Interview with Akira Toki, February 4, 1994, Madison, Wisconsin

STEVE KOLMAN: This is Steve Kolman interviewing Akira Toki for the Wisconsin during World War II oral history Project. The Date is February 4, 1994, and the interview is taking place in Madison, Wisconsin. I'm curious then, when did your father move here and why, why did he choose to come to Madison of all places?

AKIRA TOKI: Well, my father left the old country in 1908, so he came to Hawaii and he stayed in Hawaii for a little while. I think he worked on a sugar plantation in Hawaii for a little while then he came to San Francisco. And he didn't stay in San Francisco very long till he found a job with a telephone gang of the railroad so he ended up in Wyoming at that time, when he came from San 00:01:00Francisco. He ended up with a telephone gang in Wyoming. {Here the dog begins to yip uncontrollably] So he strung wires for the railroad. And then he did that for a little while and then he wanted to--well I guess he just wanted another job so he went to sugar plantation, sugar beet plantation. That was in Nebraska. So in Nebraska he worked on sugar plantation, then he was a school boy too. He was trying to learn-- [He gets up to put the dog out] Well, so when he was in Nebraska he worked on the sugar beets farm then he was a school boy too, he was trying to learn English. So he was working on the farm and going to school. He 00:02:00had a tutor. So I think he must have stayed in Nebraska maybe about a year or so. And then they decided to build a sugar beet factory in Madison so that's how my dad followed the sugar beet and he helped build that sugar beet factor in Madison. You know where Olbrich Garden is out there, you know there's a great big red brick building back there, well he helped build that. But the sugar beets--it didn't work out I guess around this area or the growing season or something was wrong. So they folded up. So my dad, well he lost--he didn't have a job after that so he worked as a section gang on the railroad so he got a job 00:03:00on the railroad. And he worked for the railroad and then he worked in the roundhouse where they repair engines. He did all those kind of things while he was in Madison. And I guess he had no intention of moving away from Madison. I think he must have liked Madison. So he stayed here. And he worked at the railroad a couple--three years then he was befriended by a German man so decided they'd go in partnership, go farming, a dairy farm. So I think that dairy farm maybe lasted about a year or so and then I guess it didn't work out too good so 00:04:00they came back to Madison and then he went back to working on the railroad.

STEVE KOLMAN: Where was the dairy farm?

AKIRA TOKI: In Marshall. And well my dad talks about, he did talk about, how they drove the cattle out to Marshall, they bought the cows in town Madison and drove them out to Marshall with horse and wagon. Just like the pioneer days. [laugh]. So I think they must have farmed maybe about a year or so out there.

STEVE KOLMAN: Had he had any experience in that kind of farming?

AKIRA TOKI: No no my dad had no experience in running a dairy farm or anything. Because while he was in Japan, from what I hear and gather, that he was a store clerk. I guess he was a grocery store, he helped run, you know. So he had no 00:05:00experience in farming at all. In fact he never had no experience working for the railroad or anything. He just, he needed the money so he just worked at it, to survive. And then the farm didn't succeed too good so they came back to the city and then they worked for the railroad up until my mother came. See my mother came here in 1914 and she was as if you know what a picture bride is? The picture bride is--they had a go between. Somebody Over in Japan and my father 00:06:00had somebody working together [with him as a matchmaker] see, so they exchanged pictures. So my father sent a picture over there to the people that were working for my father to get a wife and my mother had her picture given to another family. So two families got together and matched them up. So I guess it's not--it wasn't for love or anything, he just laugh they just matched them up that way. Then those people okayed it and then my mother came across the Pacific Ocean to Seattle, Washington, and my father went to Seattle to get her. So only thing they had to recognize each other was a picture of each other laugh. And 00:07:00there were on that boat, several picture bride Women. On that boat. So they didn't, each of those women, didn't know who the husband was or anything. [laugh] The only thing was--was by picture, that's all. So that's how my father and mother got together and they were married in Seattle and then they came to Madison, but they didn't spend too much time in Seattle so they came to Madison and they---he worked for the railroad for a little while then they decided they wanted to go farming, between the two.

STEVE KOLMAN: Was your mother from a farming family?

AKIRA TOKI: Yeah, my mother was from a farming family. Well, I guess you'd call her a farmer's daughter or whatever you want to call her, you know. She had the 00:08:00experience in farming a little bit. So those two got together, so my mother and father got together and they decided to go farming. So they bought a--they didn't buy it but they rented--a little 15-20 acre farm, I think it is, out there by where--Ed Phillips--on South Towne. So they went out there and farmed for maybe a year, year and a half. Then a neighbor man saw them working so hard and getting things, making things grow, so he kind of befriended them, said, "How about running an 80 acre farm?" And then he helped him get the dairy cows and all that kind of.--it was too big for regular truck farm, you know, grow vegetable--and so they just switched over and went to dairy.

STEVE KOLMAN: So were they doing vegetables and dairy or just dairy?

AKIRA TOKI: No, no, [just] dairy. So my dad and that man who befriended him to help them with this big farm, they worked together. So my dad got, he got dairy cattle, then he had pigs and he had chickens. It was a regular farm, that's what it was. That's where I kind of grew up. So he, I think, I don't know maybe ten, fifteen years we ran that farm. Maybe ten years I think we ran that farm.

STEVE KOLMAN: So your father was running it for someone else?

AKIRA TOKI: Were working together. So, well my dad owned, he owned all the 00:10:00cattle and the stuff, but the man that owned the farm, he helped, pitched in and helped him get it going, you know. And if he needed--if my dad needed help to get the Crops in, well he'd come over and help him get the crops and stuff in. So all that equipment and everything my dad owned on this farm. So he bought equipment that he needed to run the farm. Like he had, well see like in the Spring time when they'd plow, they didn't have no tractors in those days, they had horses. So, you know, when it's late spring or something they had to get that crop in in a hurry, well he had--the other man had horses, too, so they worked together and plowed the ground up and get the crops in. Then if he needed 00:11:00to help harvest, he came over and helped him harvest too. Because they were--his family wasn't too far away from the farm so he the partner was close by. So we ran that for maybe a good ten years I think. Then his daughter grew up, [and she] wanted to run the farm. So the man came and asked us if we would move. So then we bought a farm after that, another little farm, small farm in the same area now, the same area. So we when his daughter and son-in-law got married they 00:12:00moved onto the farm so we had to move. So we bought a small farm. The equipment we had, we had a big auction sale so we got rid of all the heavy equipment that we had on the farm to work with that farm. Then we moved to a small farm that we bought, oh I must have been [in the] second, third grade when we moved to this farm.

STEVE KOLMAN: So that would put this at what year?

AKIRA TOKI: Oh let's see, see my mother came. .

STEVE KOLMAN: Mid twenties, something like that?

AKIRA TOKI: Yeah somewheres in there.

STEVE KOLMAN: You were born in nineteen . . . ?

