<Begin Segment 9>

MN: Now, the Japanese American farmers in Imperial Valley usually left the area during the summertime. Did you do that also?

DM: I remember our family in the '30s would go to Terminal Island. That would be in July, after the harvest is finished. And we'd rent a house on Brighton Beach and we'd go to the beach, which was maybe around two or three hundred feet from the house.

MN: So what happened to the chickens and the mules?

DM: My dad stayed home, stayed back to watch the farm, because from June, July and August and part of September there was nothing to do. It was too hot to grow anything or do anything.

MN: So how did you get from Imperial Valley to Terminal Island? Did your mother drive?

DM: My dad drove us, I think. He had a sedan, I can't remember... I think it was a Ford, which would chug along the two hundred miles, which would take us about all day.

MN: So what did you do on Terminal Island?

DM: Oh, my mother knew a lady that lived on Terminal Island, and she was a foreman of the crew that worked in the cannery. So she always got a job when we went there.

MN: How old were you when you started to work at the cannery?

DM: I was around fifteen. And in those days, Terminal Island on the wharf, it was lined with canneries. One they had was Van de Kamp, the next was French Sardine Company, then after that it was Franco American tuna company, that's where my mother and I worked. We worked only when a load of tuna would come in from Mexico. In other words, the boats would arrive loaded with tuna at all hours of the day, which had to be cooked and placed on a tray and chopped into sizes to fit the can, and that was my job to bring the tray of fish to each lady who did the canning. And the pay was good. I remember it was something around thirty-five cents an hour, we got paid.

MN: The workers there, what was the ethnic makeup?

DM: Workers there were mostly Japanese ladies and Mexican ladies. The tray of fish would come down a conveyor belt, and the ladies would be on both sides of the belt on tables to can the tuna into the cans. And being fifteen years old and a simple country boy, these Mexican ladies would pick on me. [Laughs] 'Cause they knew that I wouldn't fight back. And I still remember when the ladies finished canning the pieces of tuna, what's leftover were flakes of tuna, which they scraped together and canned, and they were called "tuna flakes." So I never bought tuna flakes after I saw all this going into the cans.

MN: You mentioned that you would go to work when the boats come in. So what was your working hours like?

DM: Working hours there were generally... 'cause they first had to be cooked and prepared for canning, so the work day would start around seven 'til four or five.

MN: Do you know what your mother did in the cannery?

DM: She did the canning, which was placing the cut piece of tuna into the can. And, of course, there were scale there, she would put on the scale to make sure they weighed twelve ounce or whatever it's supposed to weigh. And it would go down the line and oil would poured into it automatically, and the lid would be stamped on.

MN: On the weekends, like on Sunday, what did you and your sister Junko do?

DM: Where?

MN: On Terminal Island. Did you stay on Terminal Island on the weekends?

DM: Oh, we stayed only from around June, July and August, 'cause in the first part of September, we'd have to go back because school would start from the first or second week of September.

MN: But when you're on Terminal Island and you're working every day and then you have Saturday and Sunday, you have free time, right?

DM: Right.

MN: What did you do on your free time?

DM: I probably went to Brighton Beach.

MN: So you didn't go visiting into Little Tokyo?

DM: I remember taking a ferry across the channel to San Pedro and catch the Red Car that would go into L.A. So we'd go to J-town and have China meshi.

MN: Do you know what restaurant you went to?

DM: I distinctly remember our favorite place was Sanko Low, which was the Chinese restaurant on First Street.

MN: Oh, and you mentioned you went swimming on Brighton Beach, where did you learn to swim?

DM: Oh, I learned to swim before that when I was, when I could tread into the water in the irrigation canal which was next to our farm. The canal was probably around eight feet wide and two and a half, three feet deep. That's where we would frolic in the water and learn how to swim, which was illegal.

MN: Why was that illegal?

DM: 'Cause that was the drinking water also. [Laughs] And there were... a worker from the irrigation company, they were called Sanjero's, S-A-N-J-E-R-O, they would patrol the canal to see who was using water, and they would have a lookout on us kids to see if we were in the canal. So we would time it and get out of there when he rolled by.

MN: Now going back to Terminal Island, you were living on Brighton Beach. Did you have any contact with the Fish Harbor people, the Japanese American community there?

DM: Our row of houses, rental houses were about half, more than a mile, mile from Terminal Island. Well, I mean, the housing on Terminal Island, which were behind the canneries. There were a bunch of barracks there where the Japanese family lived. Most of them were workers in the cannery or they and their husbands were fishermen out on the boats.

MN: So did you have any contact with them?

DM: I met a few of 'em. Of course, they were kind of standoffish because we were just country bums.

MN: What did you do at Fish Harbor? Did you go eat there, or did you help out with fixing nets?

DM: No, I didn't do any of that stuff. 'Cause the house we rented had, were equipped with kitchen.

MN: How about the boats from Japan? Did you go and watch them coming in?

DM: We would go to the channel to watch the boats in and out.

MN: So how would you compare your work at the cannery to your work on the farm?

DM: Both were labor intensive. Of course, working in the cannery was more enjoyable 'cause you were always around a lot of people. While on a farm, you're by yourself out there.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.