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[Ed. note: This transcript has been edited by the narrator]

SP: So you've talked a little bit about how when your grandparents returned to Japan that it was a difficult transition for your family in terms of having to kind of rebuild the farm. And so, I'm curious to know what the division of labor was like at that time. Your father was working very hard on the farm and in the fields. What was the daily life for you as child living on the farm like?

SA: Oh, we all had to help. We all had to help. (...) Srawberry was our main crop. We did hire people from Seattle that came and we had even a place for them to stay during the summer. And we used to enjoy it when the high school kids used to come, 'cause they were so much fun. But, well, we all had to help and work all the time. So I didn't really look forward to the summer vacations, because it was just working and helping out.

TI: So Sumie, when people from Seattle came over to pick strawberries, about how many people would come? You mentioned some, in terms of high school students, I mean, were they usually just students, or were adults coming and...

SA: I think adults came, too, and they stayed. This one fellow said he used to come with his mother, you know. And I remember that there was one family by the name of Hirabayashi. (...) She says she remembers coming as a child with her mother. And you know, it gave a lot of the Issei women spending money, and they would go home on the ferry. And some of them would stay during the height of the strawberry season (...). And we had a place for them to stay (on the premesis). The men stayed in this one (...) place that we had made arrangements for, and the women would stay with us (in the home). And so my mother did all the cooking.

TI: And roughly about how many people like at the peak would be there?

SA: At the peak, maybe about half a dozen at the most. Because we only had the ten-acre farm. And you know, the strawberries won't wait, you know. They were just, like I said, that was our main crop. Then after that, it was the peas.

TI: And when they were there, was it pretty much all work, or at night were there some more festive --

SA: Oh, no. There's no way, it was just straight work. We didn't have any activities or anything like that. [Laughs]

TI: Okay.

SA: Yeah, they would have to get up so early in the morning (...). And life on the farm was really just lots of work, hard work.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.