AKIRA TOKI: Sixteen, yeah, yeah. So they bought the farm and then it was small 00:13:00farm. So we couldn't go into dairy farming anymore because it was too small, not enough ground. So we went back and growing vegetables again. And at that time there were, motor vehicles were around but not plentiful. So when we started that farm up there, a truck farm, my dad bought a truck, a motor truck, so we could deliver the stuff to town. So my dad bought that truck and then he grew vegetables until, on that farm, until 1935. So my dad would, we would grow the 00:14:00vegetables, our family harvested the vegetable crops, then we had kids working for us too, high school kids. And some--a couple of grade school kids. They picked beans and peas and all that kind of things they did.

STEVE KOLMAN: How hard was it to make that transition from dairy farming back to vegetable farming and what do you recall about that?

AKIRA TOKI: I don't know because I was too small. Because it might have been quite a transition, I don't know, because it's an altogether different kind of operation. And then we or I guess my dad had to figure out how to get rid of the vegetables that he grew, so we use to call--we had a telephone. First we 00:15:00started, we took the vegetables on the truck and went to each store and they're all family stores, you know, on corner stores. Not like it is nowadays. Then my dad would have to go in the store and talk to the produce manager or the manager and see what he wanted off the truck. So that was kind of a all day affair, trying to get rid of all the vegetables he had on the truck. So my dad decided he might change. So we started using the telephone. So we called each individual store and say, "What you need for the following day?" So we would harvest 00:16:00everything and then we'd take whatever this one store wanted we packaged all into one Crate or a couple of three Crates or bushel baskets, and then we'd take it to the store and stores would display it then we'd get our cash, they'd pay for it. So that worked out, then my dad didn't have to stay uptown all day because when we worked with the telephone we'd make [all of our sales over the phone, and it would then take] maybe not even half a day my dad would be in town dropping these things off at each store. So it was much easier that way because then my dad could come home and see what's going on on the farm.

STEVE KOLMAN: Did he have to do that every day?

AKIRA TOKI: Every other day. Every other day we went. So the stores would buy 00:17:00just enough for a couple days and then they--we'd call them and then they'd order some more, see, that way. So in those days I think we were kind of modern because we used the telephone.

STEVE KOLMAN: I'm curious, considering where you were which is still right around South Towne [mall] area, how far away did Madison seem, like all these [grocery] stores?

AKIRA TOKI: Oh, how far to town was?

STEVE KOLMAN: How far did it seem like? I mean now it seems so close.

AKIRA TOKI: I know. It seemed long ways at that time because Park Street was never out where it is now, you know, where the Beltline is. It was never out 00:18:00that far. And you know where VFW Lakeside Street is? Well that was-- and then that little Murphy's Creek, that creek running along the--there's a little creek down there well that was the city limits. That was the city limits for us. So like Rimrock Road, you know where Rimrock Road is, where the Coliseum is that was swamp. So in the spring time there's all this water standing in the road and like the hotel Sheraton, that was never there. That used to be a main road at One time, back of the hotel Sheraton, right along the railroad track there was a 00:19:00concrete slab of road there. So that went right along the railroad track then they had a wooden bridge over the railroad track then went past where we used to live, towards Phillips that way. So it's--and before they had the concrete, before my mother and father were on this little farm by South Towne, that was dirt road. So I know what I hear from my--what I did hear from my mother and father was they, in the spring time, it the road was nothing but wagon ruts. So it was real muddy until they put that cement road in. The cement road was two lanes wide, so that came off of from Lakeside Street. And that's where Madison 00:20:00had a streetcar. That was the end of the line. [laugh] So you figure from Lakeside Street where the VFW clubhouse is to Phillips, South Towne, that seems an awful long ways. And then when you go back where the big--where our dairy farm was, it was--you know where the Metropolitan Sewer District is, sewer farm is? Well that was our dairy farm. From there we went up towards Moorland Road up there towards were old Badger School is? Where there's a [newer] Badger School there now but I mean there's a, there's an old--two stores, Badger School--where the Badger Bowl is. Well that's where I went to school. So otherwise I lived in 00:21:00that neighborhood all my life practically, until I moved out here. So city limits was a long ways for us. Because we used to walk in but I mean that's still far enough.

STEVE KOLMAN: So you going into the city really felt like going somewhere?

AKIRA TOKI: Yeah, yeah because I think at one time we were, my father and I were invited to a Wisconsin football game--that was playing with Iowa at that time. Wow, I thought that was a big deal. [laugh] But the streetcar ended right there at Lakeside Street so we had to walk from Streetcar home to--up there by up on 00:22:00that last place we stayed up on Moorland Road. So it was a long, it was a long ways to Walk for us. And then, well, it was a modern city. Madison was modern because it had a streetcar. And the Streetcar was one of those--the first streetcar they had was--in the winter time they burned charcoal in there to heat the streetcar and I still can remember when the streetcar came to the end of the line the back seat.--it moved. When it was going out, the back was facing going 00:23:00out. And when it was going back into town they moved the seat back so you'd be facing going towards town. It was one of those kind of things. And then another thing was, it's a--you know where Mills and University Avenue is? Well, that's where the streetcar came to go uptown, on Mills and University Avenue. And every time the streetcar come there they have to switch the track so they could move the streetcar so it could go uptown. If it didn't, if they didn't move it, well, you would have went the other way. So they had to take a bar and flip the rails over so the streetcar would go uptown. So it's a, it's a long--see and then the 00:24:00streetcar went up University Avenue to Park Street and Park Street to State Street then went around the square, then went down King Street. Then went down towards Atwood Avenue. So that's going back, laugh a long ways back. So, I could tell you a lot more interesting things about the city of Madison.

STEVE KOLMAN: I'm Curious about something you said earlier about your parents and the whole picture bride thing. For your father being presumably the Only 00:25:00Japanese person in Madison at the time…

AKIRA TOKI: Well, there were some other.

STEVE KOLMAN: Oh there were, there were some other people here?

AKIRA TOKI: There were men here.

STEVE KOLMAN: Okay.

AKIRA TOKI: There were all men. Most of them were men.

STEVE KOLMAN: I guess what I'm wondering is, how difficult was it for him to even maintain those ties [to the old country] to try and get a picture bride set up? To maintain that network back to the old country.

AKIRA TOKI: Well, see, I think those people had the idea that they'd make a lot of money. And they would go back home to Japan. But they found out they couldn't make enough to go back. [laugh] But they used to communicate and then like my father supported some of his family in Japan, too. So he used to save money and 00:26:00periodically sent money back to Japan to his brothers or sisters or wherever it was back there to support them. So that was their communication tie. And I think the majority of the men that came from Japan did that. So well, I guess at that time maybe my dad had an idea he wanted to get married. So he started communicating with his brothers or his relatives to find somebody for him. That's how they got started. So my father, like I said before, was communicating 00:27:00with his brother or whoever, some family of his, were communicating back and forth. Then my mother, well, had a family over there [in Japan]. So the two families got together some way and communicated that way and got to [set up to] tie the knot with each other. So in other words, I don't think there was any love at all not the way it is nowadays you know.

