAVES: So closer to San Pablo?
OISHI: No, it was not as far as San Pablo. It was more or less the middle of the
freeway. This is Maeda. Elsie is the youngest daughter and then the oldest daughter, Harry and Ben, and Maria. Ben fought in the 442, you know. When he came back, oh, he loved to talk about the 442. What a hero he was, see. [Laughs] Maybe he was a truck driver or something, I don't know if he had a gun or not. 00:50:00But he was very proud of whatever he did over there.GRAVES: So both of these families came back after the war?
OISHI: Yes, both came back but this family was bought out. This family, part of
their nursery is still there. You go right straight down, that's their--you know that big house right straight down, that was their house.GRAVES: Oh ok.
WASHBURN: Tom, would you guys--did you follow what was going on with the 442?
OISHI: Did I follow?
WASHBURN: During the war, did you follow the movements and different things that
were happening?OISHI: Yes, because my brother--I was in Chicago in those days and my brother
used to write to me. When I first went to Chicago, he was stationed in--my brother George--he was stationed in Fort {Custer}, Michigan. He was in the medics. And I remember him coming to see me--see how his younger brother was 00:51:00doing, see if I had enough money. [Laughs] I don't know if he would have given me money or not! And from Fort {Custer}, Michigan--.GRAVES: Which brother is
George? If you could point to him.OISHI: That's George there.
GRAVES: And he was in the 442?
OISHI: Yes. He was in the 442. But what happened was he was in the medics and he
was in Fort {Custer}, Michigan and the 442 was formed maybe halfway through the war. It wasn't formed from the early part of the war. And then all the Niseis that was in different camps throughout the United States was--they formed the 00:52:00442, they trained in Shelby in Mississippi, I believe. And then he used to write to me when he was sent overseas, "He landed here." You know, I think he came from southern Italy, he came all the way into France. And I used to get cards--letters from him as the movement.GRAVES: Could you follow any of that in the papers too, or just through your
correspondence with him? What was going on?OISHI: You were able to--I was putting the papers and the letters together. I
was a young kid, twenty, twenty-one years old, and he's about eight years older than I am.WASHBURN: Tom, was the reputation of the 442, at least in the Richmond Japanese
00:53:00community, was it--did people know of it even while they were in, say in Topaz, in a camp in Topaz, and followed it then and was it a source of pride then or did it--was it something that became a source of pride after the war?OISHI: I think the pride is, among the Japanese, maybe the City of Richmond was
not proud, I don't know. The City of Richmond, I thought, was--you know, it was a defense area. They didn't want Japanese in the City of Richmond. Maybe the government {inaudible} them, maybe it wasn't the city. We had refineries here. We had shipyards here. It was a vital area, very vital to this country. We had chemical plants. We had oil refineries. We had one of the biggest shipyards in 00:54:00the United States. And it was a vital area so--.GRAVES: But among the families that we've been looking at, how did they feel
about sons or relatives being in the 442nd?OISHI: Well, I don't know. I guess everyone--there were different opinions. I
guess most of them felt they were proud of their boys.WASHBURN: What did your family talk about?
OISHI: Oh, my father was--well, when we were in camp, you know, some--. When I
was in camp before I left for Chicago, some youths or some people thought, "Jesus, this is my country, I'm going to volunteer." They were volunteering. And some families felt, "This is wrong. They pulled us out of here, and this is not 00:55:00right to volunteer. We're persons without a country." We were. We're not American citizens. We're not Japanese citizens. I'm just like you if you went to Japan. And I went to Japan, we're treated the same, even though our appearance is different. I felt like a man without a country. And then George kept writing me. When he was writing me, you know, a lot of casualties, a lot of people died. He was in the medics, so he had a red something. Legally speaking and they're not supposed to shoot at him. Enemy is not supposed to shoot at him. He's a 00:56:00medic, see. He don't have no rifle.GRAVES: So he was getting shot at?
OISHI: I don't know. He was injured. He was injured.
GRAVES: When we can really film you, I really want to get into all of this more.
OISHI: And what he said was, he wrote me, "Tom, if you're drafted, you can't do
nothing about it. Make sure you don't volunteer." His younger brother--he wanted to look after his younger brother. So he saw a lot of casualties over there, his buddies getting kill and shot-up.GRAVES: Are you hungry? I brought bread and cheese and apples. Are you hungry or
do you want to keep going for a while?OISHI: Now, poor George, he has a bad case of arthritis. Maybe he's got old
00:57:00memories, I don't know.GRAVES: Does he live here in Richmond?
OISHI: He's here in Richmond and his wife--he can't stand up.
GRAVES: He can't?
OISHI: No.
GRAVES: Oh. So she takes care of him?
OISHI: Yeah, she takes care of him.
GRAVES: That's hard. You still need to change it? Ok, David's going to change
the film. So maybe we can--.OISHI: By rights, I think this picture is supposed to be in there.
GRAVES: Yeah. Wait, it's got a little--. Fuji Studio, Oakland. So it's Suji
photo studio on Franklin.OISHI: Yeah, yeah. So it's a different one. See, this one here, the picture that
was supposed to be in this book, someone took it home.GRAVES: Yeah, your cousin?
OISHI: Yeah, I think so. I'm not sure. It's not here anyway.
OISHI: We thought we were just as good as the next man. Joe, when he goes, he
has to go with a Japanese group. He's gone {inaudible} tour or something. He would have to go on a Japanese group. Me, my wife, my kids, I give them a car, we go around {inaudible}.GRAVES: So you feel like the army experience gave you that sense of--?
OISHI: Yes, yes, and that was part of the government.
GRAVES: So we're going to talk about all that stuff more when we have more
daylight. But wait, was this page or, no, it was back one.OISHI: Oh, Maeda, you wanted the Maeda picture.
GRAVES: No--here it is. We've passed it.
OISHI: M, M, M, N.
GRAVES: Oh, I hadn't even noticed these were alphabetical. Here we are.
