Oral History Program Norborn “Skip” Tabata Interviewed by James K. Arbuckle 12 February 1971 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Norborn “Skip” Tabata Interviewed by James K. Arbuckle 12 February 1971 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. 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These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed Kelley Evans, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. 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Arbuckle, 12 February 1971, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Noborn “Skip” Tabata. The interview was conducted on February 12, 1971, by James K. Arbuckle, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Tabata discusses parts of his life, and experiences he had when World War II began. JA: What were you doing when World War II started? NT: In 1941 when the war came, as far as I can recall that day, December the 7th, I got up real early. I was the only civilian on a Japanese Service basketball team. We went barn storming over in Oakland that day and our game started at 10: 00 in the morning. As soon as the game was finished we came out we were going to the restaurant to eat) and we heard that Pearl Harbor war bombed, all service personnel report back to base—this was Fort Ord. Golly, what a confusion. We went over the Bay Bridge, I remember; we got stopped; we told them who we were and we had to get back to Monterey. I think two of the fellows were wearing the United States Army uniform, so we didn't have any problem. So we hurried back. JA: Your Dad had been a citizen of the United States, then, for quite a few years? NT: No. JA: He was still a Canadian citizen? NT: Yeah. Now the United States had a law saying that all Orientals could not become American citizens. They were excluded on this thing. And here's the discrimination again because of the fact that ever since the Chinese and Japanese came they said that the Japanese were taking their jobs—the Caucasian jobs—away, and that the Chinese were doing this, and so there was quite a bit of discrimination here. I was too young to 1 remember this. I mean, I went to school, I had Caucasian friends. But Monterey was a unique town because Monterey was composed of more Italians- Sicilians—than really actual Anglo-Saxon Caucasians, and so we got along real, real well. As far as I remember myself, I've never been in any discrimination. My Dad got along with the fishermen —Italians —real well. JA: What happened to your family, then, after Pearl Harbor? NT: During that particular time, my sister—she's a cosmetologist—was working in San Francisco. My brother was in Oakland, working as a vegetable salesman at a retail outfit for a Japanese vegetable businessman. And I and my younger sister were home with Dad. JA: Where was your mother at that time? NT: Mother was dead. My mother passed away in 1932. I was still in high school then. So my Dad raised most of it. And then we were wondering, gosh, now what! Then as the war progressed—the early months of the war—word came that all Japanese personnel... really, it started out with saying all enemy aliens must move out of military areas such and such and such and such because of the danger of invasion and all that kind of business, you know. At first, if it's all enemy aliens, well that becomes Germans, Italians, Japanese; but because of the background of Yellow Peril — what you call it—it became the Japanese must move. They used the word enemy aliens, but not referring to Germans or Italians --it's more Japanese. And so I said, well, Dad, I guess you'll have to move inland a little bit. I'm not too worried because I'm an American born citizen of the United States. We Nisei talked about this quite often, and he said, well, since some of the Nisei are in the services we'll have to do our part in order to do this. And Dad said, yes, I guess you're 2 right, you know, but, however, son, he said, you know, really I'm not a Japanese citizen anymore—I'm a Canadian citizen. Oh, I said, Oh! You got papers. He said, yeah. And he dragged out the papers. He stored them away so long they were all yellow. And I said, oh yeah, you are a Canadian citizen. So we contacted the Canadian consulate and the consulate told us, oh no, since you have been living in the United States since 1995 sic and never paid Canadian taxes since then, we are now rescinding this paper and we're not recognizing it anymore. Another thing that's happened, because of the fact that the Japanese were denied citizenship--they were denied also property ownership because you can only own property if you are an American citizen or naturalized American citizen--and so the Japanese were denied this privilege. They couldn't buy property. But my Dad did!