STEVE KOLMAN: Did it ever happen that the person walked off the boat, saw who were they were set up with and just said, "No I think I'm getting back on the boat, thank you."

AKIRA TOKI: Well, well, I guess it's, to me, I think it was too late [laughs] 00:28:00because they spent the money, they spent the money bringing her over here, you know? And she had no support. She didn't know nobody. She'd be all by herself and she couldn't talk. So that would be real hardship on that person if that person refused. [end of tape one side one]

AKIRA TOKI: To do those things, to survive I guess, for her. I know, like my mother said, there were a few disappointed women on the thing but they must have managed some way. [laugh] Well, I think at that time women were not as outspoken 00:29:00as they are now. They're more--well, they had a man on the totem pole higher than we are now. Don't you think? Nowadays women got more to say about everything. I think in those days women didn't have too much to say. The men were the domineering of the group. So it's different in those days then it is now. So then, well, then they got along I guess after they found, after they 00:30:00understood each other they got along all right. But I have never heard anything, my mother or father say, anybody committed suicide [because the match did not work] or anything like that--I haven't heard. So I can't answer that part of the question. They might have, you know, I mean it could have happened too, you know, in those days. So nobody knows.

STEVE KOLMAN: Just getting back to the whole farming thing, how old were you when you started helping out on the farm?

AKIRA TOKI: Oh, I was born and raised on the farm. Oh, actually I think when I 00:31:00started helping my mother and father was when we went to that little small truck farm where we did our telephone calls and all that kind of stuff. Because at that time, well, some of my classmates were helping us work the farm. They worked for us. So us kids worked right along with the kids. We got our allowance but I don't think we got paid as much the kids that were working for us. In 00:32:00those days kids didn't get that much wages anyway because everything was different, as they are now. So we worked right along with the kids so they were our classmates and some were our family friends that lived in the neighborhood.

STEVE KOLMAN: Were there a lot of folks around in that area, a lot of small farms like that? Or what kind of an area was it?

AKIRA TOKI: Well I think the family wasn't that--I mean the houses weren't that close because I think the closest family was maybe half a mile away. So those kids have to walk from their house to the farm where they had their little job 00:33:00working for us. So it could be half a mile, three quarters a mile apart. So we weren't close together. I mean the houses weren't close together at all. Because a lot of wide open spaces in between. Because there was other small farms around that area too. Because it's not--well, you go back there now where we used to live, it's really densely populated now. But it was never like that before. Well it's--like Badger School where I went, is Badger Bowl now. See that Badger 00:34:00School was built in 1914. Built during the war time. It was a two room School.

STEVE KOLMAN: What grades went there?

AKIRA TOKI: First to eighth grade. So there maybe seven or eight kids in each class. So it was fairly large school for that kind of a [small elementary school, considering how few people lived] in that area. Because we had two rooms, first through fourth grade was in one room and seventh and eighth grade were in another room, the room was divided so it had a sliding door in between. When we have our school program or something, well they just pushed the doors 00:35:00open like you see in some of these restaurants now, you know, where they divide the rooms up for hold a meeting. Well it was on that principle. So when we have our class program or Christmas program or Thanksgiving program well they opened this door up and the whole school assembled together and we have our program with the neighborhood families and everybody come to participate, or, you know, listen to us kids perform. And like, well, like Christmas time, we put on our Christmas pageant and have Santa Claus and all those goodies we used to have. 00:36:00And the parents would come and sometime we have potluck with all the neighborhood they bring [covered dishes], in conjunction with the [Christmas] program. So everybody kind of knew each other real good and we looked after each other, too, that way.

STEVE KOLMAN: Was it ever odd for you and your family as the only Japanese, and probably the only non-white people. . .

AKIRA TOKI: In that area?

STEVE KOLMAN: The only non-anglos around there.

AKIRA TOKI: No. Well, like my father used to say, we have to act like 00:37:00Caucasians. So I didn't feel any prejudice or animosity or anything when I was going to school. Well, I used to have fights, grudge fights. But they were when you get picked on you know, or teased at, you know, you fight back. Like my father says, if you can't lick them, just go get, you know, don't do it[, don't get involved]. Well then another thing, if we got a licking or a beating from kids you got it at home too, you know. You got disciplined at home too, so 00:38:00you're determined to win. [laugh] But it wasn't such a big deal to me--maybe was a big deal at that time to me but the way I look at it now it was nothing like the way it is nowadays.

STEVE KOLMAN: What do you mean?

AKIRA TOKI: The things that we used to do. What the kids do nowadays is a lot different what we did when we were small. Because nowadays--well, when we were small we improvised things. Improvised toys and playthings. But nowadays they don't improvise anything. They got their video and all that kind of stuff. And 00:39:00we entertained ourselves more in those days than the kids do now. Because now the kids got too many things. So it's a whole different situation--how I grew up and how now the kids grew up. Well, when I went to school, regardless of what kind of weather, we went. Like the snow storm we had and cold weather. We went to School. We walked. If we couldn't walk, one of the parents would take us, 00:40:00walk with us to school. If it was ten, 15, 20 below, we walked to school. Now the kids can't walk. And then we didn't have no hot lunch or anything we just carried a sandwich in a lunch bucket. And like Badger School, we had running water in the school, but no running bathroom. We had to go outside. So the girls had their own privy and the boys had their own privy. So if you had to go, well, you had to go outside. [laugh] So you didn't stay in there very long, you'd come 00:41:00running back.

STEVE KOLMAN: In the winter you just didn't go at all. [laugh]

AKIRA TOKI: No. Well, even on the farm in those days we didn't have no indoor plumbing either. So we were use to that. As I was growing up as a--well, I don't know. It's a whole different situation. Maybe we were tougher or we didn't have too much to do, I mean we didn't have all the things that the kids got nowadays. We made the best out of everything we had. So it's different altogether. Our 00:42:00home life was different too. Our home life, Well, when we come home from school, somebody was home, mother or father. Usually the mother's home, the father's out in the field somewhere working, you know. Or if he was working in town, mother 'd still be home making supper for the kids and her husband. Well, and I-- maybe nowadays our cost of living is a lot higher than it was in those days. Or maybe we didn't have as much stuff to work with as they do nowadays. Maybe it's a 00:43:00different situation--how the kids are growing up. But it's a, I don't know, it's something that it changes as we go along in this world.

STEVE KOLMAN: How did the Depression generally affect the . . . ?

AKIRA TOKI: Oh the Depression?

STEVE KOLMAN: Right, the truck farming business.

