Densho Digital Archive - Shigeo Kihara Interview (denshovh-kshigeo-01-0027)

<Begin Segment 27>

RP: Let's talk a little bit about your work experience at Seabrook. How did you get into that, first of all, picking crops?

SK: Well, you know, it was funny, Seabrook had that... every summer, they hired schoolkids. And I remember being thirteen when I first started going out to the fields and picking beans, and we did that every summer. I mean, we picked beans every summer. And the money that I made, I gave to my parents, and I never kept any of it, and if I needed some money, they would give me some money. But we did that every summer, and it was kind of a social thing really. I think we worked maybe half a day or even less, and the rest of the day we goofed off. [Laughs] But it was fun. It was a good experience.

RP: How did you get out to the fields?

SK: On buses. They transported us every morning. I know it was early in the morning, and we didn't get back until dinnertime. And we carried our own lunches. But now when we did that, I can't remember if we went as far as Maryland. I don't think we went that far, but we traveled pretty far on some of those trips.

RP: Can you describe the work for us?

SK: Well, it was, the beans was grown in bush in rows, and what you did, you had to handpick 'em. And the goal was to pick as many baskets as you can because that's how you were paid, you were paid by the basketfull. So the more baskets you got, the more punchcards you... and each one of those punches on a card related to x-number of cents or whatever it was. But it was, when you're younger it didn't hurt you. It was kind of a backbreaking chore type because you're on your hands and knees picking those, unless you stood on your legs and bent all the way down doing it. But I didn't see too many people doing that. And it's... people that did it, they had whole families of, say, Jamaicans that came from Jamaica or Puerto Rico doing that, and that's how they made their living, I guess, to bring back to Jamaica or Puerto Rico. When they went back, they had the money just like the Mexican migrants we have here.

RP: Contract laborers.

SK: Right, right. But for us, it was going out there and having fun. [Laughs]

RP: So how many baskets... you remember?

SK: I don't remember. It had to be someplace about ten. You could pick quite a bit, because those bushes were full of beans. I mean, they were just loaded. And it was easy to pick.

RP: Did you have a quota that you had to reach?

SK: No, no. It was all piecework. And the more you picked or the more baskets you had, the more money you made, that's all.

RP: You mentioned the Jamaicans and the Puerto Ricans, do you ever remember hearing them sing out in the fields?

SK: Oh, yeah, they sang and they talked, but their language, I mean, the way that, like, a Jamaican speaks, it's really, I mean, it sounds like they're singing all the time. I don't know, I guess it's their accent or whatever, but they seem like they're always happy. Jamaicans more than Puerto Ricans, they always seem to be kidding around.

RP: Now were you expected to strip all the beans off of the plants or was there a second picking that came --

SK: Well, you know, you were supposed to pick 'em all, but the little guys, they didn't pick it. A lot of people missed 'em. So in most cases, these fields, they always had a second picking. But, you know, on the second picking, most of the regular migratory workers didn't want to do it because they couldn't make any money picking a second picking. I mean, there was hardly anything left. But you were expected to kind of strip the vines, or the bushes, not the vine, bush.