<Begin Segment 17>

JK: So describe a typical workday at the store.

PD: Well, nowadays, or...?

JK: Following camp.

PD: Following camp? I had... following camp days, I don't remember that much, but I remember the store was full of stuff, and the basement has... being a basement, there seems to be a lot of water down in the basement all the time, and you just have to keep cleaning up all the time. And there used to be artesian wells in the area, so it's just, when it rains, it just, lot of extra work to keep things dry. So... and soy sauce used to come in wooden barrels, and sacks used to come in hundred pounds and nothing else, and that was a lot of work. And in those days, they said my dad was one of the strongest, and he could carry two hundred pounds on this side, and two hundred pounds on this side, and walk upstairs and walk down the road delivering to the farmers. [Laughs] And I could hardly believe that. Nowadays, they don't even hundred-pound rice. They said, I don't think... I think fifty pounds is the biggest they make it because that's, that's a law not to have big sacks anymore.

JK: And do you, do you move those fifty-pound?

PD: No, we don't sell hardly any fifty-pound, very few now. Everything's in twenty-pounds, ten-pounds, and five-pounds now.

JK: And how about days a week and hours worked?

PD: Well, in the older days, I guess it was a real long day. If you go to the produce market and open up shop and work 'til nine o'clock, 'cause in those days, I guess the farmers never, never get off the field until the sun goes down, so you, you still had business to do after, after dark.

JK: Did your family or did you face any discrimination?

PD: No, I don't remember too much discrimination in my lifetime.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2004 Densho and The Japanese American Museum of San Jose. All Rights Reserved.