AKIRA TOKI: It was hard, it was hard because we didn't have no money to buy things so I think at that time we made the best--lived as best we could with 00:44:00what we had. We had to struggle, we had to tighten our belt. But everybody survived that thing. So I mean it's a--and the whole thing in a nutshell, it was hard. It was hard to survive, keep going because the money wasn't that plentiful. Like our family, we grew everything, we canned everything and made our own clothes just to keep going. Like with the city people maybe that was a 00:45:00little harder. It might have been harder on them because they couldn't grew everything like we did on the farm. So I think the country life people had a little bit easier than the city people because the city people had to buy everything. They didn't grow all the eating stuff that we used to grow on the farm. Like on the farm, regardless of how small the farm or if you had some acres, they always had maybe one cow, or a couple of cows, they had maybe two or three pigs and a few chickens. So they were self-supporting because they would--like in the winter time and the fall, or late fall, they would butcher a 00:46:00pig or they will butcher a cattle to store for the winter. In those days, my mother used to butcher a hog. We would can part of the meat in fruit jars and store it for the summer because you couldn't butcher an animal in the summer time anyway because it's too hot. Then we had our own chickens and we had our own eggs. Then we had our own milk. So farming life, at that time, I think was a little bit easier than living in the city because we were self-supporting out in 00:47:00the Country. Like in the city, depends on how big the city is. Like Madison, well, they couldn't keep a cow in town very easy or anything like that. So they had to buy their supplies from the grocery store and things like that. I grant you that a lot of housewives made their own clothes for their kids and for themselves in the city, too. They skimped and tightened their belt up as much as they could to survive, get over this depression era. The depression it hung around for quite awhile .

STEVE KOLMAN: Did stores just stop buying or they bought less?

AKIRA TOKI: They bought less because they couldn't sell it, so they were 00:48:00suffering too. So they buy whatever the demand was. Like on the farm we did everything--canned vegetables and, like I said, meat and stored potatoes, things like that, in the basement. So that's how we survived all those pioneer days in other words. [laugh] I think like you can imagine how those pioneer people went across the United States in those covered wagons and all that kind of stuff to 00:49:00settle out west. So they must have had to tighten their belt up and struggle like that. People--well, if they make up their mind they'll survive, they'll struggle to keep going one way or another. They'll survive. That's the way I look at it because I survived. I went through the war, I survived and I'm still surviving yet. [laugh]

STEVE KOLMAN: So, this whole time then you were working on the farm and you were also going to school. After you got out of Badger school then where did you go?

AKIRA TOKI: I went to Madison West High. Well I had a choice at that time. I could have went to [Madison] Central High, that's downtown, or West High. well I 00:50:00think at that time. . .

STEVE KOLMAN: It seems like Central would have been a closer one, why did you choose West?

AKIRA TOKI: It was newer. It was brand new. West High at that time was brand new because we were the first ninth grade class in that school, that completed twelve years. I mean the four year--eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. The four years. So we were the first class to complete the four years in that school. When it first started out, they transferred Central High and from Wisconsin High and then some of the kids came from East High. They transferred to West High. So they were not full four year class. We were the first four year class to graduate from West High. So I used to--my dad used to, drive us to school 00:51:00because we didn't have no bus [that came out to the house].

STEVE KOLMAN: That's a long way to go?

AKIRA TOKI: It was a good five and a half miles. My dad used to--he used to bring us in [to school in the] truck when he has to deliver. Then when he wasn't delivering we had a car. So he took us in the car to school. But going home, I walked home.

STEVE KOLMAN: That's a heck of a walk.

AKIRA TOKI: It was a long walk. I used to--we still had the streetcar at that 00:52:00time so I used to beat the streetcar from West High down to Lakeside Street. I used to beat that Streetcar because, you know, the streetcar stopped and picked people up and then they had to transfer out on Mills and Park Street. I mean Mills and University Avenue that's where it used to [turn around to go south].

STEVE KOLMAN: Right, it did go south.

AKIRA TOKI: Go south see. So sometime the streetcar won't be there so we had to stand and wait for the streetcar. By that time I could be down Park Street somewhere down Lakeside Street see. When I did that I wasn't fooling around. I was walking pretty fast. [laugh]

STEVE KOLMAN: It's still a long walk no matter how fast you go.

AKIRA TOKI: It was good five and a half miles. It is a long, long walk. Well, I 00:53:00took a lot of shortcuts, you know, through people's back yard [laugh] and all that kind of stuff I did. But then I still helped my father and mother getting things ready for the store when I got home. Then when I got to, let's see, tenth grade, then I got my driver's license. At that time I think it was 16 years old you could get a driver's license. So I took my family's car to school. We had an old Buick we had at that time, a great big One. Then my sister started school 00:54:00then too, high school, too. So my sister and I went to school. I drove the Car and she was with me then. But then I didn't walk because I had the car. So when I had the car I used to play football. I didn't care for basketball. But I played Softball. Then my dad would get mad at me. "How come you didn't come home?" I was fooling around in school playing football and baseball.

STEVE KOLMAN: Did you play on the school teams?

AKIRA TOKI: No, I didn't, no. So let's see, that was 1935 that I went to West 00:55:00High. No, let's see, no, 1935 I graduated from West High.

STEVE KOLMAN: So how important was school and education in general in your life and in terms of how your parents defined it?

AKIRA TOKI: Well my parents wanted us to get an education. I think at that time they must have something in their mind that if you didn't have an education you would not progress. So I think they really stressed education. I think it was on 00:56:00the top [of the] list for them, for us to do it. Well like with me, I went to college two years then I didn't go any farther. But my sisters, they all went to college. Then I think we still stressed education for our kids too. Because I think it was embedded in us to strive or progress more beyond what we could do with education.

STEVE KOLMAN: To go beyond the parents?

AKIRA TOKI: Yeah, yeah. Education was the main goal and we were told to not get 00:57:00an F or anything like that.

AKIRA TOKI: I think education was a main thought of our parents as we were growing up--to get us educated and go beyond [where they had gone].

STEVE KOLMAN: So did you go right to college after high school?

AKIRA TOKI: No, no. After I graduated from high school I ran the farm with my father. And then I helped my father until after I came back from service. That's 00:58:00when I--well, before the service my father ran it. He was nothing but a horse man. Everything he did was with horses [laugh] and I didn't believe that. So before I went in the service I was just barely converting it into mechanized. So I had a tractor and all that kind of stuff. Then I went in the service, my dad reverted back to horses. [laugh] Well, we had small garden tractors and stuff already--that my dad was kind of [trying to] make things easier for himself, but not completely mechanized. But I gradually was working up towards mechanizing 00:59:00everything. But then I went in service. So I was gone four years then he reverted back to [working] with horses again. See, because my dad was not very--well, he wasn't as mechanical-minded as my mother was. Because my mother was more mechanical-minded. She knew how to fix things if it broke. My father, he didn't, he didn't know a monkey wrench from a pair of pliers. [laugh] So like this one instance--I had the tractor, then my father he knew how to drive it--then I had some equipment for it. So my father and mother hooked a plow up 01:00:00to the tractor to plow the ground. Well they took the plow out in the field, it just unhooked some way and the plow was at one end of the field and my dad was running the tractor down the field without the plow. He didn't even know that the plow was not on the tractor anymore. So my mother was hollering at him, running down the road [to] try to get him to stop. Because he was so intent on driving that thing, to keep the tractor riding straight ahead, so he didn't look back to see what was going on in the back. So after I came back I mechanized it 01:01:00[the farm] completely.

