Densho Digital Archive - Shiuko Sakai Interview (denshovh-sshiuko-01-0011)

<Begin Segment 11>

KL: Where did you go?

SS: To one of the farms, picked potatoes and onions, and I'm not a farm girl. And the other girls were raised on the farm, you know, they'd go out picking. My sister and I would go down one block, they'll go down the block and back, we're halfway down the block, so they had to come help us.

KL: Was it your younger sister who went, too? Who went with you, which sister?

SS: My sister?

KL: Uh-huh.

SS: Haruko.

KL: She went to the farm with you?

SS: Yeah.

KL: Did someone teach you?

SS: Huh?

KL: Did someone teach you how to...

SS: They had to teach us how to pick the potatoes. But we weren't very fast. The others were so fast.

KL: They had grown up on farms?

SS: Right.

KL: Who did, did you go with friends?

SS: Yes. It was fun, you know, to get out of camp.

KL: How did you get to the farm?

SS: I think they picked us up in a truck.

KL: Do you remember the owners or the...

SS: No.

KL: What was your housing? What was your housing on the farm?

SS: Oh, we just went out and came back for the day.

KL: Oh, okay.

SS: We didn't stay.

KL: Were these farms that were operated by Minidoka?

SS: No.

KL: They were private?

SS: Private, yeah. Because I think they needed the workers.

KL: Yeah, they did.

SS: Because of the war. You know, right now they have illegal immigrants coming in? Well, we were the immigrants then, I guess.

KL: How long did you do that, just one season?

SS: Not too long, just one season.

KL: And you were picking potatoes, you said?

SS: Digging potatoes and onions.

KL: Did you do other things to try to fight the boredom?

SS: In camp?

KL: Uh-huh.

SS: Yeah, there were a lot of things to do. In the wintertime the canal would freeze over, we'd go skating, ice skating. Well, I worked.

KL: What was your work?

SS: Secretarial work, I worked in the engineers office first, and then I went to the school system and worked for the counselor at high school, superintendent.

KL: Did you interact with the students in the high school?

SS: Pardon?

KL: Did you interact with the students in the high school?

SS: No, no, I was in the office.

KL: Who was in the office? Were there other teachers who were incarcerated, Japanese American teachers or Caucasian?

SS: In the office, no. There were a couple of other friends, couple friends of mine who were there working in the office. I had another friend working in the principal's office.

KL: Well, did your friends say anything about the principal? What were their impressions of the principal? Didn't really see him?

SS: Right.

KL: I just was curious to know about the administrators...

SS: I thought you had read something about the principal.

KL: No, I know very little about Minidoka. I know much more about some of the other camps, but I know very little about Minidoka.

SS: He was a very nice person, I liked him.

KL: And I am curious about who, what motivated people to come and be a principal or a teacher in the camps, it's kind of an interesting collection of people.