Densho Digital Archive - Rick Sato Interview (denshovh-srick-01-0011)

<Begin Segment 11>

AI: Well then, in 1943, I think, apparently there came out something called an, "application for a leave clearance," a questionnaire for people who wanted to work outside the camp. They had to answer these questions, including those so-called loyalty questions. Do you recall having to sign anything like that?

RS: Well I think I did sign something in that order, but I don't know the full details of that. But I, I think I had to sign something, some kind of paper to go outside to work.

AI: And then what was your first job outside?

RS: Ah, my first job outside was working out in the field, sugar beet field. [Laughs]

AI: Where was that?

RS: That's in eastern Oregon, around Vail, Ontario, in Idaho there, Nampa, Idaho. Caldwell. And that's...

AI: Had you done beets before?

RS: Never done beets, and that's not easy work. [Laughs] That's hard work, because all -- it's not mechanized like it is now, it's all hand labor. You had to dig 'em and top 'em and throw 'em in the truck and this and that. It was hard work for... 80 cents an hour.

AI: Well, where did you live while you're out doing...

RS: We had these farm -- a lot of these farmers had what they called "boy house." And they just put us in there, and it wasn't, it wasn't very good either.

AI: Just kind of a bunkhouse?

RS: Just bunkhouse with a roof on there. And the latest I worked around -- well you get in the sugar beet factory and sometimes, I mean sugar beet fields you worked 'til, oh, November. And by that time it gets pretty cold out there. So the working condition wasn't very good, you had snow, rain and all that, and all the mud. So it wasn't too pleasant.

AI: So then, that job ended and you came back to camp?

RS: Came back to camp, and probably at that time I went to school there, for, you know, during the winter months.

AI: Fall and winter months.

RS: And then in the spring, I guess I must have taken off. Sometimes I stayed there, but I think most of the time I went out, because I needed the money.