OISHI: Well, we were talking about Ben. You know, good old Ben. Well, I guess he
00:58:00was proud. He was proud of the 442.WASHBURN: Which one's Ben again?
OISHI: Ben. Ben was a brother of Harry and then {Min?} was oldest. They lost a
father when they were very young. They struggled through life. But Ben is gone. They're all gone. They all passed on. Elsie is still living and Maria is still living too.GRAVES: After they sold the nursery, do you know what they all did?
OISHI: No, they sold the nursery--.
GRAVES: Oh, because of the freeway.
OISHI: No, the freeway took the nursery, every bit of it. They moved to San
Pablo, on Giant Road.GRAVES: And did they do more nursery work there?
OISHI: Yes, yes, they had acreage over there. And then maybe ten, fifteen years
00:59:00ago, they sold it to a developer and sell homes there, see.WASHBURN: Tom, I wanted to ask you a question about all the greenhouses. And all
the glass that you have--there's so much glass that is used in all these greenhouses. Where did Japanese nurseries buy their glass during that time?OISHI: Well, the glass is not Japanese. The glass is eastern stores. At first,
when we first--my father's days, the size of glass was maybe twelve-by-twenty, twelve-by-eighteen. And then my other part was twenty-eight inches wide by twenty-eight inches wide, see. So we had less bar, sash bar, and it would give 01:00:00you much more light. The newer greenhouses are like the ones I showed you, the aluminum house, they're two feet wide by maybe twenty-six inches wide. So, it has less sash bars and they use an aluminum bars instead of wooden bars, which is maybe one-fourth the size of the wooden bar, so it would give you much more light.GRAVES: And where would you buy the glass, back before the war? Do you have any idea?
OISHI: I guess we'd get it from the east, I'm sure.
GRAVES: So you'd order it and it would be shipped?
OISHI: Maybe they would have dealers in this area.
WASHBURN: Because you mentioned the one family whose greenhouses was damaged
during the war and they had to buy a bunch of new glass. 01:01:00GRAVES: Wasn't that them?
OISHI: Yes.
WASHBURN: Who was it? That wasn't them.
OISHI: No, it was the Honda, Honda family.
WASHBURN: The Honda family.
GRAVES: Thanks, you guys, for pointing out it's alphabetical. [Laughs]
OISHI: Yeah, Honda family.
WASHBURN: So where did the Honda family buy their glass once they returned to Richmond?
OISHI: I think they were able to buy--. Well, they had a Lord and Burnham
Company which supplies greenhouse supplies, like the ventilation and lot of supplies.GRAVES: Say the name again?
OISHI: Lord and Burnham.
GRAVES: Lord and Burnham.
OISHI: And maybe they bought it off of them, they're an eastern firm.
WASHBURN: And how, when they came back, would have the Honda family had the
01:02:00money to reinvest in their greenhouse? I mean, can you explain, how after being out of business for a few years while at the camps, did they have the money to reinvest?OISHI: It was a struggle. All these girls, three girls, mother and father, they
got in there and picked up all the glass. You know, little by little, you can't do the whole thing overnight. Maybe in daytime, you might do a thousand square foot, doesn't take too long to do a thousand square foot, if you work seven days a week, you can get thirty thousand square foot in a months time. You'd have, see. Pick it up, {inaudible}. They didn't hire, they didn't have the money to 01:03:00hire. And Juh was in the army. Juh was drafted in the army. He's a little younger than I was, and he was drafted in the army from Chicago.GRAVES: After the war?
OISHI: Wartime. Because I registered here in California. Since {Judin} was too
young to register here in California, when he got to Chicago he registered. So soon as he registered, they grabbed him and he was in the 442 towards the end. So he was there just about when the war was over. But these three sisters, well, five of them pick up a few glass at a time. You get five adults you can pick up a lot glass! If you're determined enough.GRAVES: But then, how did they raise
the money to replace all that glass?OISHI: Maybe they had a few dollars in savings.
WASHBURN: That's the question I wanted to ask you guys.
01:04:00OISHI: Looking for Richmond.
GRAVES: Yeah.
WASHBURN: Wow, I told you there was going to be a storm today, you guys.
OISHI: So these pictures are fairly new, compared to pictures that we have of
our family here. See, Fumi is my sister-in-law. She married George. Fumi is pretty old so this picture must be--she looks like she's eighteen years old, see. And on that picture, I'm ten years old. So this is eight years after that picture there.GRAVES: So this is late-thirties, this is, like, right before the war.
OISHI: Yes, might have been a few years before the war.
01:05:00GRAVES: Because that said '32.
OISHI: That's Fumi, near {Yo}, younger sister, the mother, Tosh. Tosh was my
buddy and he's the same age as I, a little older than I am. And that's his father that's the grandma.GRAVES: And where in El Cerrito was their nursery?
OISHI: On the corner of Potrero--you know where the church is? Japanese {Free
Masses Church}? Right there. They had the whole nursery was bought out and a little portion was left over and that's where the church was started.GRAVES: So it's east of San Pablo? Potrero--.
OISHI: Yes. No, no, San Pablo--it
would be west of San Pablo.GRAVES: The church is west?
OISHI: The church is on Potrero Avenue and Eastshore Freeway. San Pablo is maybe
01:06:00a block--.GRAVES: East.
OISHI: Yes.
GRAVES: So which brother did she marry? She married--.
OISHI: George, the one that was in the army. He was a big hero, see. Oh George
was a 442 hero, see. [Laughs] {Inaudible} "Oh, I've got to marry. I've got to get married." No, they were right back during wartime, during the war years.WASHBURN: She marry George, right?
OISHI: There's a difference in picture. This is thirty-two and this might have
been ten years difference.GRAVES: Can you point to George and his wife again?
OISHI: There's Fumi. Fumi was here at George's wedding. You know, she's my
sister in law, we would barch flowers together. And she's more or less the 01:07:00only--I had three brothers, and she's the only--my wife is gone, Joe's wife is gone. She's the only one left.GRAVES: And she married--can you point to George?
