<Begin Segment 8>

EG: And what did you do? If you are a seventeen-year-old boy back in America and you didn't speak any English.

TM: No.

EG: What in the world did you do?

TM: I didn't do anything for the first one month. I couldn't do anything anyway. He said, "Well, stick around and we'll see what you should do." And then, you see, I came here on April 8th, and in May, strawberry season started, and so my aunt took me to Bellevue, across the lake, to pick strawberries.

EG: Your first job in America.

TM: First, first time I was gainfully employed.

EG: Anywhere. In Japan or America?

TM: Well, that's true, yes. That's true. So I picked the strawberries for about a month. It was hard work.

EG: And then what? What after that?

TM: Well, the school over here didn't start 'til September. So the next thing she decided to do was to take me to Sumner, Washington, to pick peas, blackberries, and raspberries, things like that. And during the days when the berries weren't quite ripe, I helped the farmers do odd jobs in Sumner. Until, I don't know, sometime I think in early September.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.