Densho Digital Archive - George Oda Interview (denshovh-ogeorge-01-0009)

<Begin Segment 9>

RM: So you were sixteen when you got to Manzanar, is that right?

GO: Seventeen.

RM: Seventeen. So were you still in high school?

GO: Yeah, I was one grade below, so I was a senior. So we went to camp, and my friends and I said, "What are we going to school for?" So we went to work, sixteen dollars.

RM: So you didn't graduate from Manzanar High School.

GO: No.

RM: What job did you get instead of going to high school?

GO: Well, the first job I got it was dishwashing in the kitchen, sixteen. Then while I was working in the kitchen, they wanted farm work in Idaho, so I went. And I came back and got another job. I think I got, at that time I was a junior cook. I worked in the same kitchen. So it's a good experience.

RM: So I want to talk to you a little more in detail about furlough just a little bit. Because you went on three furloughs?

GO: I went on three of them.

RM: That's a lot of work.

GO: Well, the first one, I got together with my friend and said, "Let's go." He didn't go to school either. So all together five of us in the group, they got the other groups, too, but our group, there were five. Anyway, we went to sugar beet. And then we came back with less money than we started.

RM: Where was the furlough at?

GO: Blackfoot, Idaho.

RM: How did you find out about it?

GO: Oh, the farmers write to the camp, I guess, and then they said they wanted so many people to go to this camp or this farm to help out. It happens that this group that I went out with, the farmers asked for so many people. So we went to the sugar, this farm and went to sugar beet. Sugar beet was so small that we didn't make no money.

RM: So I'm curious about the, I guess, traveling out to furlough, and also, was this, how long had you been in camp before you went on the first furlough?

GO: Well, we were... gee, it could be the following year. Because the first year, I think everybody is not settled. So I think the following year with the harvest, they wanted people. Like my brother went to Montana for the sugar beet. So they were asking for help from all different states. So my brother went to Montana and I went to Idaho.

RM: How did you get there?

GO: Let's see. I think we went on a bus to Bishop, and from Bishop I think we took the train or bus. Wait a minute, I think we took a bus. I'm losing it.

RM: You're doing great. So you get up to Idaho, Blackfoot, Idaho. Was the farmer welcoming?

GO: Oh, yeah. He wanted help, so they furnished us a place to sleep. And then the cooking utensils and all that, we had to cook our own. So they did everything, and they said if you want to go downtown you can borrow the truck and go downtown. So we went downtown quite often. That's where our money went. [Laughs]

RM: What did you do downtown?

GO: Well, I guess we ate and did other stuff. There's one person that made money in our group, and he didn't spend nothing. He's the one that, you make the money, I'm going to keep it." Like the other four of us, we make the money, we spend it. So we went to movies and all that.

RM: How did people in Blackfoot, Idaho, react when they saw you guys in town?

GO: Well, they said, "They're working on the farm and helping us out." So they didn't bother us. Except for one Halloween, I think it was Halloween. A bunch of young kids came over, they knocked off our... what do you call that? What is it? Where you had to go.

RM: Oh, the outhouse?

GO: Outhouse, that's it, outhouse. They came and...

RM: Tipped it over?

GO: Tipped it over. This is a Halloween joke, prank, you know. Yeah, they did things like that.

RM: So that was the only negative thing you experienced.

GO: Yeah, it's Halloween.

RM: Yeah. So how did it feel, if you'd been in Manzanar for a year, and then you went on your first furlough, how did it feel to go outside the fence?

GO: Well, it's... I don't know how I felt. Because in the camp we were doing what we could do, you know. Go out there and... well, we got paid in camp, too, but I didn't think no difference, it was a farm, I was working on a farm before. And then three of us in the group was farmers, so we know what the work was. And then there's two of 'em from the city that didn't know what farming was like, so we had to carry 'em.

RM: You had to teach 'em. How did, were you paid by how much you harvested?

GO: Yeah, they went by the ton. So after we cut the sugar beets, they pile up and we got to throw it in the wagon or the truck, and then you take it to the place where they received the sugar beet, maybe weight it there. We get paid by the tonnage, whatever percentage. So we didn't make nothing.

RM: Do you know how much you got a ton?

GO: No.

RM: And then was it just the pay was divided up among the five of you?

GO: Yeah.

RM: So you also, I'm guessing, went out on potato furlough since you donated an amazing potato belt to Manzanar.

GO: Yeah, that's right. After Idaho, Blackfoot, went back, and then we see potato, then we went out to potato farm. That one we made money. And that belt is you put it on here and you hook the bag and you drag it and you push it in as you go. And then the hook in the back, I put the extra sack after you, put fifty pound in, you put it up, then get the other sack and hook it up and do the same thing.

RM: So you could potentially be dragging more than a hundred pounds around.

GO: No, it's fifty pounds. They only wanted about fifty pounds in a bag, so we drag about fifty pounds in that first thing. So I made money on that.

RM: So where was the potato farm?

GO: It's in Idaho.

RM: Was it near Blackfoot also?

GO: Pocatello.

RM: Pocatello, okay. And what was the difference between that one and the sugar beet furlough when you didn't make any money?

GO: Well, the sugar beet was... I don't know, the town was bigger so it was better. We've got more time to do things. And then we had partners, two guys, and he was a farmer, so we did good.