<Begin Segment 9>

SY: So then when you were, what are, what do you recall about Santa Anita when you had to work? So you were old enough where you didn't have to go to school, you basically --

EN: Well, I wasn't, I should have finished high school, I suppose, but I was drafted to work as a waitress at this yellow mess hall. So they had three, there were so many people there that each mess hall had three shifts for each meal, so for breakfast it was pretty, I don't remember, it must've been quite early.

SY: And you worked any shift wherever?

EN: Each shift.

SY: You worked each shift?

EN: Yes, we had to work each shift. And they fed us after the last shift. The waitresses had to be fed after the last shift.

SY: I see.

EN: So I guess one day they ran out of food and they couldn't feed us, so that made us, we were quite upset.

SY: Stuck in your mind.

EN: So we told 'em, I told them, "Next time you have to feed us before everyone else, otherwise we're not gonna work. We're gonna go on strike." [Laughs]

SY: I see. Did you really say that to --

EN: Definitely. That's wrong.

SY: Right, because you were working and you...

EN: Sure. You have to stand up for your rights.

SY: You weren't afraid to say anything.

EN: I guess not. I just remember that, yeah.

SY: You remember what you were serving, what kind of food?

EN: Well no, I don't remember. I just remember for breakfast we had sugar rationing during the war, and so there are thousands of people for every meal so we had to carry this mug of sugar and a teaspoon and offer each client a teaspoon of sugar. And they had to let us know whether they wanted it in their coffee or in their cereal, and that was real hectic 'cause, you know.

SY: You had to go to each person. But it wasn't, was it, were you serving more then at that point, or were they, I thought they had mess hall lines.

EN: I don't remember. That's the only thing I remember serving, is the sugar.

SY: Sugar. Maybe they didn't --

EN: So I don't know what else we did, but we must've done something. [Laughs]

SY: I was gonna say, I could understand, though, they probably didn't want to put the sugar in the line in case people took more than one, one teaspoon.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.