<Begin Segment 16>

RP: This is tape two of our interview with Tak Minato. Tak, we were talking about some of your experiences in camp, one of which was you had the opportunity to leave the camp for a while and go to Montana and pick sugar beets?

TM: Uh-huh.

RP: Tell us a little bit about that. Why you decided to go out and where did you go and who did you go with?

TM: Oh, I guess when you're in the camp like that you're, you're always thinking about you want to go out. So, we got together some of my friends and I think the first group we had ten, ten together and we went as a group and went to Montana, place called Glasgow, Glasgow, Montana, about fifty miles south of Canada. And that was the worst place to go sugar beet. [Laughs] We did terrible. We didn't make any money. People went to Idaho, they did real well.

RP: Why is that?

TM: Well, they had big sugar beets, like that, so they had more poundage and, but we were topping sugar beet like that carrot size.

RP: It didn't quite add up very quick.

TM: Yeah, right.

RP: What about your living conditions? Did you live on this...

TM: On this seasonal work? Oh, it was good. They provided us with a house. Yeah.

RP: And one of you guys had to do the cooking?

TM: Yeah, my brother, he liked, my younger brother, he was a cook. Yeah, he, he wanted, he liked to cook. And he was the youngest in the group and he did all the cooking. Yeah.

RP: Who else besides you and your brother were in the group? Could you name off a few names for us?

TM: Oh, yeah. Isao Kikuchi and I think you mentioned Dr. Kikuchi? Well, that was his son, Isao Kikuchi.

[Interruption]

RP: Tak, you were just sharing with us some of the other guys who were in this group.

TM: Uh-huh. And then the Zoriki brothers, Tom and Mike Zoriki. And then there were Benny Yoshinaga, Curt, Curt Yamamoto, Joe Uchiyama... can't remember his first name, it's... last name was Ohashi. I don't know how many that is. That's about it.

RP: Yeah. Did you... I know you were working most of this time but did you have any, a little time at all to go into a town or...

TM: Yeah. We go into town every once in a while and we went to a town called Malta, Malta, Montana. And they had a restaurant there so we go over there to eat rice and then there was sisters working there. You know, I mean, I guess the parents owned the restaurant. We met them.

RP: They were Japanese?

TM: Japanese, yeah.

RP: Oh, how nice. So you were welcomed at least there.

TM: Uh-huh.

RP: Did you have any negative, any negative reactions to your being in Montana? Anybody who...

TM: No, no.

RP: And how long were you in, up there?

TM: Four, four months, I think, September to December, uh-huh.

RP: So you went out in the first summer in camp, 1942?

TM: Yeah. Uh-huh.

RP: And so how did, how did that feel to be out of camp?

TM: [Laughs] Well, didn't feel any different. I felt like camp was... it wasn't restricted or nothing.

RP: Anything else about the trip there and the work that you recall?

TM: No, not much.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright (c) 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.