<Begin Segment 28>

RP: So later on you became one of the people who punched the...

SK: Yes. See, then I didn't work on, I worked on an hourly basis, so I didn't have to worry about piecework anymore. I don't know how much I made an hour, but it was a nominal fee. It was enough to make during the summertime.

RP: And that was your first job, true job?

SK: Yes, uh-huh. Yeah, that's what I did. Well, I started, like I said, about thirteen years old.

RP: And how long did you pick, how many years?

SK: Well, probably until I was about fifteen or sixteen, and then I became a puncher for a few years 'til we moved back. Because we were too young to work in the factory. I think you had to be eighteen, but I'm not sure. We never, I never was able to work there, I know that.

RP: Did you visit the factory?

SK: Oh, yes.

RP: Can you share with us what it was like to be in that building?

SK: Well, it was kind of a hustle bustle, I mean, everything, and noisy because of the conveyor belts. But they would process the vegetables, and they would go into a cleaning thing and they would cook it. After they cooked it, then they would put it in a container, and then it would go into a conveyor, and then they loaded it off of a conveyor belt onto these racks where each container was stacked up, and then they put it into a freezer. It was kind of hectic. There was a lot of, most of the women did, like, the sorting and things like that, and then the men, well, they would be pushing around carts and doing things. And anytime any of the machinery broke down, there would be a mad, you know, dash to get it fixed.

RP: Your dad would be there trying to...

SK: Yeah, yeah. They didn't, those machines, we didn't stay down very long, I know that. I remember that.

RP: Did your grandparents work at Seabrook, too?

SK: You know, I don't remember my grandfather or my grandmother working. My grandfather may have, but I know my grandmother never did. She was a stay-at-home person. And you know, I'm trying to remember, they didn't live with us, and they didn't live with Uncle Bill and Auntie, so they stayed by their self someplace. And I can't remember where it was now.

RP: You had a new addition to the family while you were at Seabrook?

SK: Yes. Yeah, that was the youngest sister, Fay. She was the last one. I don't know, I don't know if it was an accident or what. [Laughs] I'm not sure. After six of us already.

RP: Share with us some of your impressions and memories of some of the other groups that were in, ended up at Seabrook, the Estonians, the Latvians.

SK: Yeah. You know, when they brought those people over, it was during that, when the Cold War was going. And they were being persecuted so they brought 'em over, but most of the people that came over during that time were professional people. They were schoolteachers, lawyers, doctors, nurses or whatever. But the only sad part about that was that when they came over here into the United States, they couldn't practice their profession. So it was really tough on them, I remember that. It was tough on a lot of 'em. And they stayed -- so what happened was they stayed in Seabrook for I don't know how long, I can't say the timetable. But a lot of them, after being there for a while, moved out. They didn't stay around very long, which was, you know, I guess it's only right. And another thing, I think the language barrier had something to do with that, too. Even if they tried to get into the profession, it would have been pretty tough without the command of the English language.

RP: Do you recall any African Americans working other than the Jamaicans?

SK: No, I don't remember that.

RP: Germans, Polish?

SK: Well, wait a minute. There had to be some different nationalities there because in Seabrook there were Caucasian families there. But what nationalities, I don't know. Because I remember going out with one... I used to go around with a Caucasian girl, and her last name was Mills. Mills, is that a... I don't know what nationality...

RP: She was from Seabrook?

SK: Yes, she lived right in one of the homes that they had there. They may have been different nationalities.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.