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TI: And then going on in your childhood, how long did you stay in Oakdale?

BB: Up until my grandmother and I had a discussion, a dispute, and, let's see. That was 1932, up 'til '32.

TI: And so how old were you...

BB: And I transferred to a high school in Salinas, California.

TI: And so you were... '32, so you were about twenty-...

BB: No, not twenty.

TI: No, fifteen, about fifteen.

BB: Fifteen. I was a sophomore in high school.

TI: And so you went on your own, or did you go with your mother?

BB: My mother. My mother lived with her brother. Now, my grandmother was married four times, so she had, except for the last husband who was a Frenchman from New Mexico, from Mexico, and he changed his name to Molina when he came to California. Had a French name, spoke French. And he supported my grandmother and whoever lived in the house. They owned the house... I guess in those days you didn't make very much money. But he always managed to have a new car. [Laughs]

TI: That's interesting. So, so your mother and you leave, or go someplace else. How, what, so what kind of work did your mother do at that point?

BB: Nothing. She, I guess just took care of the house for my grandmother, that was about it.

TI: Okay. And so how was it for you in this new community? What was it like?

BB: Well, I didn't particularly like it, to tell you the truth. But I worked, about two years later, I was working, and I actually supported myself from the age of eight on.

TI: How did you do that? What kind of work did you do?

BB: I worked on anyplace that the cannery had an orchard, I was, I picked peaches and apricots and walnuts, almonds, all that, pears. And I made a little money. The going wage, I think, at the time was thirty-five or forty cents an hour. I usually made five dollars a day picking fruit.

TI: So working, what, twelve, fourteen hours a day?

BB: Oh, yeah. Ten hours, about ten hours a day.

TI: So at a very young age, you were very independent, able to sort of take care of yourself.

BB: I made enough money to pay for my schooling the next year, buy clothes and all that.

TI: Now, in this, in this new community, is this where you came across Japanese Americans, in this community?

BB: Salinas.

TI: Salinas. So that was after, this was next?

BB: 1932 on, I went to high school and I was in mechanics. And we had two or three Nisei kids. One was Inouye, I remember, still remember his name. He's quite wealthy today. [Laughs]

TI: Is that from landholdings there?

BB: Oh, yes. He came back to the original landholdings.

TI: Now, did you have much connection or interaction with the Niseis?

BB: No. Well, I don't know. I don't remember too much about my childhood and boyhood. I'm... actually, I was always looking for something to do when I was in Salinas. So I had a couple paper routes, I had a morning paper route, got up at four o'clock in the morning to roll papers, and then went to high school after my paper route and then had a paper route in the evening. So... and then I worked for Postal Telegraph when I was going to high school. Postal Telegraph I don't exist, I don't think it exists anymore. But it was in competition with Western Union. See, Salinas at that time was a big lettuce and vegetable town. Did a lot of exporting all over the United States, shipping. And so we had a lot of brokers in town, so they were always sending messages on the market, vegetable market, lettuce market, it was a big thing.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.