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TI: So was that a pretty good paying job, to be a summer kid to come out here and do oyster farming?

GN: You couldn't get a job in Seattle for seventy cents an hour.

TI: Okay. So when you started, that seemed like a pretty good job, then.

GN: That was pretty good, yeah.

TI: Steady money, steady...

GN: Yeah. In fact, the company here were having a hard time keeping that payroll out there, 'cause they were paying all these city kids by the hour, you know. So when we came out here, (...) Kuni Sasaki and myself, and a couple other Kibei kids, they said, "We'll pay you by the amount of work, amount of oysters you harvest. So they started out saying, well, this is costing them something like ten cents a bushel or something like that, so, "We'll pay you seven cents a bushel." Next thing you know they're saying, "Gosh, those young kids are making more money than we are. We're gonna have to cut their pay." [Laughs] So they cut us back to five dollars a bushel, five cents a bushel, and I was making five bucks a day. That was big money, and we worked thirty, I remember I worked a hundred days straight.

TI: Well, so let me get this straight. So at the beginning, they paid by the hour, and they would get a certain number of harvesting, and they calculated that so it's about ten cents a bushel is the cost. But once they started going to piecework, people worked a lot harder, is that what happened, and so they were a lot faster?

GN: Well, yeah, that's part of it. You know, when you're getting paid by the... whatever, every time you pick up an oyster, it's worth so much, you work harder. Yeah, they give you an incentive.

TI: So did that change the whole way that they paid workers from then on? So they went from hourly to more piece?

GN: Nobody wanted to work by the hour, because we could earn way more.

TI: Well, and the oyster companies would make more money, too, right?

GN: The oyster companies were saving money, too, yeah. I didn't want to work by the hour. I could make way more money.

TI: And you said you... because then when you worked by the piece, you said you worked a hundred days in a row, that you wouldn't take any days off because that would be lost wages?

GN: That was the first stretch I worked, was a hundred days straight. We got a day off on Labor Day, and I was out there in the middle of, sometime in June. So I know I worked a hundred days.

TI: Wow. And so what would guys do with their money? I mean, if all they're doing is working, they had no time to spend it. What would people do with their money?

GN: Most of mine went straight home.

TI: But what about the other workers? You said they were...

GN: Oh, the city kids, I don't know what they did. I know they weren't helping their family as much as they should have been. But just about everything I made for the first five, six years, until the war broke out, just about all went, all the little kids at home.

TI: Wow, so I'm guessing it really helped your family then.

GN: Yes, it really did. And I didn't want to see my brothers going to school and not being able to walk home with the rest of the kids. They can't stop at an ice cream shop or something like that.

TI: So did your younger brothers and sisters ever talk about that, "Oh, Giro, thank you so much because I could stop and get a milkshake," or something?

GN: [Laughs] Yeah, they all really appreciate it. They remember it.

TI: Okay. Because that was good money, but you worked really hard.

GN: Yeah. I worked really hard, and I didn't spend any money on myself, I tell you.

TI: Now, when I talked to some of the Niseis who worked in the salmon canneries, so they made pretty good money, too, but they talked a lot about gambling and things like that.

GN: Yeah.

TI: Did that happen down here, too, the oyster farmers, that they would gamble and do things?

GN: The older guys upstairs, the Issei, they used to gamble among themselves.

TI: Because I remember talking to some of the Nisei, they were told, "Don't gamble." Because some of them would go up there, make good money, but when they came home, they had nothing because they had really good gamblers that would just come up there.

GN: That's right. Some of the guys used to go up to Alaska just to make money off the kids.

TI: Yeah, exactly, just to gamble and take their money. That they would go up and not work, but just to gamble, and they would take the money.

GN: Oh, I've seen guys do that. I used to see some of the younger kids come out from the cities and go to Chicago and get into horse racing, and next thing you know, they're making pretty good money gambling, you know. They quit their jobs and lose their butt, and then next thing you know they're right back to the factory working again. [Laughs]

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2014 Densho. All Rights Reserved.