OISHI: George.
GRAVES: So you said you guys--you saw her this morning?
OISHI: Yes. I see her everyday, just about.
GRAVES: Does she work in the nursery with you?
OISHI: She helps. She has to look after George, but she comes in and helps.
GRAVES: Oh.
OISHI: They got married in 1945. I was in the army then. Soon as he came back, I
think they got married. Maybe '46, I don't know.GRAVES: So, they were at Topaz with your family?
OISHI: Yes, yes, yes. Tosh is my buddy. We were in Chicago together. We came
back from the war and we used to chum around in Chicago.GRAVES: Did Tosh go to Chicago and work in nurseries just like--?
01:08:00OISHI: He was in nursery, not the same nursery with us. He was in another nursery.
GRAVES: So, how did you both hear about--can you talk about how you both ended
up in Chicago?OISHI: What happened was one of my cousins was a UC Berkeley graduate, you know,
Jun Agari. Jun Agari went to Cal, no, went to Richmond High. He's about four years older than I am, and he's a pretty good public speaker. So, his graduating class, the teacher recommended him being the commencement speaker, you know, quite an honor to him, see. So he became a commencement speaker. {Inaudible}.GRAVES: At Richmond High--.
OISHI: Yes, yes.
GRAVES: In 1935?
OISHI: I don't know.
01:09:00GRAVES: You said he was four years older?
OISHI: Yes, yes, I got out '40--.
WASHBURN: In December of '40, no?
OISHI: Yeah, yeah
GRAVES: And what was his name again?
OISHI: Jun Agari.
GRAVES: Agari.
OISHI: And then he went to UC Berkeley and he had a diploma in his pocket and
gets him to work. And he was one of the early ones being drafted, early ones. They started to draft in nineteen, I don't know, forty or forty-one or something. And he picks an early number. So he was drafted. But he was pretty smart and stuff so he had a pretty good job in Fort Ord or something. You know, maybe he was company clerk or something, I don't know. And then the war broke out. My brother George was in Michigan when the war broke out. He was in before the war, but Jun was at Fort Ord, "Gee, war broke out, what are we going to do 01:10:00with Jun?" So they released him, the army released him. You know, gave, I don't know what they call it.GRAVES: Honorable Discharge?
OISHI: No, he's on reserve. They released him, he didn't have to--then he came back.
WASHBURN: So how does this--does he know Tosh?
OISHI: Who?
GRAVES: Did your cousin let you know about the opportunity in Chicago? Is that
how you brought him?OISHI: No, no, then Jun came out, and he was just like me. He had to go into
camp. You know, he looked in the flower book, their magazine--help wanted. So you know, he could write pretty good and stuff. He wrote them a letter. And they responded: "Jun, come down here." There's {inaudible} Melrose Park, Illinois. Do 01:11:00you know Illinois?GRAVES: Only a little.
OISHI: Melrose Park, Illinois where's the nursery is. There's 150,000 square
foot {inaudible}. We're having a hard time out there. Jun maybe flew down there.GRAVES: Was that--?
OISHI: This is all through writing. Jun was in camp.
GRAVES: Right, what was the name of the nursery?
OISHI: Premiere Rose Garden.
GRAVES: Premiere Roses. But they weren't Japanese Americans.
OISHI: No, they were German. This is a German corporation. That is one of the
biggest in the Midwest. One of the biggest outfits in the Midwest. They had three different places, and this one that we worked on was the original Premiere. This family had it, Premiere bought them out and then they expanded, expanded, expanded. And this one--the original one was the oldest, and they had a hard time operating that them. So Jun wrote them a letter and said, "I'll go 01:12:00over there and I'll get a {inaudible} and, you know, little engineers, little carpenters and growers." And so he asked me if I want to go, so I went, see.GRAVES: And Tosh went too?
OISHI: No, No. And then , we were there, and then the neighbors I think are
growers, "Hey, where'd you get these guys?" And this {Houzaman}. Tosh work for {Houzaman}, they're good gardenia growerGRAVES: Work for who?
OISHI: {Houzaman}. They're top gardenia growers in the Chicago area. {Houzaman}
told Jun, "{Inaudible} help here too." Tosh, you want to go over there. {Inaudible} Tosh came. So a lot of nurseries in that area hired the Japanese out of camp.GRAVES: Do you think that because they were German American and might have felt some--?
01:13:00OISHI: In the West Coast, there was a lot of discrimination. They were killing
off Japs. "Oh, Japs are guilty. They found flags in there {inaudible}. They found a camera." You could have a flag in your house, you know. And this is propaganda. They had to do it. This is an easy way of getting the public all riled up. This is wartime. We've got to do anything possible to beat those Japs and the Germans.GRAVES: But it was different in the Midwest?
OISHI: It was different in the Midwest. Maybe if you were in the Salinas area or
if you were in more, it wouldn't matter. But we were on the West Coast, they have to get us out of here.GRAVES: Would you like some water?
OISHI: No, that's alright.
01:14:00GRAVES: Ok.
OISHI: So Tosh went over there. Me and Tosh, we buddied around. And our kids
were the same age when we came back and we were on the pee wee baseball, our kids played basketball and everything.GRAVES: Weren't you saying that that name, Nabeta?
OISHI: Nabeta. Nabeta I don't' have the--. His father came--he was original, him
and Domoto. He was original something in Berkeley and Richmond, his grandfather. He came before the Oishis, so they're pioneers, Nabeta family. Nabeta and Honda are kind of relatives. They came from Wakayama. You know where Wakayama, Japan is? That's where a big part of the Japanese comes from.GRAVES: Yeah.
OISHI: See, this is where this Oishi is supposed to be.
01:15:00GRAVES: But look it's--.
OISHI: But this is different. This and these are different. Here might be ten
years different.WASHBURN: So where did that Oishi photo go?
GRAVES: His cousin, the one who came and took everything.
OISHI: Well, I don't know if my cousin took it or not, it's not there anyway.
