<Begin Segment 26>

TI: But eventually, through this process, you were granted your U.S. citizenship back.

FS: Yeah. I'm pretty sure we got a paper, but I don't know what I, what I did with it.

TI: So tell me, what, what does your U.S. citizenship mean to you? I mean, you wanted it back. Why did you want it back? What, can you talk a little bit about that, the importance of the U.S. citizenship?

FS: Well, I will say if I'm gonna stay in the United States, I guess I better get my citizen back.

TI: Okay, that's... so you are released from Tule Lake, you go to Los Angeles, Little Tokyo to be with your mother. What happens after that?

FS: I couldn't find a job, so I went back, I went back East on the WRA, they furnished my train fare and everything, so I went to Seabrook Farm, working over there.

TI: And, and tell me a little --

FS: Just because, just because my girlfriend was in New York City. [Laughs]

TI: Oh, so get you closer. So Seabrook Farms is in New Jersey, which isn't that far away. Tell me a little bit about Seabrook. What was Seabrook like when you got there? Like how, what, how was it set up?

FS: Mostly all, at that time, a lot of people from camp was there already, too. Even the family, if they had a family they had a home ready there. I don't know how they got it, but they already had homes. And it was almost right next to the factory we were working in. The factory was over here and all the homes was lined up on this side. And we were, we were thrown in the barracks, single people, so...

TI: And describe the work. What kind of, when you said factory, what kind of work did you do at Seabrook?

FS: They call it labeling, labeling department. We were, you know the can that comes out? They label it. So when they come through the can, they label it, it goes into a case and then that case, it goes onto a, onto a roller, roller, and then some time later it goes straight onto a truck. So when we come up to there and we're on the truck, and we got to handle one, one case at a time and stack it up inside the truck. It was a semi truck.

TI: So it's like an assembly line to process the food to get to the market?

FS: Yeah.

TI: How, how well did you think you and other Japanese were treated at Seabrook?

FS: We were treated fine.

TI: And so how, like pay, do you remember what you guys got paid and how that was?

FS: You got me. I forgot however much I got paid. [Laughs]

TI: But the sense was it was a job and...

FS: Yeah, it's a job, so you know...

TI: Good, so, but you weren't there that long. Why did you leave Seabrook?

FS: Why did I leave? Well, it was, my mother got sick, so I, she wanted, she sent me a letter telling me, not feeling good, so I decided I better go back, back to L.A. So I went back.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.