<Begin Segment 19>

TI: So once you got moved in, many people were assigned or got jobs inside the camp. Did you have a job?

AA: Let's see. Not initially. They asked for... I don't recall exactly what period that was, but the farmers came in the camp looking for workers to help with the harvest. And I, my uncle asked me to join him to work in the, harvesting the sugar beets.

TI: And which uncle was this?

AA: Hiromu, the oldest. I really wasn't particularly interested in going out with a older, older person, but I wanted to be with my younger, younger group. But anyway, I agreed to go with him. He had another friend by the name of Ken Sakura, who was a bachelor, and my uncle assured me that he's got all the pots and pans and things necessary for setting up housekeeping, and so I went along. I went up to the town of Aberdeen, Idaho, and worked with a, for a farmer. That was kind of interesting experience. I never knew what a sugar beet was, and when they came into camp, the farmers brought in a knife, sugar beet knife, and says, "Here's what you do." He says it has a hook on the end, you pick up the beet and hold it one hand and cut the top off, throw it down on the ground. I thought, "That's kind of simple, anybody can do that." But I never knew how difficult it would be. You'd be bent over all day long, hacking the, hacking the top off. And then the truck would come by and you'd bend over, pick it up, throw it in the truck, and pretty soon the truck would be filled, and we were on, people on both sides of the truck throwing stuff up. They'd throw it up and pretty soon it'd come over the top, a big ten-pound sugar beet would come crashing down on your head. [Laughs]

TI: So it was just backbreaking work.

AA: It was backbreaking work, yeah.

TI: And just all day.

AA: And at the end of the day, you couldn't straighten up. You're walking back to your cabin all hunched over. [Laughs] And then we had to cook our own meals, and the grocery store was about a mile away from where we were at. And it was very interesting, I think my uncle had a, had a reason for asking me to join him because I was in the grocery business, so he says, "Hey, you go pick up the groceries." So I'd trudge in, as tired as I was, I'd trudge in the store and buy the groceries and come back. But the story about the groceries, there's a, when we first went in there, they had two grocery stores, none of 'em would sell us any groceries. And so I went down to, down to the farmer and says, "This is nonsense. We come down to help you, and you guys aren't going to sell us any groceries." And so one of the, the farmers was a field manager for the Amalgamated Sugar Company, and there was a half-a-dozen other Japanese crews up there in that neighborhood. Says, "If this is going to happen, to heck with you guys, we're going back to camp."

TI: So did you say that? Did you tell this guy that?

AA: Yeah.

TI: And did you represent the other crews? Were they with you, or was it by yourself?

AA: No, I didn't know any of the others at that time. I think were one of the first ones there. And so the farmer went back and told his grocer that he was doing business with, says, "Hey, you give these guys groceries," and he says, "if they can't pay for it, I'll pay for it myself." And so this one grocer says, "Okay," and we got groceries from him. And so there was a butcher shop that wouldn't sell us anything, and there was a barber in town that had a sign, "No Japs," in the window. One Saturday evening after work, we cleaned up and we, there was a movie house that opened once a week on Saturday nights. So we thought we'd go in and see a movie. And we're standing in line waiting for the movie house to open up, sheriff came by and says, "I want you boys back, back on the farm. I don't want you in town." And we says, "What for?" He said, "I don't want any trouble." I said, "We're not causing any trouble," and he says, "Well, there might be." I says, "Well, if that's going to be trouble, we're not causing it." And so anyway, he chased us out of town. And so we went back and told the field manager, says, "This is, if this is the way you guys are going to treat us, you go pick your, harvest your own crop." And so all the farmers got together and they went to the sheriff and they says, I says, "These guys are helping us." And the sheriff was an elected position, so he knew which side the bread was buttered on, so he backed off. And so we were able to go to the movies after that.

TI: How about the barber shop? Did he ever cut...

AA: Never did. We weren't too concerned about getting a haircut in those days, 'cause it was only a short time, three, four weeks.

TI: So this was what, like September, October, kind of?

AA: Yeah, I remember when the weather started getting cold. It got so cold I thought my feet were gonna freeze. And the farmer took us up to Blackfoot, we were able to get those heavy felt shoes, and that helped a little bit.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.