GRAVES: Yeah. Oh, here are the Ninomiyas.
OISHI: Yeah, Ninomiyas.
GRAVES: Can you tell a little about them?
OISHI: Ninomiya, you know the Ninomiya family?
GRAVES: I know a little bit about them but why don't you tell about them?
OISHI: Well, I think that's the father--that's the grandpa. That's grandpa
Ninomiya and that's the father Ninomiya. He might have been, I don't know if he was born in this country or not. I think he's a Cal graduate, Mr. Ninomiya. He might have come from Japan at a young age and then went to school. And these are 01:16:00the Ninomiya's kids, that's the wife. Husband and wife, see. These are their kids.GRAVES: Where was their nursery?
OISHI: On Brookside Drive.
GRAVES: So north Richmond?
OISHI: Yeah, north Richmond. They had one of the bigger nurseries there, in
Brookside Drive. They were leasing it to Cutter's Flower. Cutter's Flower, they retail bedding plants.GRAVES: Now?
OISHI: Yeah.
GRAVES: I had heard about them because I'd heard that their neighbors, the
Aebis, some Swiss Americans, cared for their nursery during the war and saved all of the proceeds and gave it to them when they got back. We got the Parks Service to interview I think their children, there weren't--.OISHI: Yes, Aebi family.
GRAVES: Did you know the Aebi?
OISHI: Yes, oh, yes, very good. Mr. Aebi, I don't know, ninety-five years old or
01:17:00something. He's up there in age, sharp.GRAVES: That was an unusual story though? Rather than leasing their property--?
OISHI: Well, maybe they had leased it or something, I don't know if
they--something. But maybe their place was in fairly good condition, I'm not sure. Like the Sakai brothers, my cousin had roses. But a rose plant is good for four--it can grow as far as ten years. But usually a grower keeps it for four or five years. Without planting, grows for four or five years. A carnation plant, in our days, was only good for one year. So Sakais leased it out to--.GRAVES: Here let's get to the Sakais and then you can tell us. Oh wait, here's a Oshima?
01:18:00OISHI: This is Oshima. Mr. Oshima, well educated from Japan. Maybe a Waseda
graduate.GRAVES: A what graduate?
OISHI: Waseda. It's a well-known university in Japan. They're the Home Depot
property and they had the Honda property.GRAVES: And this was the nursery family where they sold plants and your mother
was friends with--.OISHI: Yes, yes. Her and my mother were good friends. My father and him was
good--they used to socialize a lot, let's put it that way. [Laughs] You know, in a kind way.GRAVES: What did they drink?
OISHI: A good amount of liquor and passed out! No, no, no. [Laughs]
GRAVES: And did you know the boys?
OISHI: Yes. Well, this is Heizo. See Heizo lived--he must have passed on about
01:19:00ten years ago. He wasn't too strong of a man but since he had defects, you know, maybe a weak heart or something, he used his head and he's the one who built up the Home Depot. There's a packinghouse there before, remember the packinghouse under the grocery chain? He had the lease for a long time.GRAVES: So he ran those? Or he leased the land out?
OISHI: He was the brain behind that and he bought additional property around
there. But Fred was the oldest boy, he was a Cal graduate. He's about Joe's age, a little younger than Joe. But here's the different between Fred and I. We're 01:20:00ten years difference. Me, I'm a cocky old kid--chip on my shoulder. They have no right to do this to me. My history teacher told me. [Laughs] But Fred was a little older. He saw it a different way. This is war, you've got to expect this. Japan and United States is at war. We live in a vital place. They chase us out, we've got to accept. So when he went into camp, he said, "We've got to do something for Japanese, this is shame what they're doing." So he raised his hand, "I'm going to volunteer."[PHONE RINGS]
WASHBURN: Do you want me to get that Tom?
OISHI: Yes. Maybe it's an advertisement. Answer it.
WASHBURN: Hello.
OISHI: Yeah, advertisement.
01:21:00GRAVES: So, it's interesting, this photo is in their living room instead of
their nursery. The rest of these are mostly.OISHI: Yes, yes. And like Fred, he volunteered, raised his hand. Even though he
was a Cal graduate, the army didn't excuses {inaudible} education. They should have made him an officer, a commissioned officer. So he went over there, and then he fought. He was a field artillery. When he came back got married and had two kids and within ten year's time, he was gone. He died of cancer, something.GRAVES: Oh.
OISHI: He was a good man. There was a YMCA next to Nichols Park.
01:22:00WASHBURN: I have a question about--what's this here, hanging there the room?
OISHI: I don't know I guess it has some meaning to it. He raised money for the
YMCA fund. And I think this is after the war. Maybe he did it before the war. He was kind of active in--.GRAVES: The community.
OISHI: And he felt it's good cause, YMCA. He was raising funds for them, got
money from all the nursery {inaudible}--throw in.GRAVES: Here's Sakai.
OISHI: Yeah, there's Sakai. That's my uncle, my father's brother. This is
Tetsuma, the oldest. Tetsuma might be sixteen years older than I am. That's in 01:23:00my--that's Sam. Sam lived across--he's the only one living now. No, at the nursery. He was thirteen years older than I am. He's Roy, ten years older than I am. See what--Roy is gone, Tetuma is gone, she's gone. Ruby. Ruby is the same age as I am. So you can see how old this is. Ruby went to school with us--March Fong. She used to compete against March Fong. She thought she was smarter than March Fong. You know, these pretty girls, they got a big ego. [Laughs] And she went to Cal. That {inaudible} something she's got, but she never got a job.GRAVES: She went to Cal after the war?
01:24:00OISHI: Yeah, she got her diploma after the war. She was gone before the war,
too. That's Jun Agari.GRAVES: Oh, the cousin you were talking about.
OISHI: Yes. He's the guy, you know, good talker.
GRAVES: Wait, but what's his relation to the Sakais?
OISHI: He's the--Sakai has one older sister and he's the son of the older sister.
GRAVES: And their nursery was where?
OISHI: It was across the street from us.
