<Begin Segment 29>

MN: Well, let's see. Hold on, hold on. So Cleveland, you went to Chicago.

CH: From Cleveland?

MN: Uh-huh.

CH: No, no, no. From Cleveland, my friend... see, from Detroit to Cleveland I went out, okay. He told me what hotel he's staying, Colonial Hotel. I still remember that. Colonial Hotel, I stayed over there. So I got a room, wasn't there, I got a room and I was waiting, waiting, waiting. And I had a long room, see, then when he came home, he had some other guy sleeping. I could hear somebody talking, the way he talked. I could spot him right away, Terminal Island English talking. Oh, god, this is the wrong room. So I went knocked on the door, "Hey, you there?" [Laughs] "Hey, you got the wrong room?" "Yeah, but I heard you talking, that's why," okay, I went over there. So we was both working in the same place. He got me a job over there. But he's a smart guy, so he quit. He's an engineer, that's why. That's why he couldn't, he worked someplace else. And we were still... see, WRA had, the War Relocation Authority, WRA, heard about it. So each city got it. Each city got it, so you could get a job anyplace if you go WRA. So he got a good job working in New Orleans, you know. Since we come from Terminal Island, we're fishermen, they found out that industry, we know. So shrimp fishing, "We'll give you a boat," the New Orleans cannery or someplace, "So come on down, we need guys like you." So he asked me, he asked me to go. Who the hell going shrimp fishing, New Orleans? So meanwhile, he sent a letter to his friend in Manzanar, and he said he's going to take it, so he came all the way from Manzanar go to shrimp fishing. I said, "I went fishing." They made good money. Well, there wasn't any men. There was a few, but they're older guys. So he did all right. But he got drafted army, so he had to quit.

Meanwhile, you know, my friend from Manzanar, they wrote me a letter in Cleveland, "Hey, why don't you do a real man's job instead of washing dish or be a waiter or something?" He said, "Why don't you come work in a farm?" He told me, "Farm? Farm where?" First of all, come to Ogden, Utah. That's where they got the tomato cannery all over the Utah. So I told him, "Yeah, okay." So I, on a bus, I got on a bus, I said, instead of going New Orleans, I went to Ogden, Utah. Going to Ogden, Utah, I stopped at Cheyenne, Wyoming. "Hey, you. You Japanese?" "Yeah, I'm Japanese. Why?" "You can't get on the bus." "What do you mean I can't get on? I paid for my fare already," I told him. "No, soldiers first." I was delayed for a day and a half, they won't let me on the bus. Even coming from, later, coming from Rohwer, Arkansas, to Salt Lake City, I got to stand up. All the way, whole two days, no place to sit down 'cause army soldiers, lot of soldier going back and forth. That's why I went to Ogden. And I work in Bear River Canning Company in, two miles south of Ogden, town. It's a cannery over there, tomato factory. And when I went there, man, you ought to see all the women working, Japanese women. And I went to Clearfield, Cageville, what other... one more town. I went over cannery, tomato. Nothing but Japanese women. I asked them, "Where did all these people come from?" They they start telling me, "Lot of 'em come from Wyoming, Heart Mountain. Heart Mountain and Topaz. You know Topaz? That's in Utah. Topaz, and rest were all Poston people. They all came to work in the cannery 'cause there's a labor shortage. That's why two year, those workers, I worked about one year. Maybe... during the season, tomato season.

And then after the season's over, they decided to go top beets, topping beets, Idaho. Idaho? What part of Idaho? Said Twin Falls, Idaho. I looked at, oh, right there. Close to Pocatello, around there someplace. I went over there. I didn't know what beets looked like. I thought... you know the beets, the red beets you eat? I thought that beets, topping. That small thing like that? Hell, no, when I, the big beets like that, you go like that and chop that then put it in the truck. In a row? I look at the row, looked like one mile long. You go up, after you come down, it's evening. Work all day. Boy, what a slave labor that was. I never worked so much, hard in my... once you bend down, you got to come up for air, you know. You got to keep on walking. Boy, I hated that job. One month I did, until we cleaned up the whole place, then I work in an orchard, orchard family, apple orchard. Then these Japanese guys want help, so I went to top onion for that onion topping, there was one Japanese farmer living in Burley. Twin Falls and next town was Burley. I went chopping onion, and piecework, pow, pow, you've got it. And you know what? Go like that, cut, there was a scar right here. Yeah, onion topping.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.