--on the strength of his Canadian citizenship. And he was the only one that I know of. And so consequently, when Dad passed away we had to probate his property, because it was in his name. And as far as I know, he's the only one. All the rest of the Japanese who bought property, they bought property in the name of their children, because they were American citizens by birth; and they were able to do this. But my Dad put it in his name because he was a Canadian citizen all these years; but since Canada won't recognize it, and, I guess, Canada had war hysteria, too, and they said no, I don't recognize it, then that presented a problem. As the days went on, the word got around that all Japanese, regardless, must move out of the military area number 1, which Monterey was one. There was a certain part of Oakland that was not; it was declared as area number 2. And since my brother was living over there, we said Dad, what shall we do, and Dad said, well, I'll go to live with my NT's oldest brother, then. And so this is what we did. I sent Dad to my older brother and 3 I stayed in Monterey; but as the word came about that all Japanese, regardless of American citizenship or aliens or what, had to move out of this strategic area number 1. It was older Nisei who understood the workings, they protested, but nothing came about. So we said, gosh, what do I do. And Dad said, well, I'll give you power of attorney—and I'm a young man. I don't know anything about the power of attorney. I guess we've got to either sell the house or sell the boat and liquidate all the assets that we can and carry all the belongings that we can and get out of there--I mean, to move out! Now once again, here comes that fortunate deal. At our Japanese church there was a man by the name of Mr. Claude Estelle and his wife Esther—and they were our advisors as far as the young people's church group was concerned. How fortunate it is to have friends that are of that kind. JA: They were Japanese? NT: No, they were Caucasian. He said, Skip, why don't you give me a power of attorney and I'll watch the house for you and I'll watch the boat for you. All you have to do is board up the windows so the windows don't get all bashed in and stuff like that, and I'll watch it for you. I said, gosh, oh I appreciate that. So I asked Dad--I phoned him--and he said, well gee, one thing, do this. It's easy to watch the house because it's on solid ground and he lives there. However, it's very difficult to watch a boat, or mooring. It'll rot, barnacles come on, and some great big storm might come on and blow them right to shore. And this will create a tremendous anxiety on Mr. Estelle to worry about a thing like this in such a situation. So he said, I think you ought to sell the boat and keep the house and have Mr. Estelle take care of that. At least watching the boat and the anxiety will be relieved from him, and we don't want to put Mr. Estelle in a position where he'd become obligated to a 4 thing like this. He was very wise in this decision. There's a Japanese word for it—I'm just trying to think. There's Japanese that says this: Don't create a situation where you put another man in a decision making situation. And so he said, we'll sell the boat. It's a $15,000 boat, with everything that's on there. They were buying boats for $100, $200--what can you do? This one man said, I understand you've got a boat, and I said, yeah. How much you want for it? I said well, it's a $15,000 boat, you know. He said, well, I'll give you $200 for it. I said, golly, a $15,000 boat for $200—I'd better do something better than that. And he says, how much you want for it? And I said, well, gee, I don't know, I want to get at least 2 or 3 thousand dollars. You'll never sell it—you'll never sell it! And he was right! Finally I asked him for about $900 and he said well, I'll give you five. And that's what I sold the boat for--$500. JA: Did most of the Japanese people have to sell their belongings for that kind of money? NT: Most of it, because in the Monterey area quite a few did take a great loss--a tremendous loss. JA: What made you decide to come to Utah? NT: Boy, that's a story in itself. After we sold the boat for $500, and we took our money out of the bank, before the freeze came, -- the Japanese people couldn't even draw out money after that--we were fortunate, Dad and I, we drew our money out and had about $8, 000 saved up and Dad was a very conservative man, and so he was able to save, and he taught me this from the start that, boy, you've got to save your money. I've got a little bit of this heritage in me. Other fishermen, they were making big money --they made their money but they spent it, and some of them were really in a tight fix. But Dad wasn't. $8,000 at that particular time was pretty big money. So then we drew out all our money 5 and moved to Oakland. My brother was working for Mr. Yamata who had a