<Begin Segment 8>

MA: So you mentioned that you, all the siblings, you and your siblings helped out on the farm. Can you describe a typical day maybe when you were in grammar school, what that would be like, what time you would get up?

NI: Well, we had to get up quite early because we, we had to walk to school. We did not have to go to work in the mornings before we went to school. Some of my friends told me they worked before they went to school. 'Course, we helped after we came home and they'd be waiting for us to change our clothes and hurry up and come out in the field. We'd lag and lag. [Laughs]

MA: What would you do in the fields?

NI: Well, pick strawberries, sometimes we'd help weed, help irrigate because they had a different system than now where we had to watch the water go down the flumes, and it would go into each furrow. They had to be sure that it reached the other end, so maybe I'd stay on this side and my younger one, brother or sister would stay on the other end. It reached the end and then I'd cork that little hole and stop it.

MA: Wow, yeah, that's interesting.

NI: Sometimes when it gets dark, it's hard to see whether the water reaches the end or not, because the furrows were quite long.

MA: And how late would you usually work in the day?

NI: Well, well, until maybe around six or so, five or six, because they'd come and pick the berries up. The owners would come and pick the berries up and take it to the station, I would, I'd call it. 'Cause in those days, I think most of the things were done by freight (train), not by truck.

MA: And what would your family do in the winter or when the growing season was over or it was slow?

NI: Well, I don't know, there wasn't too much to do. I guess the nightlife, Dad was, in the country then, we had what you call our modern spa, furo, remember? Furo? Well, so if lived in the country, well, he'd cut (and) chop wood and make firewood for the furo. Or he'd go and (...) work pruning apple (trees) because (...) lots of orchards. That's what they did, prune (apple trees), rather, not orchard. And then, well, go fishing, 'cause we have the ocean around here. So we enjoyed fish a lot. [Laughs]

MA: I imagine, yeah.

NI: He was a good fisherman, he used to like to clam.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Watsonville - Santa Cruz JACL. All Rights Reserved.