<Begin Segment 16>

RP: Let's talk about the following year. You said you took a, did a work furlough in Twin Falls?

KO: Pardon?

RP: You said you did a work furlough in Twin Falls?

KO: No, we went out to a labor camp as a group and we were with a bunch of Jamaicans, next to us, you know, we'd be in this area and they brought 'em up from Jamaica. They would come into, farmers, as they needed labor, come in and ask. That's how we worked. But I didn't make much money because a day laborer and stuff, they hardly paid. And they fed us lunch.

[Inaudible]

RP: Kats, we were talking about your day labor work in Twin Falls, so correct me if I'm wrong, you went out, you took a bus?

KO: In the day labor camp, yeah. It's on those farm labor camps they established.

RP: Right, and what did you do on the farm? Were you harvesting sugar beets, or...

KO: Well, no, at that time, no, that camp, we were weeding, stacking hay, and I remember moving potatoes around. We harvested potatoes, I remember that. Keeping up with the truck, and we were all about 120 pounders, and they were 40 pound bags of potatoes, you know. The truck goes and the truck driver puts it in gear, they go straight down the furrows, and he's stacking them, we're running beside him and tossing it up. All of 126 pounds when we were doing that. And all of us were small stature. It was hard work, but we did it. Here we are at that time, sixteen years old. [Laughs]

RP: Right, you could remember what your grandmother did.

KO: Yeah, oh yeah.

RP: You had that ethic.

KO: Yeah, I don't know if we did, but it was nice to get out of camp. That was part of the reason why I think we did it.

RP: Now did you come back to camp every evening?

KO: Yes, we had to, as soon as our time was up, we came back. But we didn't hardly have any money left. Oh, we had to pay for food, remember. They didn't furnish the food free, you know, so it was all subtracted.

RP: What about the farmer that you worked for?

KO: I remember getting fed, they gave us lunch and it was interesting, we went as a group and somehow the farmer chose me and brought me into the house and fed me, you know, the family. It was very nice.

RP: Oh, you ate with his family?

KO: Yeah, yeah, and I guess I was more on the religious side and they were a very religious family.

RP: Did you get the sense that they really appreciated...

KO: I felt that way, I think they did.

RP: ...the labor the Japanese Americans were providing?

KO: That's right.

RP: They really saved the, saved the agricultural situation.

KO: I think the second time, second summer I went out, there was much more appreciation.

RP: By the Mormon farmer?

KO: Yes, otherwise the sugar beets would be laying there. Yeah, and we, it was hard work for us, 'cause we were small in stature, trying to, and we would work, we were working twelve, fourteen hours a day there. It'd be pitch black when we finished. We'd work 'til dark.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2007 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.