brother-in-law by the name of Mr. Water and Mr. Water was quite a businessman in groceries--he started out with a little grocery store, and expanded to two, three stores and he had a pretty lucrative business going. Now Mr. Water, he and a Mr. Estelle, who was a business man at that particular time in the Oakland-Berkeley area, they got together and they talked to a Reverend Gayland Fisher. Now this name will come out quite often in the annals of Japanese-American missionary work--a tremendous man! He talked to Mr. Water and Mr. Estelle saying, gosh, you have to get out--evacuate--even in the area two, the word came out that we've got to evacuate out of there, too--and so we couldn't stay in California. Then the United States Government gave us --they felt that instead of evacuating the area, why don't we give them a chance to voluntarily evacuate out of the area, hoping that everybody would get out, but this didn't happen. Only about 6, 000 out of the 119, 000 Japanese came out, which was a very small percentage. Well, we were one of them! And this Gayland Fisher said, Mr. Water why don't you go the state of Utah and look around. Since the Japanese farmers in the area of California are evacuating out of California, as far as the war effort is concerned, they've got to have food. So we ought to concentrate on food as a contribution to the war effort and still raise food. But since we can't do it in California you ought to look in the areas of the Colorado--Utah--Idaho areas. Mr. Water heard there's a nice ranch in Colorado and so he was on his way, being a businessman he took off on his own under the guardianship of Reverend Gayland Fisher, again. On the way through Utah, he stopped in Salt Lake and was going towards Colorado on Highway 40. He stopped at a little town in a little restaurant called Keatley. There was a motel and a restaurant there, and he stopped there to get something to eat. 6 This area was called the Fisher Ranch. Up by Heber. And Mr. Fisher was sitting there. And they got to talking and Mr. Fisher said, oh, is that what you're going to do? Well, I've got 300 acres over here. Why don't you lease that? And they talked. It happened that 300 acres were cattle--I mean, there was no farmland--sage brush and everything. So he said well, gosh, instead of going all the way to Colorado why don't we do something about this? The motel there--I don't know--I think it was ten apartments. There were one, two, about seven houses. So he told Mr. Fisher, yeah, okay, this is what we'll do. So he came back to Oakland and Mr. Estelle had ten children and so they gathered friends. Well since my brother was working for Mr. Water, we were one of the people. This is the reason why we ended up in Utah—under this particular program. JA: How did your Dad feel about having to leave the coast? NT: Real bad. JA: I guess he was quite elderly at that time? NT: Yeah, he was elderly then. Gee, I can't even remember how old he was now. He must have been in his 70's or 80's. See, he got married late; and so did I. Gosh I was 32 when I got married. Dad was almost 35 when he got married. Even then he was almost in his 70's--late 70's. JA: I guess it would be a pretty hard thing to do? NT: Right, right—this is, to pull up stakes, working so hard to buy a house, property—and here it all so settled down. Children growing up. Always thinking that if he brings the children up in a proper manner, give them an education. That's his life, then, will be such. And then all of a sudden wham! This happens! JA: Was there much of a Japanese colony in Utah at that time? 7 NT: There were, there were. How many there were I couldn't tell you. Persons like Ushiro, long-time Utahn, Nagasawa's, can answer that more than probably I can. JA: How did they feel about people coming in from the coast? NT: Real well, real well. And I say that because of the fact that they were businessmen and they were catering to the small Japanese community. So when the whole flux of Japanese came in, boy, their business boomed, I mean, boomed, and so economically it was a boon to them. JA: So socially they accepted them? NT: Socially, it was real fine, as far as Japanese-Japanese was concerned. However, we had a little bit of difficulty in the state of Utah towards Japanese coming in, I heard later. Talking to a few Caucasian friends, that I had made, saying that they had worried, he said, gosh, here's California, they're sending their undesirable Japanese that they don't want over there and they're sending them to us. What's going to happen to the state of Utah? When this word came around, the army, the officials, started to set up a program saying: now wait a minute, now. We're sending these Japanese into the inlands not because they're disloyal, but for military reasons. Actually, it was economic reasons and things about Yellow Peril, but in order to soft soap this thing they said they're not disloyal, they haven't been proven disloyal, but we had to get them out in your area-- so you people should accept them. JA: What about the Japanese in Hawaii? Now they didn't move them to the continental United States or anything did they? Were there any other groups of Japanese other than the West Coast that were affected? NT: You know, Oregon, Washington. 