STEVE KOLMAN: Was your father originally receptive to it even though he didn't, that wouldn't be his [way of doing things]?

AKIRA TOKI: No, no, no, not his cup of--bowl of soup. So we used to argue quite a bit. [laugh]

STEVE KOLMAN: Did he ever come around? To the idea of having everything mechanized?

AKIRA TOKI: Well after he retired, see he retired--semi-retired--in 1949. Well, I would say yes and no on that question because I think he was learning how easy it was to mechanize things, do it the mechanical way than 01:02:00doing it by hand. But sometimes he was pretty stubborn. But so I usually let him do his way, and then I do my way, see. Just to prove my point I could do it quicker than he could do it by hand. See that was my thought. So by the time I had the [farm] mechanized--I had vegetable washers and seeders all mechanized so I was doing precision planting. And then transplanting, you know, transplant 01:03:00tomatoes and cabbage into the field. I was working with a transplanting company at that time, too. I was trying to improvise that transplanting machine so it'll drop everything all by itself. So it picked the plants up with a rubber finger and puts it in the ground and it covers it up. And that thing used to drop, that transplanter, used to pick the plant up, put it in the ground, and drop water and cover it up. Then it would fertilize right alongside of it. I was working with that kind of.--I worked with that for a while, with this transplanting company. So he gave me a transplanter to play with. And then I was working with a tractor, a little small tractor that I convinced him to let me have and use.

STEVE KOLMAN: When were these things, when were you doing these with the transplanter and the tractor?

AKIRA TOKI: When I was farming.

STEVE KOLMAN: But was it fifties or sixties--forties?

AKIRA TOKI: Oh, when. Oh 1949, 1950, 1955, 1960. Yeah, it was about that time when I was doing those things. Maybe 1970s, somewheres in there. Just like this one tractor they had, that I worked with that. Tried to put other equipment on it that I could attach to it. Worked with that for a little while. So I 01:05:00experimented with even growing stuff. I experimented with the dealers, equipment dealers, that they improve their product, too.

STEVE KOLMAN: So you always something of a technology person? To try to do any kind of thing to get you to improve the efficiency of the farm.

AKIRA TOKI: Improve the thing.

STEVE KOLMAN: Efficiency.

AKIRA TOKI: Yeah, efficiency that's right. Well then I used to make things, too. Like I made an onion grader, things like that, you know. So I wouldn't have to sit there on a stool and pick the little ones out, toss it to one side, pick the big ones, toss them the other way. Well I had a grader that all that stuff fell through the holes in the grater that sorted them all out.

STEVE KOLMAN: So the little ones fell down and the big ones stayed on top?

AKIRA TOKI: Yeah, stayed on top, yeah, yeah. So it's those things that I did, see, besides farming. Well, I didn't have no engineering degree or anything but it was kind of an inspiration or idea that I had back of my mind to try to improve this thing. It's something I was interested in, to improve.

STEVE KOLMAN: When you went to college, did you take agriculture courses?

AKIRA TOKI: Yeah, I took agriculture, Yeah.

STEVE KOLMAN: So you got some training then in ag.?

AKIRA TOKI: Yeah, yeah. I went two years of college.

STEVE KOLMAN: And this was when?

AKIRA TOKI: Oh Jesus, I went to college after I got married, so--well, I don't know. Let me see, when was I graduated from College--I went to college? I think it's in sixties or seventies, somewheres in there. But then in the meantime when I was going to college I was dragged into the Dean's office. He had a job offer for me. You know where the Mendota State Farm is across the lake? I had a job there. They wanted me to run that orchard and vegetable farm out there for the 01:08:00state. So well, I only had --I went to College two years but then they dragged in for that. They wanted me to run that orchard. But then I didn't want to--I wanted to be independent see, that's why I didn't--but now I think maybe I should have took that job. [laugh]

STEVE KOLMAN: Why do you think that?

AKIRA TOKI: Why do I think that? Well I don't know, maybe I could have retired with state [benefits] and all of that kind of things. I think at that time I think I wanted to be independent, had nobody boss me around and do what I want 01:09:00to do and grow things what I want. But when you're out there you might have to grow things that they want you to grow and supervise the thing out there. And I don't think I could experiment with things out there like I--if I was independent. Because well, I experimented with a lot of things when I was independent, by myself. Like different vegetables and things like that. See like oh you know what spaghetti squash is? Well, I experimented with that, when I first started growing that thing, nobody knew what it was. In those days I used to work in a grocery store in the winter time. So I used to paint that squash 01:10:00with pictures and faces, anything to make people attracted to that.--attract it to that product, see. So they'd look at it and I talked to people and then they'd say, what is it? So I tell them it's spaghetti squash. Well, they kind of look surprised, you know. So I had to tell them how to cook the darn thing and how to use it. And then I experimented with little small icebox watermelon, about this big. [Indicates something the size of a six-inch globe] The first year I grew those things I gave them away. Nobody wanted it. So I gave them away. So next year I sold a little bit more then it started taking off you know 01:11:00because everybody knew what that was see.

STEVE KOLMAN: You sort of created your own markets for all these things?

AKIRA TOKI: Yeah, I was creating my own market. Well, then I want people to eat different things, too. Not only just cabbage and carrots and potatoes, you know. I'm thinking of other things. So I always experimented with a lot of different eating stuff. Just like then I had to know how to cook the thing, too. So I used to buy cookbooks. For awhile I had a whole bunch of cook books around here so I kind of read those. Just like you know what bib lettuce is? Well, I started that 01:12:00too in town here. First year nobody knew what that was. They didn't know how to eat the thing. Then I got them started because that bib lettuce is so tender and crispy that it's real brittle. So they didn't know how to prepare it, what to do with it, so I just had to educate them with that stuff. There's a lot of little things that I did that are as I think of it now, I don't know how I done it. So I was interested in cooking and growing things, too. And then, well, then I have to eat it too so I had to taste the darn thing. It was kind of fun. See my dad 01:13:00never did those things[, trying to introduce new products and sell them to the clients]. Just like I had a worker, young high school worker, that helped me on the farm. He was real good because he would listen to me, what I say to the customers, and he would do the same thing what I was doing. He would talk to the customer, he twists their minds and get them to buy the thing. [laugh]

STEVE KOLMAN: Your best pupil.

AKIRA TOKI: Yeah, yeah. No, he was really one of those unusual person that I had working for me. I even sent him to town delivering. He would talk to the store produce guy and he'll twist their arm saying some way getting them to buy the 01:14:00thing. He brings the order home and I hear compliments of him from the clerks, how good he is. [laugh] So it's a-- I don't know--maybe I'm experimental-minded person. I don't know.

STEVE KOLMAN: I'm curious to see how this will tie into some things I want to ask you about. When you did cooking and stuff at home, did you do a lot of Japanese cooking and also in terms of that, did you introduce any kinds of Japanese vegetables or more Asian Oriented vegetables? Or did you try to?