GRAVES: Just to the west?
OISHI: West of us. Little bit northwest. He had maybe seventy to eighty acres.
This is same Sakai.WASHBURN: Tom, is this their--is this like the thing you have hanging here in
01:25:00your house? Is that their family symbol?OISHI: I don't know. No, this is an old one, this is an ancient one, see. This
is Ruby here, that's Ruby there.GRAVES: Yeah, I was going to say that if she was the same age as you, look at
you here in '32.OISHI: Yeah. But this maybe doesn't belong in this album. This one belongs in
the album.GRAVES: Yes.
WASHBURN: So describe those people once again there. That's Ruby.
OISHI: Ruby, yeah, good old Ruby.
WASHBURN: She's really pretty.
OISHI: She's in the yearbook. You know, the yearbook, the Richmond High yearbook?
GRAVES: Who's the little baby?
OISHI: Where's the baby?
GRAVES: The little--whoops, sorry--the little girl here.
OISHI: Oh, that's {Tetuma's} daughter. Oh , she's not little no more. She might
be sixty-five today.GRAVES: And that's taken outside their home at the nursery?
01:26:00OISHI: I guess so.
WASHBURN: And look, there's the hills in the background.
GRAVES: Yeah. What's that hole?
OISHI: I don't know. She came from the same part as my father, Sasayama. She's a
farmer's daughter. They had no schooling. They learn on the ranch, that's their schooling. So when she came over she knew how to work. She knew value of a dollar. Not like my mother. My mother [laughs] went to school and she didn't know how to work. She's so far away from it, far away from cooking and trust me, you {inaudible}. She was born on the farm, you know.GRAVES: Where did your uncle and she meet, do you know?
OISHI: Well, they were like I told you, they're Yoshi. Her people--her family
01:27:00had no sons. So when my uncle was young man, he went over there then.GRAVES: And the term is Yoshi?
OISHI: Yoshi, yes.
GRAVES: That's beautiful.
OISHI: Half Moon Bay is beautiful.
GRAVES: Do you know Sakurai? That's Richmond.
OISHI: Oh, yeah. {Inaudible}. I think what happened--. Sakurai they took the
Fukushima--might have moved to San Pablo. They took over the Fukushima nursery, follow me? Fukushima nursery was next to us.GRAVES: East.
OISHI: East of us. And then they expanded to San Pablo. And then they sold their
01:28:00place to Sakurai.GRAVES: When?
OISHI: Little before the war, maybe about the time--this was taken about the
time that they sold it.GRAVES: They didn't have kids?
OISHI: No. They were from the city, San Francisco.
GRAVES: Was it a lot harder to keep a nursery going if you didn't have kids to
work for you and stuff, or with you?OISHI: If you were smart. If you come from an agricultural community in Japan,
you know, they were able to make money real easy. But if you come from a city or something, no agricultural background, like my father, it was tough. [Laughs]GRAVES: Yes. But they did okay?
OISHI: These people? No, they were city people so I don't think--I think they
lost it. During the war years I think they lost their place. {Inaudible} took 01:29:00over. You know, when you came back, Italian family was running it.GRAVES: Do you remember the name of that family?
OISHI: No. There was two nurseries, east of us and north of us. They lost their
nurseries during the war years.GRAVES: The Hondas? No, not the Hondas.
OISHI: Hoshi.
GRAVES: Hoshi.
OISHI: Hoshi and Sakurai. But Sakurai might have taken over two, three years
before the war. [pauses] Shibata, that's well-known family.GRAVES: Mt. Eden, where's that?
OISHI: San Mateo Bridge. They're supposed to have a beautiful Japanese garden
and they tore all the nurseries down. It's a well-known family in the rose 01:30:00garden industry.GRAVES: That's the first one where I've noticed a kimono.
WASHBURN: Why were they well-known, Tom?
OISHI: Well, he did real good, {inaudible} did real good {inaudible}.
GRAVES: Were they like the Adachis? They just did really fine work?
OISHI: No, no. They were in wholesale flowers they would ship all over the
United States and even into foreign countries. And he was very aggressive, smart. And the Ninomiyas, and Sugiharas, and he sold all their flowers after the war. He had a big diesel truck over there, picked-up the flowers growers with a refrigerated truck and pick up the flowers and bring it into Mt. Eden, and he would ship it all over the country. 01:31:00GRAVES: Did he buy yours?
OISHI: No, we were independent. We did it on our own. We did it on our own but
he was in the big league.GRAVES: So he was like a broker?
OISHI: Yeah, like a broker.
GRAVES: Are we out of tape?
OISHI: Sugihara, see. Sugihara is next to Ninomiya and Kawai.
GRAVES: In north Richmond?
OISHI: Yes.
GRAVES: And did the north Richmond families settle later than the families
around here?OISHI: I think so, yes.
GRAVES: So who do you know in that picture?
OISHI: All of them. Yuri is the oldest, Fumi. Fumi she graduated from college
before the war, she had teacher's diploma in her pocket, but she never got a job, this is before the war. You have a teacher diploma might have to go to an 01:32:00Indian reservation to get a job or something. So maybe she taught in camp, and that's where she maybe first taught. She never was able to teach.GRAVES: Would they have been in Topaz with you?
OISHI: They were in Topaz with me.
GRAVES: Are any of them still around, do you know?
OISHI: She's around.
GRAVES: Here in Richmond?
OISHI: No, in San Leandro. She's around and this boy here is around some place,
the rest of them are all gone.GRAVES: Did they grow carnations?
OISHI: They grew roses.
GRAVES: Was most of north Richmond roses and here was carnations?
OISHI: Yes.
GRAVES: And did that have to do with climate or just--?
OISHI: No, no. She married into a--they bought an old place after the war--old
nursery in San Leandro. And they struggled and they start growing roses and they 01:33:00bought additional land. Marina Boulevard in San Leandro. Do you know Marina Boulevard? You know where the Marina Boulevard and the BART track? Right there, they own ten acres of land or something. And they sold for real big money, real big money. That nursery was there.GRAVES: Yes, yes. What was her married name?