8 JA: The whole West Coast. But nothing on the East Coast was there? NT: Nothing in the East Coast, no. JA: Nothing in Hawaii? NT: Ah... JA: Sounds like discrimination, doesn't it? NT: Yeah! I've never heard of the Hawaiian--but I guess that it came out pretty good. Most of the Hawaiian people were Japanese anyway. If they moved the whole Japanese island, there'd be nobody there—percentage wise. But then, Hawaii was an island, they were already bombed, they were already attacked. They use the excuse that the continental United States' West Coast being vulnerable to Japanese attack and landing and invasion type of a deal--so I think this is why the West Coast area—Oregon, Washington, California—was effected more. First it said strategic area and then it got to be everywhere. JA: How many Japanese do you think voluntarily came into the Utah area? NT: I think the statistics were overall only voluntarily 6, 000, but out of that 6, 000, how many came into the Utah area, I can't answer you. JA: Were there quite a few? NT: No, no, not too many. We were trying to establish a Japanese community at Keatley. And we were 140 women and children and men and the whole group. I think there was something like 60 families --something like that—but 140. JA: Did you farm up there or did you just raise cattle or...? NT: No, most of us, we're not cattle men or sheep men or we're not— what you call it. Like myself—fisherman—some grocery store clerks, gardeners and this type of a deal. Out of 9 the group there were three families who were farmers, actual farmers. My father and mother-in-law were one of them. My wife's folks were one of them. Now to do farming, we needed to have equipment, so since Mom and Dad had all the farming equipment and there was one family out of the California area who had farm equipment, and, boy, through extensive getting down on our knees and humbling, praying and coaxing, he said, here we've got farmland and no instruments and implements to farm. You ought to let us bring this equipment out of California. No you can't! Yes, we need it. People like Reverend Gayland Fisher and a few of the Caucasian friends, who went to bat for us, were able to turn around and we loaded these implements into a freight car and we brought it into the state of Utah. Then we said, okay, we've got a farm now, but one thing we have to do--we have to let the people of Utah know that we are yellow, that we are Japanese and Japanese-Americans, but we are loyal and we are doing our effort and so Mr. Fisher and Water got up and they put up a billboard-- a great big billboard—and he said this is a Japanese colony. We are raising food for freedom! You know this type of a deal. And we advertised. JA: How did you get along with the local people up in that area? NT: Some of the people were very reluctant at first. We had a couple of dynamiting incidents. The miners came one night--midnight-- and threw four, five sticks of dynamite right into our lettuce patch and blew a great big hole. If they really were belligerent, they could've thrown it into the motel, but they really weren't. What they were doing—scare tactics type of an idea. They weren't really belligerent; they didn't understand. If they were really belligerent, they could've thrown it into the apartment and killed people. But they threw it in the ranch where... what did they do, I mean, blew a hole in a vegetable patch, and blew 10 up a few lettuces. However, like Mr. Fisher, who rented the ranch for us, and Mr. O'Toole, who ran the restaurant, they were a peak of a people. They accepted us, and we didn't have too much problem. As the children went to school in Heber, and- they met, they didn't really... I attribute this thing to the upbringing of the Christian background—the L. D. S. love concept type of a deal, which impressed me real, real greatly. I, being already a Christian, wanted to attend church and Heber was the closest one. So I attended church there--L. D. S. services — and I was able to set down and naturally being a Japanese and not knowing how I'm going to be accepted, this type of a deal, I sat at the corner, so I wouldn't become too conspicuous. I remember one time we were... the L. D. S. church passes Sacrament once a month or every Sunday or whatever. Being a Christian I partook of it. And then, after a while one of the persons of the L. D. S. Church said, you can't partake of it because you're not of our faith. And