<Begin Segment 5>

TI: Now at a train station, or the Spokane train station, how many redcaps were there in, like, in a day, how many people would be working?

RY: Oh, gee whiz. Now, there were five or six, I guess. I forgot. If I want to count, count them, I guess...

TI: No, that's, just say it's five, or... approximate. But, and then you mentioned earlier there were, like, Japanese redcaps, and also African American redcaps, too?

RY: No, well, after the war started, there was Caucasians... I mean --

TI: African Americans?

RY: African Americans were hired.

TI: So let's go back, before the war, there were Japanese...

RY: Just strictly Japanese.

TI: Just Japanese? So Japanese were the only ones who were the redcaps?

RY: Yeah, they were the only ones hired there.

TI: Now, how would your father, or, who would choose, who would hire the redcaps? Who would determine who could be a redcap?

RY: Oh, they had the stationmaster there. They chose, and after the people got in there, well, if they needed somebody, they'd, they chose, I mean, they chose them if that person needed a job, they would look them, look 'em up. Other than that, it was, it was the stationmaster that okayed it.

TI: So, so if someone wanted to be a redcap, would they talk to, like, your father or the other redcaps, and just let 'em know that they were interested, so that they would tell the stationmaster when he was looking that...

RY: Yeah, that's the way it worked, I believe, yeah.

TI: So was your dad one of the more senior redcaps?

RY: Well, he was one of 'em, yeah, but there were others, you know, that were senior redcaps. Mr.... well, there was a guy by the, a person by the name of Shiraga, he was ahead of my, working longer than my dad was. And oh, there was a few of 'em that was working before he was, too.

TI: Now, in the Japanese community, was being a redcap a pretty good job to have? Is that one of the better jobs?

RY: Well, no, well, I guess you might consider that a better job, but there was also the job as a mail handlers at the Great Northern. And I don't know how the wages were there, but it was mostly Japanese that was working at the Great, Great Northern mail gang. But the senior hiring person for, was a, was a Caucasian, and they had to get hired through Caucasian personnel. And most of them, naturally the wages weren't so good, so I guess that's why a lot of the Japanese started working there. And it was a good job for, for people that was going to school, too. Like Christmastime, when the mail was heavy, they hired a lot of, lot of high school kids. I worked there for a little bit, too. And there was quite a few Japanese working there.

TI: And so when you worked there sort of temporarily during Christmas, was the pay better than working as a redcap, and were the conditions better?

RY: Well, I don't... I really didn't know exactly how much better or worse, I didn't, 'cause well, I gave my money, my wages to my mother, and I never did find out whether I was getting more money than Dad was. [Laughs] For the two, two or three weeks that we worked. But no, I didn't, it was a job, and I gave my mother the money because other than that money, I wasn't making anything else.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.