AKIRA TOKI: No, we did try--we did Japanese cooking. See like, well, like you 01:15:00know those sugar peas, not snap peas, Sugar peas. Those flat ones. Well we used to grow those too and those people to eat them. Then like napa, that Chinese cabbage, well, I introduced that too try to get people to eat that thing. And then I would try to eat it too--cook it and eat it. So gradually I don't know, people took hold. Just like when I tell my kids, you know, whatever I eat you should eat the same thing. Good for you. [laugh] So they still blame me for making them eat everything. [laugh]. So, I don't know, it's something that was 01:16:00in me to do it, talk about it to people. Or improvising new food, how to eat it. So we used to eat--we grew sugar peas and napa and bok choy, all those things we used to grow. But it wasn't a big demand at that time as it is now, you know. Nowadays people eat those things now. You got all these Chinese restaurants and 01:17:00these Japanese restaurants in town see. Then I think people traveled nowadays more than they did in those days. They go to the foreign country and they taste those things. Nowadays you watch people, they eat most anything unless you're a vegetarian, see. Why even if you're a vegetarian well you got napa and snow peas and sugar snap and bok choy and daikon, that big long white radish, and all that kind of stuff. People are living different. I don't know if I'm getting, if this 01:18:00is all interesting to you or not.

STEVE KOLMAN: This is good. I'm curious, go back to an earlier period. How did you meet your wife and when did all that happen?

AKIRA TOKI: Oh, how I met my wife? Well I met my wife, let's see, one New Year's Day, New Year's Eve. See her father and mother were living in Madison after the war.

STEVE KOLMAN: They weren't from Madison originally then?

AKIRA TOKI: No, they were from West Coast. See her father mother came from they were in camp, internment camp, and her brother was working here at the University. So they were ready to close the camp, those internment camp, so they 01:19:00had no place to go. So the brother bought a farm out there by Badger School, where Icke's [?] Construction thing is out there. Well they had the farm in that area. So my father mother invited them for New Year's Eve and I never met her before. I knew there were five girls there, but I never--I think I met her older sister first then I met my wife later. But it was New Year's Eve that I met her, they were over to our house for a New Year's Eve party. So that's forty, about 01:20:00forty-five years ago. That's a long time ago.

STEVE KOLMAN: So they hadn't been out in Madison for a very long time.

AKIRA TOKI: No, no, no. See my wife she left camp early because she went to--she had a sponsor and she went to school in Chicago.

STEVE KOLMAN: You had to have a sponsor to . . . ?

AKIRA TOKI: Get out.

STEVE KOLMAN: Okay.

AKIRA TOKI: Or a place they could go--a place--they had destination of either go to school or do domestic work. So she chose school. So she went to school in Chicago. So in the meantime…

STEVE KOLMAN: Was this college?

AKIRA TOKI: She went to a Vocational school, it was a technical dressmaking 01:21:00school. Or designing school, whatever you want to call it. So she went there for two years. Then in the meantime her brother got her parents out and lived at this farm. So she used to commute back and forth from Chicago to Madison as she was going to school. Then she opened up a-- after she graduated, she opened up a dress shop in Madison, downtown. So she was running a dress shop, or alteration shop. So that's what she was--and then she married me so she quit the alteration shop. Then when I retired we opened up a alterations shop for her downtown. And 01:22:00then I think she--then she worked during the winter time for an alteration shop, during the winter time. After the kids grew up. So she worked at the alteration shop maybe always in the winter, after farming was done. So she did that. Then two years ago she retired from alterations, sold the shop. Or we sold the shop. So that's where it stands right now.

STEVE KOLMAN: Now was she born in the [United] States?

AKIRA TOKI: Yeah, she was born in the states. Yeah she was born in Seattle.

STEVE KOLMAN: What about her parents?

AKIRA TOKI: Over from the old country. And her sisters and brothers were all born here. Just like my sisters, we're all born here.

STEVE KOLMAN: So she grew up in Seattle?

AKIRA TOKI: Yeah. She grew up in Seattle and then the rest of the time she spent out here.

STEVE KOLMAN: Where was she interned?

AKIRA TOKI: She was interned at a place called Tully Lake, that was in northern California. Then she, you know like I said, she wanted to go to school so she applied for School.

STEVE KOLMAN: But her parents had to stay in the camp till the end of the War?

AKIRA TOKI: Pretty near, yeah. See they were in Tully Lake, then they went to Hart Mountain, Wyoming. Well the war was coming to the end pretty near at that time anyway so they just closed up the camp and her brother just took them out 01:24:00of camp and brought them to Madison on his farm. Her father and mother didn't like Wisconsin, too cold. [laugh] And they didn't have--see Seattle is different kind of climate, so here, five, six months you hibernate, nothing to do. So I guess they got kind of bored. So they just went back to Seattle. So then they bought a little farm out there. They rented a berry and rhubarb farm, those hot house rhubarb. They grew that.

STEVE KOLMAN: Were they a farming family prior to internment also?

AKIRA TOKI: Yeah, yeah they were farmers before they were interned. He was more modernized as a farmer than my dad. So he had tractors and everything out there. Then they had to give that all up because of the evacuation. So they just came out. They locked everything up, stored away everything, but they lost everything after the evacuation because, you know, they had it stored but people went in there and took them [for all of their things]. Pilfered it--well they took it anyway and never returned it or anything. So they lost everything. So the only 01:26:00thing they had was what clothes they had. Most of them wore the clothes they had on their back, that's all. And a few belongings they could carry in the suitcase. Household goods they had to either sell or store it. So a lot of people got ripped off by other people. Well, they figured they weren't going to come back no more, so they just took it. [end of tape two side one]

AKIRA TOKI: When you're under marshal law you have to do what they government says so they had no choice.

STEVE KOLMAN: There was no way to protect yourself.

AKIRA TOKI: No, no, no, no. So they [the government] confiscated all the guns and short wave radio, cameras. Everything they confiscated and took it away from them. What can you do? You have to go along. So that's the way those people felt out there. You gotta go, gotta go and do it, regardless of what happens. I say that's what the majority of those people--the ideas that they had. To me, to me I was never in that kind of Situation because I was in Madison and we had no problems like that at all--of evacuation or anything. But we were warned. My 01:28:00father and mother were warned not to go too far out of Madison. Well their assets were frozen, but that's all.

STEVE KOLMAN: Your parents' assets were frozen during the war?

AKIRA TOKI: Yeah. But then the FBI checked our family all through the neighborhood and they gave them a clean slate. So they didn't have nothing [on them]--so they left them alone. And just like during the height of the war--of this prejudice thing going on, the grocery people came out to the farm and 01:29:00picked up the vegetables and took it back to town. They didn't want my father to deliver that to the stores because they didn't want nobody to harm them.

STEVE KOLMAN: How long did that continue?