OISHI: Yukota. And they're going to make their area--Marina Boulevard is known
for car dealerships and San Leandro figured, "Geez, man," we'll get this ten acres or twenty acres or something, we're going to make it into more car dealerships. Big money in car--sales tax. Any time there's sales tax, you sell a car, seven percent, city gets, I don't know, maybe half of it. And they he put a 01:34:00lot of {inaudible} these guys are going to sell a lot car, they got the money--city {inaudible} the money! They gave them big money for the place.GRAVES: When was that?
OISHI: Recent.
GRAVES: Oh.
OISHI: They tore the greenhouses down but did not do nothing {inaudible}. So you
go over there--Marina Boulevard and it would be west of--.GRAVES: The freeway.
OISHI: No, west of BART. And then from Marina Boulevard, it would be on the
south side.GRAVES: Now, would they have come to the Japanese language school down here? The
kids who were living in north Richmond?OISHI: No, they did not come for some reason--they did not come.
GRAVES: Did any of the other ones?
OISHI: {inaudible}
GRAVES: The other families that live in north Richmond, lived there, did they
send their kids to the Japanese school down here? 01:35:00OISHI: No, I don't think so.
WASHBURN: Let' leave that. I want to get one shot of this over here, this one
family's great.GRAVES: This one?
WASHBURN: Yeah, can you hold it down a little bit? Yeah, just like that.
GRAVES: Takahashi.
WASHBURN: He's got kind of an old style wheelbarrow there, huh?
OISHI: Yeah. I think he was an educator or something.
GRAVES: Oh really?
OISHI: But he was in agriculture. I think he's take in orphan boys and troubled
boys and stuff.GRAVES: Did a lot of people wear the scarf around their head like that?
OISHI: No, I guess {inaudible} were a little different. [Laughs]
WASHBURN: Tom, you know, you kind of said you know who that guy is and that he
was an educator and you mentioned things about other people, were all these families--? 01:36:00OISHI: No, I don't know these people. Well, I kind of know these people, see.
WASHBURN: No, but I wanted to ask you about whether all of these families went
through Tanforan.OISHI: No.
WASHBURN: All being in the bay area, I'm just--.
OISHI: San Mateo--some of them did not all come to the same camp as we did.
WASHBURN: They didn't all go to--but did people who were assembled in Tanforan
go to other--?OISHI: Mountain View, and maybe Palo Alto or something, there's a border, maybe
San Mateo did not come. Maybe San Francisco came, maybe San Leandro, Hayward, and Richmond.GRAVES: Yeah, I think there might have been an assembly center in San Jose area,
right, that would have drawn from south bay?OISHI: They might have gone to different place. There might have been ten
different assembly centers.GRAVES: Well, I don't think there were that many.
01:37:00WASHBURN: Maybe in the whole state. And then from Tanforan, they went to
different camps?OISHI: The reason why the Oshimas did not come to our camp was their youngest
boy had heart problems and the father felt maybe a drier climate or something.GRAVES: Wait, here, let's find them and can you tell the story while you point
to them?OISHI: Yeah. He had heart problems but he lived a long life. So they decided for
their son to go to Arizona or something, so they didn't come to our camp.WASHBURN: Did they go to Arizona to live?
OISHI: No, camp in Arizona.
GRAVES: So, the one in Poston, or whatever.
OISHI: Yeah, one of those. But I respect this man here today, you know. Richmond
01:38:00High maybe he was on the student body. He's a golden boy, you know. [Laughs]GRAVES: And his name was Fred.
OISHI: Fred. He went to Cal. And after the war, the YMCA wants funds he collects
money for them. He's very active in civic affairs.GRAVES: But he died really young, right?
OISHI: Yeah, died young. I went to his wife's funeral the other day.
GRAVES: Look at those little girls, this seems out of place with the rest of the
book too. Who are they, do you know Tom?OISHI: I don't know.
WASHBURN: Cute little girls.
OISHI: These are mum growers. They're the same industry but we hardly know them.
GRAVES: Really different.
OISHI: Yeah.
WASHBURN: Wow, those are big mums.
GRAVES: Yeah, look at that.
OISHI: They did pick-up from Belmont and San Leandro and Redwood City.
GRAVES: Look at him.
OISHI: And this is a good crop of carnations. He must have been a good grower.
01:39:00Look at all the blooms {inaudible}. He ain't cut a flower before they took the picture! [Laughs] He told his men, "Don't cut the flowers, take a picture!"WASHBURN: Tom, are they about to cut all those flowers?
OISHI: Oh, they're overdue.
WASHBURN: Yeah, they're overdue.
OISHI: Yes, yes, but he didn't want to cut them.
01:40:00WASHBURN: But they look good for the photo?
OISHI: Yeah, yeah. They were one of the aggressive carnation growers.
GRAVES: You know them or your guessing from the picture?
OISHI: No, the family, but I don't know the--.
GRAVES: Yonemoto?
OISHI: Yes, I know a few of them, yes.
GRAVES: So how would you get to know these people? At the flower market?
OISHI:
Flower market and we used to have the--the flower cutter grower was--like one association like, we would have a picnic, undoukai. You know what a undoukai is? Undoukai is you have racing and stuff, you know.GRAVES: Oh yeah, and you bring bento boxes?
OISHI: Yeah, you bring bento, you bring sushi, you bring your bento, and you
have racing and everything else, see. That's what we used to have--the flower industry people. And they would have a fishing contest.GRAVES: Where would they do it?
OISHI: Well, where the fishing {inaudible}? They would have fishing contests,
01:41:00all the adults, the fishermen would get together and the president, the guys on the committee would go around, gathering prizes, you know, donation prizes and we would go fishing in Pittsburgh or would it be San Pablo Bay or {inaudible} or something.GRAVES: Where would you have the picnics?
OISHI: Oh, fishing contests and picnics are two different places.
