Densho Digital Archive - Mitsuko Hashiguchi Interview (denshovh-hmitsuko-01-0052)

<Begin Segment 52>

JA: Okay. How did you leave Tule Lake? My understanding that...

MH: When did we leave or how did we leave?

JA: Well, both. My understanding you left in May of '43.

MH: Yeah we, whole bunch of us --

JA: What made that possible?

MH: Yeah, whole bunch of us went as laborers to Montana. The, I guess you heard of the Matsuokas, they all went, Hirotakas went, Tamuras went. They all, and we all went together on kind of a -- they came to look for workers that would come out and do their sugar beet fields and so, my dear old little husband says, "Oh, yeah that's good chance to get out," so here we go. And I had to take my sister because I knew if I worked out in the field I need a babysitter for Les, so my little sister went with us. So four of us went in our group and we all went by train through Spokane and up through Montana. We were at Great Falls, Montana, and we stayed there a whole summer from May to October, and we worked in the sugar beets and weed the sugar beets and thin the sugar beets and harvest the sugar beets before we left. And it was fine, because they built us a nice little house. A tiny one, a one-bedroom house for us with all the facilities for us there and everything and made it very comfortable for us, treated us very nicely. And bought our, took us out to buy our grocery down the road. It's about half an hour from their place, their grocery store, so they took us to grocery store. So they treated us very nicely while we were there. Of course, they wanted us to stay some more, but that wasn't my place.

JA: This, so this one-bedroom home was for the four of you.

MH: Yes, that's right.

JA: And in comparison to the barracks at Tule Lake, it was a big improvement.

MH: Well, it was a big improvement. Yes, it was, the way it was built and everything else because they had sink for us and everything. Of course, the outhouse is outside, but...

JA: So nevertheless it was still fairly primitive, but in comparison to what you had been living in... [Laughs]

MH: Yes, that's right. It was a little bit luxury. It was very nice for us.

JA: After having been denied so much.

MH: That's right. So we thought it was great just to be outside.

JA: And not having the guns pointed at you.

MH: Yeah, that's right. And they had cows and so, we had, Daddy and Muts had to milk the cows, and he had to learn how to do that and things like that for the farmer, but it was a good experience for all of us.