<Begin Segment 17>

RP: How long did you work the Twin Falls job?

KO: That wasn't too long. I would say maybe less than a month when I was at the labor camp. Some of the older guys stayed longer. Yeah, we were the younger guys, and we had guys out there twenty-one, you know. They wanted to get out, I think, and with the experience with the Jamaicans and things.

RP: Yeah, what was that like between the Jamaicans and the Japanese Americans?

KO: I don't remember much at all. Just that, I know they thought they were tough, boxing, and we had a guy that really was halfway decent. So we set up a, if I recall correctly, we set up a boxing match and our guy won. [Laughs]

RP: Oh, right out on the farm?

KO: No, at the labor camp.

RP: Oh, at the labor camp.

KO: Yeah, it was rather interesting. [Laughs] I couldn't have done it, I would have been killed, you know. But, they were, we got along. They weren't the most ambitious because they weren't used to hard labor, I don't think, the ones that came up. They were the ones that needed employment, I think.

RP: They were brought in, they were brought in from Jamaica?

KO: Yeah, they were Jamaicans, yeah. That's all I remember.

RP: Because there was such a shortage of...

KO: That's right.

RP: ...help on the farms so they... that's interesting.

KO: And they might have not have been used to hard labor, either, that's the thing. But that's beside the point, we were there, and when I came back, I didn't have much money on me.

KP: So what did you think of the Jamaican English?

KO: What?

KP: Did the Jamaicans speak English?

KO: Oh, yeah. With an accent, yeah, yeah. That was my first experience with people like that. 'Course, I was used to black people in Seattle because some of 'em hung around with us. 'Cause there was a real small population living in Seattle, there wasn't too many blacks around, and they hung around. One guy hung around Collins Playfield with us all the time. He was very famous for, no, famous for hanging around with us. He was a real character.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2007 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.