GRAVES: Right, right.
OISHI: I know they had it at Eastshore Park one time.
GRAVES: Eastshore Park?
OISHI: Yes, yes, yes.
GRAVES: And I've heard that those were fun for the kids because the adults would
kind of let loose.OISHI: Yes. They thought they were big shots, you know, they thought they were
big shots. [laughs]GRAVES: The adults?
OISHI: Yeah. They were probably owner or businessman. They weren't domestic help
workers or anything, see.GRAVES: So what would they do at these picnics that gave you a different sense
of the adults?OISHI: Well, picnic is more or less for the youths. You know, they would have
hundred dash or relays. Little sumo and stuff--they had sumo guys inside there. 01:42:00GRAVES: Would the mothers do it too?
OISHI: Mother would come, yeah.
GRAVES: Would she be in a race?
OISHI: No, no, no, more the youths.
GRAVES: Just the men? Oh, the kids, oh, okay. Who's that?
OISHI: Oh, this is a flower market, maybe, people connected with the flower market.
GRAVES: Do you know them?
OISHI: Well, some of them. There's--.
GRAVES: No Richmond people there?
OISHI: No.
WASHBURN: That's at the flower market?
OISHI: Yes, I think that's at the--.
GRAVES: How can you tell?
OISHI: Well, the persons there.
01:43:00GRAVES: What?
OISHI: Moriwaki, {inaudible} Moriwaki, see. He's well educated man and he might
be ten or fifteen years older than I was.GRAVES: Moriwaki?
OISHI: Yeah, I think his name was Moriwaki. And he volunteered too. He
volunteered--raised his hand. He felt, "We have to do something. Us Japanese have to do something."GRAVES: Before war was declared?
OISHI: No, no, after war was declared, they asked for volunteers for 442nd.
GRAVES: In the camp.
OISHI: And the older people were educated, "Geez, we have to do something." He
was one of them who raised his hand and went over there and fought.GRAVES: Say his name again.
OISHI: Moriwaki. Moriwaki. Sim Nambu. He was good buddy of mine. He was a great
golfer, one of the top golfers within the Japanese community.GRAVES: Namu?
OISHI: Nambu.
GRAVES: Nambu.
OISHI: And this guy here, I believe, he was an interpreter. Sim, I believe, was
an interpreter. You know, he had maybe a good schooling in Japan, maybe a good 01:44:00schooling here and he was interpreter, maybe army or private during the war years.GRAVES: And these are all flower growers?
OISHI: Well, they were connected. He might have been insurance. What happened
was, when we came back, I know before I went into the army, we tried to get insurance for our car. We had a good car. And we couldn't get insurance.GRAVES: Before the war?
OISHI: After the war. You know a Japanese man, you get in a wreck, you go to
court, you're going to lose.GRAVES: So you couldn't get insurance because of discrimination?
OISHI: Yeah.
GRAVES: For your car.
OISHI: No, no, you can't blame the insurance company. Say you're the insurance
company, I'm insured from you. I go to court. I'm wrong. Whatever I do, I'm 01:45:00wrong, see. So him and other something before him, they--insurance company, they talked to insurance company, certain insurance companies or they formed their own company or something. They sold insurance to the Japanese community. Maybe their rates was higher, at least we were able to get insurance.GRAVES: So you got your insurance through them?
OISHI: Yes, through him.
GRAVES: Through him?
OISHI: Yes. He was connected with the flower market plus the insurance.
GRAVES: And that would have been business insurance?
OISHI: Car insurance.
GRAVES: Just car?
OISHI: Yeah, {inaudible}. And he was the secretary of the flower market.
GRAVES: What's his name?
OISHI: Korematsu.
GRAVES: He's got quite a smug--.
OISHI: Yeah, he's well educated. {Inaudible} to Japan. He's a good friend of my
father, even though he was much younger.WASHBURN: Tom, how do you know this is at the flower market?
OISHI: By the face.
WASHBURN: By the faces of the people who are there?
OISHI: Yes, yes.
WASHBURN: Because what is--I've never been to the flower market so I don't have
a sense of what the--.GRAVES: Building.
WASHBURN: Building is like.
OISHI: This is ancient time, this might have been when they were still leasing
the place. The flower market after the war, they bought land and they had their own place.GRAVES: Built.
OISHI: Yes, but before the war--might have been ten years after that we built
our own building and bought our property. Before that they were leasing this building in Fifth Street, pretty close to Market Street there.GRAVES: But you think this photo is after the war?
OISHI: Yes, I think this photo is after the war.
GRAVES: But before they built the new building?
OISHI: It might have been before, yes.
GRAVES: And what's this photo?
OISHI: I guess this one of the parties they had, the first generation people.
GRAVES: So these are all the Issei?
OISHI: Yes. Frustration, you know, so they have big party. [Laughs]
GRAVES: So that's your dad, I recognize.
OISHI: There's my father there. He liked to put on a good suit.
GRAVES: Who's that?
OISHI: I don't know.
GRAVES: It's just one woman.
OISHI: Maybe she's a geisha girl, I don't know. [Laughs] I don't know! Ancient
times.GRAVES: What are the sticks? What's the stick your dad's holding?
OISHI: What is this? I don't know. Maybe they're planting a tree or something.
Maybe a big celebration, they're going to plant a tree. They liked to plant trees. It's a good thing, just like you, they'll plant a tree and maybe fifty years from now, there's something behind that tree. Tree never dies. You know, we die after eighty years.GRAVES: So the Issei liked to do that?
OISHI: Yeah. When you have cancer, plant a tree.
GRAVES: When you have a cancer?
OISHI: When you have cancer, plant a tree for a memorial service. A tree's going
to keep on going for a hundred years.GRAVES: Oh, yeah. So who else--?
OISHI: Like my father, before he left Japan, he planted a tree. So one of our
friends went over there, he's telling him, "Go over there--certain part of the 01:46:00yard. He planted a tree. See how that tree is doing."WASHBURN: Tom, where is this picture? I see--it looks like maybe San Francisco
or something like that, because I see Cypress, are those Cypress?OISHI: This might have been in--they used to like to go to Gilroy hot spring.
