<Begin Segment 18>

AI: Well, so then we're, you're at September 1946 and you take the train up to Seabrook. And what was that like? What happened?

AS: In Seabrook, again, we were the last ones there so, so our quarters, it was like a barrack in camp except that we didn't have fences around us. You know, community bathrooms and laundry room. It was just like camp. People that went earlier, they had it better. They were living in like a building, like small houses.

AI: So, when you say that you were one of the last ones there, that's because many of the other Japanese Americans had gotten out of camp earlier --

AS: Right, 'cause there were a lot of them. In fact, like they had a softball league and there were about five or six teams. Now if you have people between say fifteen and twenty-five, and you make five or six teams, so you can imagine how many people are there, how many families. So, so they were all there already by the time we got there, so...

AI: So what did your family do once you got there to Seabrook?

AS: Well, my mother couldn't work so, so she had to stay home and take care of the younger kids. But my father, myself, and the sister next to me, we had to go to work because, because my mother wasn't, couldn't work, so my sister and I had to help and go to work.

AI: Well, tell me --

AS: And at the plant, at the packing plant, no minors were allowed, so, so then my sister and I worked at the bulb garden. And then after I had a appendix surgery, I got a job at the greenhouse --

AI: Well, let's, before you --

AS: -- which was a little bit softer.

AI: Before you tell about that, well, tell me first about your first job there. What were the conditions like and what exactly were you doing in your job?

AS: Bulb garden, at the bulb garden we cut flowers during the summertime, we cut flowers and, I guess they were selling the flowers at the garden. And then we would save the bulbs to be replanted the following year.

AI: And what was your dad doing? What was your father's job there?

AS: My father was working at the packing plant.

AI: And packing plant, this was part of the frozen foods --

AS: Yes.

AI: -- part of the, of Seabrook.

AS: In fact, we used to pack for Birdseyes, too.

AI: And what were those conditions like, the packing? What would you do on that job?

AS: My father was working at the, where the trucks would bring the vegetables to the plant and he was working in the... where they were unloading the trucks and... I couldn't work there so, so, until I turned seventeen, and then I got a permission, a special permission to work there because of hardship in the family. And I, I was, they put me inside the plant where we feed the conveyer belt. There was a chute and we bring the, this vegetable and put in a, they used to put the vegetable in a big, big container, after they wash it, and then we'd bring that to the chute and the chute would go down, feed the vegetable to the conveyer belt and the ladies will sort, sort those out.

AI: So what were your working hours then? What was your work day?

AS: Well, we, it depended. During the peak season we had to work twelve-hour shifts and we were rotating shifts every two weeks from day to night. But in the, in the wintertime it's slower so, so, because we couldn't, we didn't get the vegetables and so we, I think we were working just eight-hour shifts and no, no weekends.

AI: My goodness. So as a teenager then, to help your family, you were working twelve-hour shifts at --

AS: Seven days a week.

AI: Seven days a week. Oh, my gosh. That must've been a difficult time.

AS: Yes, although the work wasn't that hard because we were young then.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.