<Begin Segment 8>

KK: So I remember my sisters going off, and especially when Amy used to go off of work in homes, then she used to take me to stay overnight.

LD: What kind of jobs did your sisters do?

HS: Schoolgirl.

KK: Schoolgirl jobs. Get room and board.

HS: Went to live in American homes, and helped with the housecleaning and the dishes, especially the dishes. And sometimes even helped with the cooking, cleaning house, and if there's a child there then you have to do babysitting. And you get one day a week, I used to get one day a week off, and then I would come home and find out what's going on at home. But it was a lonely job, but they usually gave me a room to myself, which was nice, and I'd go to school in the daytime.

LD: This is when a lot of Nisei...

HS: Lot of girls did that.

LD: ...this is called "schoolgirl"?

HS: Uh-huh, schoolgirl.

MM: I went to several homes during my time I was in high school. And I took care of children, or one child at a time, usually. I did the housework, helped with dinner, and bathed the child and did the dishes. And I got Sundays off. And it was rough going back because we have the family, and then you have to leave. Didn't get very much pay, just room and board, and just enough for car fare, and that's about all.

HS: But that was in the height of the Depression, and just getting three square meals a day was important to us.

KK: In a crowded household, to get a room of your own was something. So my sisters were working out, and then we'd see them on their days off. Of course, when they came home, everybody kind of, it was kind of a happy time Sundays where we'd have big meals and everybody around the table, etcetera.

LD: What about the boys? Were they working?

KK: They all had paper routes and they worked for...

HS: Sold magazines. And they worked in markets cleaning vegetables and things like that.

MM: And Bob even went to a place where he ironed shirts for five cents a shirt. I don't know exactly what kind of a place this was, a laundry or something. And he was only just a little kid, and he was ironing shirts. But he got five cents a shirt. And we used to collect models and return them to the store because you'd get...

HS: A penny or two for them, yeah.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1985 The Center for Educational Telecommunications and Densho. All Rights Reserved.