Audio recording of interview with Tom Kitayama - abridged

Audio recording of interview with Tom Kitayama - abridged

Bainbridge Island (Wash.)--History

Japanese Americans--Washington (State)

Yama Project

Recording at end of record under Files.

Tom grew up on Bainbridge and after World War II, the family started a large floral business in California.

The interview discusses Tom’s childhood on Bainbridge, his leaving Bainbridge in September 1941 to go to university at Washington State University. He also discusses Japanese American businesses on Bainbridge, the Puget Sound region, and in California, where he and his brothers started and ran a large greenhouse/floral business, which is still thriving. The interview includes a discussion of the Japanese farms and greenhouses on Bainbridge, including his own family’s farm. and pre-World War II Japanese American farms on Bainbridge.

Recording quality: Good

Tanaka, Stefan

Digitized to a master raw uncompressed WAV file with the resolution of 96,000 hz at 24 bits. Access copy MP3 file of 44,100 hz at 16 bits with reasonable enhancements made for intelligibility.

Olympic College Libraries

1976-06-12

Vernon & Associates Court Reporters, LLC, transcription

Hartse, Caroline, edits & revisions

Krattiger, Angela, edits & revisions

Crabbe, Jocelyn, digital editing

Olympic College Libraries. Rights Reserved.

MP3

English

Oral History

OHCL_KitayamaTom_19760612

Audio cassette tape. On bottom of case is type written TOM KITAYAMA 12 June 7. On Side A is handwritten the same information (but not in all caps for the name). Nothing is written on Side B of the cassette. Cassette is a D*C60 TDK. Note: In Tanaka's thesis (p. 140), he lists Tom Kitayama, 12 June 1976. Union City, California.

21.36

44,100 hz at 16 bits

Title: Tom Kitayama Interview

Interviewee: Tom Kitayama (TK)
Interviewer: Stefan Tanaka (ST)
Location: Union City, California
Date: June 12, 1976

