<Begin Segment 21>

MN: When you got to Manzanar, what was your, one of the first jobs that you got there?

KM: First jobs? I think I was in the engineering department where... anyway, at that particular time we were building a aqueduct like to, for irrigation of the farm that they were gonna make in Manzanar. Because a lot of creeks in that high Sierras, produced a lot of water so that we can make an irrigation ditch coming from some of those creeks down to the farm. So since I was in civil engineering and knew something about making those kind of things, I was hired as one of the workers in the civil engineering department.

MN: So, now, did this job allow you to go outside camp?

KM: Oh, yeah. Well, because we had, the creeks were all outside of camp, so that's why we had, we had the truck that we used was the Caucasian supervisor in that department had a truck, so we would bring, tote myself and then about two or three other Niseis that were in the same department there with him.

MN: Did any of the army soldiers go with you?

KM: No army soldiers, no. We were by ourselves.

MN: Now while you were on this job examining the creeks, did you get an opportunity to do any fishing?

KM: No, we didn't do any fishing, but there were times when we were working that the trout were trying to hop over was only 'cause of the irrigation monitor things, they had to jump up quite a bit to get to the next level. Anyway, the fish would be in a pool by this ramp that we could scoop out the trout. We were, five, ten pounds trout, big ones. Yeah, real big ones.

MN: Did you eat them there?

KM: No, no. We took 'em, I brought 'em back to camp and gave 'em away. Most of the time we took 'em to the kitchen so they can make something out of it.

MN: How long did this job last?

KM: Oh, I think I was there maybe about, oh, maybe two, three months.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.