I said, yes this is true, I'm not of your faith, but I am a Christian, and I understand the sacrament very well. He looked at me very surprising like and said, oh you're a Christian! Since then I've never had any particular problem. He was really surprised. He said, excuse me, since you were a Christian and you were a leader in your particular church in California you ought to start a Sunday school at Keatley. So every Sunday we opened up two apartments and we started a Christian Sunday School. Half the children were Buddhists, but they came anyway. So we started this Sunday school. Then word got around that we were there. We raised lettuce, the crop was short; there was a ranch up the hill, above Hailstone Junction, and we rented that and we plowed all the sage brush out of there and we raised strawberries over there. The deer came off the hills and ate up all the strawberries. I think we irrigated and raised about 15 acres and all 11 the rest we couldn't do anything with. As we lived there, word got around that we were there. People came and they said, oh yeah, they've got Oriental faces but they speak English. They go to church; they do everything that... they play baseball. So word got around and we got pretty well established there. And then word came from Spanish Fork, Provo area, saying we've got to have beet thinners and later on beet topplers; we've got to harvest our peas and we need labor. Mr. Water said, oh, we're available. We're a bunch of hardy men; we'll go. I remember going to Spanish Fork. We lived in a barn--that's all the housing they had-- so we drew straw around and we took our blankets--I never heard of a sleeping bag at that particular time. I didn't have a sleeping bag--so we slept on straw. We went out in the mornings and we thinned beets. When the peas got ripe, and they mowed it down, we loaded them on this big bed and we took it to the cannery and loaded it into the hoppers. Not being a farmer, that really fascinated me to see--I always thought that you picked peas one by one, pods, you know, and break them up--boy, they mow the doggone things and load them and put them in a hopper and all the little peas came out the side and the vine came out. Machines doing the work! And this fascinated me, because I've always been a mechanical minded guy and machinery fascinates me. JA: Did you stay at Keatley the whole period of the war until 1945? NT: No, one year, just one year. And then in December, I remember, all the group got together and paid their bills and the rent that Mr. Fisher wanted--seems like $3, 000 or something like that. After it was all done, each member of the family who had worked got $50. We got $200 because I had Dad, myself, my sister and my brother and $50 each was $200 for a whole year's work. While living there, my life's savings of $8,000 went out the window. We were broke! So then my brother and I and my Dad sat down one night and he said we 12 can't do this. We've got to find some kind of work, because, gosh, we were fortunate enough to have the $8,000, but now that's gone and we can't be working and make only $50 per person in a whole year. We'll starve to death. We've got to do something. So then we went to Mr. Water and we said we can't do this. We've got to move out of here. We've got to do something. Then Mr. Water went to Salt Lake and contacted someone and then word came that we needed tin—for the war effort. And they were telling all the people in Utah to save their tin cans—save them because we've got to use this thing. And so Mr. Water said why don't we gather up these tin cans for them— go around. And so he contacted a junk yard, and this was Mr. Manny Pepper—at Pepper's junk yard. Mr. Pepper said, yeah, we need workers, because all the young men were in the army and he couldn't get anybody to sort rags and cut the scrap iron. And fortunately again! Mr. Water said, I've got some able bodied men over here, why don't you give them a job? And he said, oh yeah, send them down. So we were commuting from Keatley in the winter months to Pepper's junk yard and back—every day. Snow storm? Boy! I'd never driven in snow. This scared me half to death but here's a job that I have to do and I can make—even if it's 50 cents an hour—it was work! We got up early in the morning and we came down and worked. We hauled tin cans and we'd load it up on these open train beds. I think we got five carloads of this loaded. Then Mr. Water again said, gee, here are Japanese people. We've got to let them know we're loyal and we're doing war effort. So here we put up a billboard again. Tin cans for the war effort, type of deal. To let the people know at least. Then the spring came so we decided, gosh, we'll move out. We discussed it and everybody was agreeable that we can no longer stay as a Japanese community alone. We've got to get out. 13