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This oral history is from an interview conducted by the Oral History cluster of the Landscapes of Injustice project.
you better watch these Japs, you know
and they'll come, you watch them at night because they'll come with a knife and could stab youwhich was you know, but that was one thing but after we started working on the field we worked during the summer when the grain field, like after the grain was cut we had to stoke it. It's not like what it is today where you go in with expensive combines and do all the operation at one time you had to go get the grain cut and then the bind would go and make it into shaves and then so then later on the floor ... you had to put it into stooks. Well my mother and my younger brother and myself did a lot of stoking. My older brother was all worked and during the time of harvest he could have a team of horses. He had the best team of horses, I can still remember the horses, were real dark, black horses we called Dick and Anne and they were the most powerful horses that you know pulled the load of shaves and the thrashing machine. You know because to the thrashing machine and then you have to put the shaves onto this machines so that each shief will go and cut the twine so to spread the ... spread it all out so that it could be shakin' up and the seeds dropped out and eventually that would go through an auger and into the grainery. I somehow had the job of stuffing the grainery trying to shove the whenever the grain came in it was getting filled up, you had to shove it towards in so that more grain would come in. And that was not a pleasant job you know as you get towards later on in the day the grainery is getting full and you're getting in restrictive space.
I was in Van fuckin' couver
oh wowso that's where I went. Stayed there you know because there we moved the business moved to Portage East and so forth.
wow that's the best carving I've seen!, you know it's so I don't know what happened to that its long gone but other than your own clothing and things I can't recall any special items that I grabbed. you had mentioned the old Chevrolet that you packed up when you were leaving, where did the Chevrolet go when you had to go onto the train? Yeah. I think we just left it at Mount Lehman because one of the things, because you couldn't sell it nobody would buy it ... because the people who had strawberry farms or people fisherman who had boats like my wife's parents, my wife's father had a taxi business he had a fleet of two car you know and those two taxis was just left it was never compensated for. Just like the fishing boats and the strawberry farms and so forth because I think all the fishing boats were sold in an auction and so. Other than years later when Brian Mulroney was the prime minister there was Art Miki fought really hard for the redress money right? And eventually we you know we got compensated for that. Which compared to like the people who had fishing boats and the more expensive the more money involved the compensation wasn't very much for those who had nothing like we didn't have very much so that was okay you know. Can you tell me any stories you remember of what would have happened to different people's properties when they were forced to leave? Well I don't know no I don't, what I know is what I read. You know, in the internet whatever stories that the people have said so ... I know that ... a lot of them who had that weren't happy at all but because you know like when it happened I think the government was in a panic they didn't know exactly what to do all they thought of was let's get these Japanese out of the coast line which you know let's put them hundred miles inland which was just Hope, BC that was about a hundred miles from the coast line so everybody had to be East of Hope. And that's where all of the all of these little towns like Kaslo and all those places. You know they put up shacks and you know almost like a temporary settlement in a way.
what the heck, let's just get on with life after, it wasn't right but. And that goes for anything, discrimination today in Canada against the aboriginals or the coloured in the US or Syrians or whatever there's no it's not justice it's it should be you know it's gotta be a better they gotta do better then what their situation is today. So I dunno the more I think about it I don't hold any grudge, it's because I think if you compare the countries and where you wanna live I think Canada is still one of the best places to live.
make America great againidea, that's what you know because the Yankees generally feel everything their way you know and they're a very protective you're a protectionist. You know even with dealing with Canada, it's you got the soft wood industry well that we're gonna put a deal on it or beef or grain or anything else if it's not favoring them they want to change it right. So I dunno it's kinda ... Well that was great, thank you for allowing us to interview you. Well I don't know, I hope I put something that some information. Of course, well thank you.