AKIRA TOKI: I don't know how long that continued because I was gone. And another thing is the American Legion in Madison were one hundred percent in back of them [my parents]. And then see like the American Legion in California, West Coast, they're dead against Japanese people out there. But Madison--they weren't here at all. Then the people in Madison they backed us because they backed my family 01:30:00pretty one hundred percent because I went into service. So the Mayor came out to the farm and the sheriff came out to the farm and they had a party out there for them. That's how being a university town I think people were more broad-minded about everything. So they didn't feel any hard harassment or anything at all. Only time I ever found prejudice was when I was in the Service because when I went to when I went first to the service, I went to Camp Robinson, Arkansas. Well, I found six Japanese boys in my company. But to me I didn't know how to 01:31:00approach those guys because I figured they were different. And I didn't know what to say to them because whatever I say to a Caucasian person, they'll either come back at me with wise remark or I give them a wise remark. But with those kids I didn't know what reaction they would have. But then, when I got done with that basic, they came, they grouped us together, all the Japanese guys in that camp, grouped us together, they shipped us to Camp Grant. There I found more Japanese boys and then they reclassified us as non-combatant duty [regiment]. So 01:32:00we couldn't do anything, we just had to sit behind a desk do pencil work, clerk work. A lot of those guys [in the regiment] wanted to go on, you know, they was wondering why they couldn't go to combat. But they had us classified as non-combatant, we were unfit for combatant duty, see because on account of being Oriental see. Well that's where I found, you know, that the government was prejudiced against us. But at that time, before that, I didn't know too much. I knew a little bit but not as much.

STEVE KOLMAN: When you got back to Madison, did you find that anything had changed in terms of all of this?

AKIRA TOKI: No, no. When I came back home, nothing to it. Everybody--well there were other Japanese people here in town already, you know, because they were evacuated from the West Coast and they resettled in Madison. A lot of these, well there were college professors and stuff were here see and some of the old country people were living here, too. No, Madison wasn't--to me, there was nothing different. It was not like going out the West Coast. Everything seemed normal to me here after I came back because everybody minds their own business, went on their own business and everybody did their--whatever they were doing. 01:34:00And then they were befriended by Caucasian people so they just kind of integrated into each other. So I think Madison was a broad minded City on account of the University. Like when I was at Camp Grant when I was--I always wondered why I couldn't go into [more combat-type duty], when they sent other 01:35:00Caucasian soldiers on convoy, that these recruits to another camp and things like that, why we couldn't do it. I always wondering about that. But I used to bitch and crab all the time about that. But then at one time I got so mad that I went to the Company Commander and I told him, why don't you discharge me so I could go back to the farm, do something. But he didn't listen to me, so he just kept me there. [laugh] But then he gave me a furlough because he didn't want me to complain anymore, I guess. He gave me a furlough so I--and I was the first one to get a furlough. But I only lived in Madison so I could [have a place to go that was close by]. But then the rest of the fellows got furlough after that. 01:36:00And then they, after Camp Grant closed up, they changed the ruling again because the 100th battalion that were at Camp McCoy were shipped overseas. So they showed how they were so they just changed this non-combatant duty to combatant duty. So they collected us all together and took us to Camp Blanding, Florida. Gave us combat training. They give us everything. Everything they gave us. I think I told you that.

STEVE KOLMAN: Right.

AKIRA TOKI: Well, I think like I said before, I think us guys had to prove that 01:37:00we were--we had our pride, we were told to do everything we were supposed to do and some of the things it wasn't very easy to do [but] we done it. It's like when we went overseas, we did a lot of things other Companies couldn't, their people couldn't do, so we just done it because we had our guts and pride to prove that what they did to people that they interned that they were just as good as us [Japanese] guys were in the service. So I think that's why our casualties were so high and all of that.

STEVE KOLMAN: You got back to Madison and everything seemed pretty much the same. Have things changed do you think since then, over the last 40 years?

AKIRA TOKI: You mean…

STEVE KOLMAN: Madison's gotten larger and more different kinds of people…?

AKIRA TOKI: It has changed a lot because we have more ethnic groups in here. Well, I think part of it's the university and part of the broad-minded people in time here. Look at all the ethnic groups, like Chinese. How many Chinese restaurants are in town. Every corner you look around there's a Chinese restaurant.

STEVE KOLMAN: I think there are almost forty.

AKIRA TOKI: Yeah. And then there's well, there's Vietnamese, then there's Hmongs, there's Mexicans, and there's I think a couple American-African restaurants, too. I think there's a couple of those. And there's Arabic and Indonesian. So I mean it's a mixture. So I think people are getting to understand each culture, what they are. Just before the war we didn't have all 01:40:00of this. Maybe there was maybe couple three Chinese restaurants, that's all. But after the war ,look at what we have. Just like--I go out to Kennedy Heights, to teach the little kids out there crafts. They're Hmong kids out there and there's Chinese kids out there. there's African, American--African-American kids out there. They're all mingled together. So culture is knitting together and understanding each other. The only thing I have what I can't understand quite 01:41:00yet, is why the African American are the way they feel. If they want to stress their culture, they should come down to our way of thinking and mix it together. But to them, they say, "Well, We're the best." That's why I feel, see. But I don't know, I still--and I think American-Africans they have too much prejudice 01:42:00in them yet to associate with you or I. Because I feel that that when they--like they named a school after me over here in Orchard Ridge, I have never had a Negro come to me and talk to me. I'm willing to talk to them but they kind of put a stone fence or something--barrier--that they think they're better than I am. Maybe I'm thinking the wrong way, I don't know. But I want to mingle and talk to them but it's hard. I think--and another thing is they talk funny. It's 01:43:00hard for them to understand what they're trying to say because their language is, well, I don't know, it's different. If they talk like you and I it would be much better. Just like you listen to television, like Bill Cosby or any of those television people, they talk just like you and I. But then you get some African Negroes, they talk different. And that kind of throws other people off their track. Try to carry a conversation with them. That's my way of thinking. Because 01:44:00I have never had a African Negro--they kind of shy away from me. Maybe my thoughts are portraying to them that I think just like a Caucasian, I don't know. Because I usually get along--I could get along with a Chinese, if they get to know me, and I can get along with Hmong kids, if they get to know me. But maybe people don't quite understand me. I could get along with you or I can get along with anybody else. But it's something there that I can't quite get to. I 01:45:00get along with American Indian because I-- this couple are American Indians were at the VA hospital, they didn't have nothing to do with the white man till I got called in there and talked to them and now, he's dead now, but he was [a] best friend of mine. And he changed his mind and he got along with the staff real good. He understood the staff, what they were trying to do. But see he had that prejudice of something there that he didn't have nothing to do with the white men, till I got in there and talked to him. But with a Negro, there's something there I can't break through to get to them. If I could figure that out some way. 01:46:00Maybe some day I will figure it out. Try to break that little barrier they have against me or anybody else. Like all my Caucasian friends, they brag me up and all that kind of stuff, I just tell them, I just like to be just like an ordinary man. I don't want to be put up on a pedestal or anything like that. I just want to be just like you. So they kind of laugh and they get along. See I don't want to be God almighty. Maybe the blacks feel that way, I don't know. But II don't know why they feel that way, I don't know. So I don't know if that's going to solve that God almighty thing, I don't know. Or where that leads to I 01:47:00don't know till I find someway I'll find out. Because even at the VA hospital there's very seldom I have too much communication with a black person. So it's something I have to break down.