TK: Yeah, I don’t know too much about my father’s side. He passed away -- see, I left school in 1941 after Bainbridge Island high school, and then I went to Washington State. But I graduated in June of ’41, September ’41 I went to Washington State. The war started in December of ’41 so I was in Washington State already before the war.
And going back to my father’s early history, I don’t know too much about it because I never had the occasion to ask him when I was in school and then they were evacuated to Minidoka , or first to Manzanar then up to Minidoka.
And then I got married soon after I graduated from college, and I was in Pullman with the experiment station. And they relocated back to Seattle again, and then he passed away in 1948. So --
ST: Did they relocate back to Bainbridge, or just --
TK: No, to Seattle. They didn’t go back to Bainbridge. We never owned anything in Bainbridge. We were renting the greenhouse in Bainbridge and my father had taken ill.
ST: Who were you renting the greenhouse from?
TK: Olson’s .
ST: Olson’s?
TK: Yeah. Did you come across their name?
ST: Yeah.
TK: Emmanuel Olson, neighbors. They were near Pleasant Beach, Lynwood Center . That’s where the greenhouses were.
ST: You were at Lynnwood Center?
TK: Lynnwood Center, yeah.
ST: I see.
TK: And I guess my father rented that greenhouse there for a good -- the war from 1925 till about 1940 -- I guess
about ’23, 1923 or thereabouts, 22 till evacuation.
ST: I see.
TK: So it was there for at least twenty years.
ST: Do you remember when he came over to the United States?
TK: What year?
ST: Yes, or approximately when.
TK: No, but he landed in Seattle and he was working for a newspaper.
ST: I see. Why was he working for the newspaper? Why --
TK: I think that’s what his training was. He was working for a Japanese newspaper in Seattle, Newsprint or something.
ST: Oh, what was your father’s first name?
TK: Takeshi. There were three greenhouses there. I don’t know he -- or how they ended up over there.
ST: I see.
TK: Yeah.
ST: You said that newspaper was his trade.
TK: Yeah, as far as I know newspaper was his trade, yeah.
ST: Then it seems like kind of an unusual switch to go from what was primarily an urban type education -- educational background to say green -- raising greenhouses, raising flowers or vegetables --
TK: Vegetables. I guess he kind of left and got married. The newspaper just didn’t pay enough to pay for a wife and family.
ST: I see.
TK: And so how he got the greenhouse, I just don’t know.
ST: Do you know if he knew anybody before he moved on to the island?
TK: I don’t know.
ST: I see. Well, how did -- how did he meet your mother? Was she a picture bride?
TK: No. I think they met in Seattle.
ST: They did?
TK: I think so.
ST: Is she -- is your mother a Nisei then?
TK: No, she’s an Issei, yeah, yeah. She’s 81. ST: You speak Nihongo ?
TK: A little bit; not much.
ST: I see. But she doesn’t speak English, does she?
TK: No.
ST: Then -- so what did -- your father grew vegetables in the greenhouse?
TK: Oh, it was kind of helter skelter, whatever the other fellow he’d go and visit somebody. If they were making money at it or thought they were -- they had a very poor accounting system. I think we just -- enough to get by. And they grew -- well, so basically it was outside, there was some land outside.
So they grew cucumbers and tomatoes and beets and carrots and corn and sold it to the local stores.
ST: The -- this would be the Loverich store in --
TK: Olson -- Olson had quite a store then.
ST: Oh, did he?
TK: Yeah. Yeah, Olson had a big store there.
ST: Down in Pleasant Beach?
TK: Yeah. So in the greenhouse, what they do is in the wintertime they raise some flowers, mostly mums and pompoms, and they grow some Easter lilies, pot plants. And early spring and -- no, late spring/early summer they will bring tomatoes and -- greenhouse tomatoes and greenhouse cucumbers.
ST: And so you sold -- did you sell all your stuff to the stuff, the Olson store?
TK: Oh, no, no. The flowers I sold in Seattle.
ST: I see.
TK: Yeah. He wanted to sell at least once a week with his produce. And then some of the things were truck freighted into Seattle.
ST: Did he sell it at the market, or did he have outlets?
TK: No, he sold it at the wholesale markets, wholesale floral -- some wholesale florist over there. David L. Jones is one of them.
ST: Do you -- do you know when your mother came over to the United States?
TK: When?
ST: I find -- yeah, I find -- well, I find it rather interesting that she was here unmarried and an Issei.
TK: Her father was -- her stepfather was here in the States.
ST: I see.
TK: That was -- they used to be a big -- what I gather they used to have a big tea ranch, a tea orchard or you call it tea farm. This is (Inaudible) tea, raising tea. And they had some pretty good set up there. And then I guess (Inaudible) went down here when they -- (Inaudible) bankruptcy but they lost a lot of it.
So when that happened, I think her father, my mother’s father took off for the United States and left the rest of the family in Japan.
ST: I see.
TK: And then instead of going back, he decided to stay over here. So then my mother was the oldest one, and so she came over here then because he was here, and that’s all I know.
ST: So did any of his sons and daughters come -- other sons and/or daughters come over besides your mother then?
TK: No, my mother I think was the only child from that marriage.