GRAVES: Oh yeah, yeah.
OISHI: You've been there?
GRAVES: No, but I've read about it.
OISHI: Yeah, it was owned by Japanese. I don't know if it is now or not.
GRAVES: When I looked into it, about five years ago, I think it still was owned
by a Japanese family.OISHI: Oh, and then the road going over there, you know.
GRAVES: I've never been.
OISHI: To maintain that road, that was just quite a bit for the county to maintain.
GRAVES: Yeah. But so--
OISHI: They used to like to go to Gilroy hot springs, and live it up.
GRAVES: The families?
OISHI: No.
GRAVES: Or just the parents?
OISHI: No, not the parents, the men! [Laughs]
GRAVES: [Laughs] Duh!
WASHBURN: Like a retreat or something, right?
GRAVES: Like a boy's weekend out, right? So maybe she was a geisha. [Laughs]
OISHI: [Laughs] I don't know whether that {inaudible} a geisha.
GRAVES: So they'd go for the weekend?
OISHI: Well, maybe a week or something.
WASHBURN: No, she's got a kid there.
GRAVES: Yeah, I know I'm kidding. So these would have been little cabins?
OISHI: All these parties that we showed here around here, all the men are there.
The wives are taking care of the kids, that's the old Japanese custom. Kids, they ain't going to change now.GRAVES: But there were cabins, so they'd go stay at cabins?
OISHI: They had cabins up there, I know I used to take my father up there in the
latter years. Oh, maybe for ten years, I took him up there once a year, twice a year, to Gilroy hot spring.GRAVES: When was the last time you were there?
OISHI: Oh, well, he died in '84 or something. So I haven't been there from
'82--maybe from '50 to '82, I took him every year, maybe twice a year. And then 01:47:00over there, they had cooks and they would--you know, Japanese food, the cooks would make. They have a little {inaudible} hot springs, real hot springs.GRAVES: What's that, with the writing on it, do you know?
OISHI: I don't know. Maybe they're planting a tree there. This is shovel, see.
They liked to plant trees.GRAVES: But if you were planting a tree, you'd have a stake with something
written on it?OISHI: I don' know, maybe.
GRAVES: You talked about your dad planting trees when you were born and in Japan
before he left, are there other times?OISHI: I don't know, maybe every time they have a party, they plant a tree, I'm
not sure. [Laughs] See he doesn't tell you what he's doing!GRAVES: Well, no, but you know, you remember some of them.
OISHI: This is pretty old because look how young he is. He was might of been
forty years old, thirty-five years old.WASHBURN: So we looked at everything except for that one there?
GRAVES: No, we did look at this one but let me--are there other Richmond men you
recognize in that photo?OISHI: There's my uncle. Uncle there. There's--.
GRAVES: Sakai?
OISHI: No, this is Sakai. This is Shinoda.
GRAVES: Where's he from?
OISHI: San Leandro. There's a hospital, San Leandro Hospital or something, they
have property there and they sold it to the hospital, I believe.WASHBURN: Point to your uncle once more, Tom?
OISHI: My uncle's there.
WASHBURN: That one with the tie?
OISHI: Yeah, with the tie.
WASHBURN: Everybody looks dressed up, looks like it was a special time.
GRAVES: Yeah, ties, and look at that fancy collar.
OISHI: Yeah, yeah. They thought they were big shots.
GRAVES: Well, they were.
OISHI: They felt {inaudible} working hard, you know.
GRAVES: And they're off partying.
OISHI: These people, lot of these people, they didn't come from
farm--agriculture life. They come from fairly well to do families over there. They didn't even know what work was. But these Wakayama people, you know, a lot of them--Wakayama is agriculture land, they knew how to work. My auntie, Sakai, she comes from farm. And these people here, they're a bunch of playboys, I thought.GRAVES: And David wanted to look at that one again.
OISHI: This one might have been in Gilroy too. Does it have the date?
GRAVES: It doesn't have a date, it just says, "Mother and Dad Oishi."
OISHI: So we don't have many pictures of my father and mother. I looked through
there, I thought I'm going to find a whole mess of good pictures. See, old picture like that that fade away, he did take. All the good pictures, he took. I'm going to write that guy. He borrowed the heck out of them. What in the heck is going on here?GRAVES: How long ago did he take them? Was it a while ago?
OISHI: He must have been there couple years ago. He came two, three times, maybe
five times.GRAVES: Yeah, you better tell him.
OISHI: Someone gave him permission. He didn't just rob it, so he got permission.
GRAVES: Oh yeah, yeah.
OISHI: From somebody. But coming on as I'm getting older, my kids, "Where's
Grandpa? There's no picture of Grandpa. Where's Grandma? No picture of Grandma. Where's all the ancient pictures you left?" Not there. That's same as me going to Japan and trying to look up my grandfather in Japan, something old. He died--since he died in '49. I don't know when he died.GRAVES: Do you know how to read Japanese well enough to look in, like if there
were a city records. Would there be?OISHI: I don't know if it's in there or not. I hear in Japan, my uncle, my
father's oldest brother, used to write to the Sasayama recording office, or something like Martinez that we have here. And he would write, so and so got 01:48:00married here, guy was of this fisherman's family or something, and the {inaudible} come from a certain parts of Japan. So an so got married here, ninety-five years--. He was writing right to the recording office, say here Martinez, and they have records--what he used to write.GRAVES: About the family members that lived here? And they'd put it into records there?
OISHI: Yes, yes.
GRAVES: Oh, how interesting.
OISHI: That's what this doc told me. My doc, he's maybe twelve years younger
than I am. And now he has a good practice in Japan, thinks he's a big shot, which is {inaudible}. I pick him up at the airport and take him back--.GRAVES: Should these go in the book Tom? So Tom we'll research about a scanner
and try to come back and scan some of those. [End of Session]