STEVE KOLMAN: I'm just curious, to change the subject, when you had kids you didn't speak Japanese, right?

AKIRA TOKI: No. If I did it was very little.

STEVE KOLMAN: When you had kids and you were farming, you'd been in the service and all of that, how did you try to sort of instill in them a feeling of their Japanese heritage and their background while obviously believing that they should be fully in the mainstream of society? Did you do that at all?

AKIRA TOKI: No, no. Because see when my kids grew up there weren't no Oriental kids, when they were going to high School. Or even into College.

STEVE KOLMAN: Did they go here?

AKIRA TOKI: Yeah. No one of them went to Stout, one went to Whitewater, one went 01:49:00to UW Milwaukee. To me, to them I think I never told them to--oh how should I say this--at least I didn't have no feeling that they were Japanese. They didn't have no Japanese friend, so I wasn't brought up in a Japanese community so that kind of followed to transform my kids. See my kids are, they're not married to Japanese. They're all married to Caucasian. So, I mean, so they're--and their 01:50:00kids are half. So and if they get married they'll be a quarter or whatever it is. So it will be all, by the time their kids and their kids and their kids [all have children], it will be all mixed. So I mean I didn't have too much feeling at all that they should stick to Japanese tradition or anything because the daughter that's here [that came to visit today], that came today here, she has little bit of [curiosity] -- she wants to try to follow the tradition, you know, 01:51:00of Japanese people. She looks back into history of our family, too. So she does, but the other two daughters, no. Because she's the oldest one. So she kind of wants to know our background, where we came from all that kind of stuff. So I never or my wife never pushed that thing at all. Well, see now--well, my wife now does a little bit of her [family] background, you know, her background, 01:52:00where they came from. Well, in fact, I did the same thing about four years ago I went back to Japan. I went back to see where my father and mother came from. Then I took my daughter, that one's here who is visiting), I took her and husband back to Japan with us. We went all over. Met her cousins. She got lot of cousins. They came out of the woodwork. I never saw so many. [laugh] Then we met our--I met my Cousins. Her Cousins came over, one of them came over, to this country. Then my cousin came vver once, too, from Japan, to see [what the American relatives looked like)]. But that's the only connection we have. So in 01:53:00other words our tie is real loose. So that's only tie that I have with people over there.

STEVE KOLMAN: When did you stop farming?

AKIRA TOKI: When did I stop farming? I think I must have stopped about 12 Years ago.

STEVE KOLMAN: Did you stay living out in your house near the coliseum?

AKIRA TOKI: Yeah, I still lived out there. We moved here [to the west side of Madison], two years [ago]. I've been living out there ever since--I still lived out there before that same place.

STEVE KOLMAN: So what did you do with the farm when you were no longer farming the land? What did you do with the land?

AKIRA TOKI: I didn't do nothing with it. I just let it go back to nature like. Then we subdivided it up into industry. So that's why we have--I still have three parcels out there yet to get rid of. So we subdivided. There's nothing there anymore. No house, nothing. No landmark at all. Only landmark are some trees that I put there that I planted before I went into service and a tree that I planted after I came back. That's the only tie that's out there.

STEVE KOLMAN: Did you ever think about staying out there after you started selling off [the rest of your land?] Just to keep the house maybe?

AKIRA TOKI: No. I don't know. I would like to stayed out there but see they 01:55:00changed the zoning so they changed it to industrial. So you couldn't be no-- so I couldn't live out there. If I wanted to live out there I would have had to change the zoning some way to do that. But they--see the City of Madison wanted that thing, that property there because it was only piece of ground that's left outside the city of Madison in that area. It was a pocket. So the city annexed us into the city by legislative law. Because they said at that time any small 01:56:00parcel of 120 acres or less has to be swallowed into next municipality. So that's how we got swallowed in, without our say so. And then they, the city, said [end of tape two side two]

STEVE KOLMAN: When you moved out here, how different does it feel. Does it feel like you are living in the same city?

AKIRA TOKI: I still feel I'm in the city of Madison because I saw this area develop in my younger days. So this is all this area was out in the boon docks 01:57:00at that time. Only thing I felt kind of funny [about] was neighbors being so close. Because I was out in the open when we lived on the farm. But I just made up my mind that I didn't want too much ground because if I had maybe an acre, two acres, I would have to work too hard to keep the grass down.

STEVE KOLMAN: You've already done that.

AKIRA TOKI: I've done that [laughs]. So we decided we just want a small lot and we had this house built the way we wanted. In fact we cannot see this neighbor 01:58:00over here and we cannot see this neighbor over here, there's no windows on each side of the house. [pointing at the neighbor's homes] We can see people across the street and we can see the people back here. But that's all. And our lot is on the side of the house maybe about 12 feet apart. The lot is 12 feet, our dividing line is about 12 feet from each other. About 24 feet apart. And this back here is maybe about 20 feet go into the next person's property and then the street out here. And the people out here are all working people. They're quiet, 01:59:00especially on our cul-de-sac, there's no kids. There's kids back here [on the adjoining cul-de-sac]. One is a high school kid and the other ones are babies over here on this corner one down here. But we don't hear them. And the neighborhood is real quiet, don't hear no noise, no hollering, nothing. And especially on our cul-de-sac, we knew each other. We are real friendly because people over there on that corner up there on the cul-de-sac she's a school teacher and he works for insurance Company. And this one here, she works at an 02:00:00office and he's an engineer at Sub Zero. And there's a single lady over here across the way, she works for university, she works with water, testing water. And this one down here he works for the state and she works someplace, too. And this one here I don't know yet. This one here's a strange one. But, no, those two kids up there, they take--we get along real good with them. They invite us over to their house, we go over there, they come over here. In fact us three are the closest together, you know what I mean, we have more contact with them. And 02:01:00if we have a party, they invite us Over. So it's, we're comfortable. It's relaxing. And we kind of help each other a little bit... So I don't miss the farm at all. I thought I would, but actually I don't because I'm comfortable here.

STEVE KOLMAN: On last thing I wanted to ask you was, how does it feel after all this, after farming all these years after the war, to know have so many people 02:02:00interested in you--the school, all of the awards that you showed me in the hall--what kinds of feelings does that bring up to you?

AKIRA TOKI: Oh, I don't know. I feel proud, I feel good because they recognize me. Yeah that's how--and just like I said, I just want to be just like an ordinary person. I'm happy they recognize me and the honor they try to put on me 02:03:00and if they want me to talk to them I'll be glad to talk to them. Tell them any variety of subject, you know, like I'm talking to you--history of Madison or war experience or a little bit of evacuation and my school days. So I'm willing to do those things if they want me to do it. Well I think I'm just an ordinary guy. Just a humble little old man. [laugh] So I don't know if that's going to help 02:04:00you or not.