ST: I see. But -- and so your father and your mother were the only -- your grandfather and your mother were the only two of his family to come here to the United States. And did -- well, did your father -- grandfather ever return to Japan or did he --?
TK: No, he was going to go back to Japan but by this time the family had already broken, and the wife had already started, you know, got married – remarried, found another family so he stayed over here.
ST: I see.
TK: And he left Washington and I don’t -- I never -- I can’t -- I don’t remember him. Then he came to California and I think he was a migrant worker or something in California. But after he died, I think they sent his ashes back to Japan, but that’s all I know. But I don’t know where he even went to because I’ve been to Japan a couple times since then.
And, you know, the customary thing that you visit the haka [grave]. And I don’t think he’s included in the family plot. And the (Inaudible), I mean it’s a big family plot that I don’t know how many bodies are in this here (Inaudible) at the church. I don’t think his ashes are in there. I never inquired either, but now that you ask about it, I don’t know if it’s there. I don’t know what happened.
TK: Although I did go to visit the haka.
ST: Of your father?
TK: Father’s side, yeah.
ST: I see.
TK: They’re all -- they’re both in the same – Shizuoka ken.
ST: They’re both from Shizuoka, okay.
ST: Yeah. Did -- was there a (Inaudible) for your father and your mother when they got married?
TK: I don’t know. I don’t think so. I don’t -- I don’t know.
ST: It’d be interesting to find out how they met because -- well, I think it’s kind of curious that they both happen to be from Shizuoka.
TK: Yeah.
ST: And it’s not that common ken , like if they’re both from Hiroshima, and that’s -- by chance that’s much more likely than Shizuoka.
TK: Well, up in Seattle there’s quite a few Shizuoka because remember going to the kenjinkai picnic when I was young. They used to have kenjinkai picnics up there.
ST: Yeah, on the island?
TK: No, in Seattle.
ST: In Seattle.
TK: Yeah.
ST: Was this while you were living on Bainbridge?
TK: Yeah, but I know they used to go to these kenjinkai picnics.
ST: I see.
TK: They’d take the ferry across and go to this picnic once a year. There were quite a few there.
ST: Was there a Shizuoka kenjinkai on the island then?
TK: No, nothing on the island.
ST: Nothing on the island?
TK: No, no.
ST: I see. So how often did you go in to Seattle when you were little to, say, a kenjinkai picnic or to --?
TK: Once a year, I think.
ST: Did you ever have any occasion to go to Seattle?
TK: You mean when we were kids?
ST: Yeah.
TK: Well, when my father got sick, I used to take time off from school and I had to go conduct the business.
ST: I see.
TK: When I was seventeen before I went to college, yeah. And I had a permit from the school that I just went to school about three and a half days a week because my father got sick and all my -- see, I have -- there were six children altogether, and when my father got sick we were all young.
I was only sixteen or so, and then my youngest sister was -- she’s nine years younger, so she was only seven when my father got sick; he had a stroke. So I had to take my time out my senior year. I only -- I went to school only like three and a half days a week or something like that. And I had to conduct business the rest of the time.
ST: Right. And so you were going to Seattle selling all your produce --
TK: Yeah.
ST: -- produce and flowers?
TK: And then buying supplies around the greenhouse.
ST: Where -- did you ever find out how your father was able to finance the greenhouse?
TK: Strictly rent.
ST: Rent?
TK: Just year to year rent.
ST: Was it -- was it -- the greenhouse already built when he rented it, or did he have to build it?
TK: No, the greenhouse was there when he rented it.
ST: I see.
TK: Yeah. Maybe that’s how come he got to Bainbridge. I didn’t—Olson was going to run the greenhouse or something. And then instead of being the greenhouse operator, I guess he went into operating the store, got more into the store side of it.
So, therefore, he -- I mean that’s how come he probably got to Bainbridge, and he probably found out there was a greenhouse for rent there. And that’s probably how he got there then. That was the only other reason why. But the greenhouse is there; the two greenhouses were there and then I heard afterward Olson built another greenhouse to get a little more rent there.
ST: And so from --
TK: But they were really small greenhouses. In fact, my mother wondered how he would even make a living. It’s smaller than one of our greenhouses we rent here, just -- we wanted to know how one greenhouse, just one. And that’s bigger than the three little ones that he had over there. They had less than 10,000 square feet of greenhouse.
And 10,000 is -- it’s a good size -- good size lot over here. There’s some houses over here with, you know, a lot are 10,000 square feet, so that wasn’t big at all.
ST: Yeah, that was -- that was one of my questions because when I found out that the strawberry farmers tended to buy on credit, and at harvest time they would pay off their debts and save what they could.
TK: The last -- yeah, the strawberries are one year -- income once a year, but greenhouses are year-round.
ST: I see.
TK: Yeah. So you don’t have the great big dollars coming in at one time, but the greenhouse, you’ve got income coming in every day of the week, every week of the year.
ST: So when you -- whenever you have to buy your supplies from Seattle, then you didn’t have to worry about credit or so?
[0:20:00]
TK: No, I think he had a pretty good credit. Yeah, I think he had enough money to buy it. I think -- well, he did take quite a loss at the Depression because I -- my mother used to say he didn’t even have a dime in the house when the banks folded, so that was tough then.
ST: Did he have all this money in the bank?
TK: Yeah.
ST: He did?
TK: Yeah.
ST: That’s unfortunate. Was it in the bank in Seattle or the bank on the island?
TK: I think it was Furuya’s .
ST: It was Furuya’s bank?
TK: Yeah.
ST: I see. I’m trying to think of what question I was going to ask you.
TK: Yeah. Then when the Furuya’s bank folded, they had to -- I think they borrowed some money then from Olson. But I think they borrowed -- Olson is a real good name. They didn’t have any children, and they were -- if they couldn’t pay their rent, I think some -- probably some years probably let him go for six months without even paying rent or something, yeah.
ST: Did you ever -- did you and your whole family ever go to Winslow for, say, the Nihongo Kai meetings?
TK: No. Although the island itself is close, you know, I mean the area was close, there was a distant relationship social wise, everything between the strawberry people and the greenhouse people. And there were only three greenhouse people, so the greenhouse -- the three greenhouse people, we were close. In fact, I mean, they used to have -- we used to have our own doing.
ST: Oh, really?
TK: -- just among the greenhouse people.
ST: So when you say just the greenhouse people are you talking -- did the Furuya or the Sekos were, you know, when you said only three --
TK: Yeah, there were only three main ones.
ST: I see.
TK: There was three of us. We used to have our, you know, some Sunday they called up on the phone and said let’s have a picnic or something and go down to either Pleasant Beach or down to -- we used to go fishing together.
I know we used to go fishing all together down to the docks for perch and rockfish, that sort of thing.
ST: That’s one thing I haven’t done yet. So, you know, when they had their annual picnic or something, Nihongo Kai would have their annual picnic you didn’t go?
TK: No.
ST: Generally your family didn’t go, or the greenhouse people didn’t go?
TK: I don’t think so. But did they have a picnic that, you know, the strawberry people?
ST: They did occasionally have some kind of gathering.
TK: They did have a hall there.
ST: Right.
TK: They did have a Japanese hall . I remember we used to have a lot of movies and stuff, the Japanese shows.
ST: Right. Did you go to those?
TK: I don’t know if my folks went or not. I didn’t go, but I don’t know if they went, because, again, there were different schools. At that time it was a grade school in Pleasant Beach.
ST: Right.
TK: And then there was a Lincoln grade school in Winslow. And then there was another school in Eagledale. Oh, there was another greenhouse. Akimoto up in Creosote way. Yeah, there was one greenhouse up there but it burnt down early.
TK: So I know we didn’t go to Winslow hardly at all, other than we went to church there to the Baptist church. There was a mission there that -- Hirakawa I guess his name was.
ST: Oh, you went to Reverend Hirakawa’s church?
TK: Yeah. There was another strawberry grower by the name of Fukuyama (?) , the son. He’s a minister now.
ST: I see.
TK: He used to come after us, so I remember -- I remember had an old pickup to ride to go the. If we didn’t want to go to church then we would go swimming or something and they couldn’t find us, yeah.
ST: Then did you -- they had a Judo instructor, too. Did you ever take Dojo?
TK: Yeah, I took Judo for about two years.
ST: Out on the island?
[0:25:00]
TK: Yeah, at the Nihongo Kai community hall there, yeah.
TK: So, but we were -- again, they were -- oh, and there was another family by the name of Tonooka Strawberry Grower. So the people, whether they were greenhouse or strawberries, the south island had our own little group, and we didn’t associate with the one in Winslow until later years.
ST: Until later years?
TK: Yeah.
ST: In those early years then do you know if they had
their own organization, their own Nihonjinkai ?
TK: No, I don’t think so.
ST: Oh, they didn’t?
TK: No, they were just -- let’s do something and get together during that time, yeah.
ST: And so it didn’t matter what ken or anything you’re from; it’s just that geographically --
TK: Geographical location, yeah, was the hub of the community activities.
TK: Yeah, if we went to Tacoma from Bainbridge Island that was really something.
ST: What -- well, for what reason would you be going to Tacoma? Did you have relatives there, or --?
TK: No, I seldom went that far. It was really something, yeah, because I remember one time a friend of ours took a few of us kids to Tacoma on a train ride just to go over there and back again and just to say that we went to Tacoma.
And that was really something; I can still remember that going over there. We were going to Puyallup Fair; it was really something.
TK: Yeah. But those days were sure different. Like when we went to only five miles away or eight miles, whatever it was, you know, it was --
ST: Did -- what kind of transportation did your father have? Did he have a horse and buggy or did he have his two feet?
TK: No, no, I don’t think -- he didn’t have a horse, always had a truck.
ST: He did have a truck?
TK: Yeah.
ST: He needed a truck to go to Seattle.
TK: Yeah, needed something to go to Seattle, yeah. Had to either buy coal for the furnace or oil. So we had a tank on the truck. Before then we were buying coal. So he’d take the produce in and buy coal and bring it back in the truck. We had -- most times we had a passenger car or truck, though.
ST: Did -- well, did the other greenhouse people have a truck or was it, you know, like one person had the truck --
TK: No, I think everybody had a truck.
ST: Everybody had their own truck?
TK: Everybody had a truck, yeah. Let’s see, Takayoshis, they had a truck only. I don’t think they had a passenger car. And the Furutas were the best ones off.
TK: I’m pretty sure Bainbridge, there was that -- I know they couldn’t make a living in the publishing company. They couldn’t get -- they couldn’t -- so the -- that’s how come he said he learned -- oh, he had a real good friend in Seattle from Shizuoka.
ST: I see.
TK: He passed away and now I forgot his name. But I know their kids and I -- well, I forgot their last name now. They got a greenhouse on the side of the hill. And they encouraged him; they were -- they were friends from Japan.
[0:30:08]
ST: I see.
TK: And they encouraged him to go into the greenhouse, and they helped him quite a bit. And then to find a place to rent, well, they found this greenhouse on Bainbridge.
ST: I see.
TK: Yeah, yeah. That’s how come they ended up Bainbridge.
ST: So, with this friend he knew him in Shizuoka before the both of them moved over to the --
TK: I’m pretty sure, yeah, yeah.
ST: So –
TK: Well, I think my father came, you know, to the United States but he never went back.
ST: But he never -- did he ever talk to you about Japan, about wanting to go back?
TK: No, I never did get that sort of thing. I never got to talk to my father too much at all because he passed away when I was away.
ST: I see.
TK: Yeah.
ST: But then this friend, after you moved to Bainbridge did he ever see this guy? Did, you know, like when your father went to Seattle did he always go and see his friend and go to the --
TK: Oh, I think, yeah. They were pretty close. In fact, oh geez, I can’t think of their name. I -- when I go back I still go to the place even today.
ST: I see.
TK: Yeah.
ST: It’s in Seattle. Do they still have greenhouses?
TK: No, outside of Seattle.
ST: Do they have a greenhouse there?
TK: Yeah, they have a greenhouse. Their son is operating
it now.
ST: I see. Is it in Renton by any chance?
TK: Downtown Renton, yeah.
ST: I wonder is it --
TK: It’s not (Inaudible).
ST: Yoshitomi?
TK: No, it’s not (Inaudible) Mono.
ST: Mono?
TK: Yeah, Mono; that’s what it is, Mono .
ST: M-O-N-O?
TK: Yeah, Mono.
ST: I see.
TK: Yeah, that’s -- so that was a good friend of my father’s, yeah. And then through them he got to be good friends with like Kawasaki , the poinsettia king over there.
ST: Who?
TK: Kawasaki -- I think his name is Kawasaki.
TK: yeah, once you get into this business, it’s daily we’re competitive. But socially we are real close, even here. Now my salesmen, I don’t get into sales now myself, but my salesmen are cutting each others’ throat as far as our competitors are concerned.
But a manager, like us, me and some of the other owner, you know, the large operators, we’re socializing all the time.
ST: I see.
TK: Yeah, we socialize all the time. And we work on bills together. We go to Sacramento together, pass certain bills. We back up certain candidates for legislature and all that sort of thing. We work together on the upper management level, see.
But my men are cussing the other guys up all the time. And every now and then, you know, we talk about it. But, you know, their level, that’s where they carry on there.
ST: So like --
TK: But like with socially things we’re all close.
ST: With your father’s greenhouse and --
TK: Yeah, they were real friendly, yeah.
ST: So this Mono person then --
TK: Yeah.
ST: -- he was probably a friend of your father before coming in and then --
TK: I’m pretty sure he was, yeah, or they got real good friends in Seattle.
ST: I see.
TK: Out of Shizuoka.
ST: Okay. Well, that really helps. That’s -- kind of explains a lot.
TK: But, you know, they were strangers in a new foreign land. And, you know, birds of a like feather flock together, and that’s probably the way they operated. And there was a guy at the greenhouse, and the greenhouse people, they had their meetings and got to be friendly that way. And then socially and business-wise, everything just focused one way then.
ST: And so he would probably be the one who helped your father learn the business from the newspaper and then the greenhouse?
TK: Yeah, you get it going and then you pick up a lot by visiting every other peoples’ greenhouse, too. And then you get to be friendly with them. So then it’s no longer the Kenjinkai a barrier…or the motivating focal point of getting together. It’s the business end coming together then.

Keywords:
Minidoka
Manzanar
Emmanuel and Edna Olson
Loverich store
Lynnwood Center
Takeshi Kitayama
David L. Jones
Furuta Greenhouse
Masajiro Furuya
Shizuoka
Kenjinkai
Reverend Hirakawa
Winslow Japanese Baptist Church
Lincoln Grade School
Eagledale
Nihongo Kai community hall
Fujinkai
Tonooka Family

Tanaka, Stefan

Kitayama, Tom