Densho Digital Archive - Roy Murakami Interview (denshovh-mroy

<Begin Segment 29>

RP: Well you, you did a little work in camp too even though you were, you were young. When you were fourteen you worked at the chicken ranch.

RM: Yeah.

RP: Tell us, tell us what you did there?

RM: Mainly mix feed. We used to go out... there was one man, well, he was not young, old, he was about twenty, not quite twenty, I think. Anyway, he would go out and we would go out to the farm and cut some, some alfalfa, bring it back and mix it with grain. I got muscles then because those bags were 120 pounds. So used to did that and it was good. They used to call me "Yangu, Yangu," That means young one. And so, "You go get the lunch." "I don't know how to drive." "You take this car and you go down." So I'd have to get in it and drive.

RP: Oh you drove down to get lunch?

RM: [Nods head.] First time I learned how to drive.

RP: Where would you go? Block 3?

RM: Yeah. Three, kitchen.

RP: They had the best food?

RM: Not necessarily, but it was the closest one and not bad. I think it was... one of the kitchen was pretty good. Ten or something like that was supposed to be really good. It wasn't bad.

RP: Huh, so you were the gopher?

RM: Gopher. Go-fer this, go-fer that.

RP: But then you advanced a little and you ended up feeding the chickens and...

RM: Well no, that's with a, come with the job. When I got nothing to make, I have to go help them clean up the fertilizer, too. And they, they would grow uri, which is a white melon-like, like a cucumber. And Japanese prize it because they make good pickles. So the guys, they would take the fertilizer, throw it out there and water it and then put the seeds down and they would make beautiful... yeah. And they said, "Okay, let's go down to Block 3 and you go sell this by the crate," because the good, they were shipping out of the center to other centers. So you could do that sort of, okay. And always, all the ladies come in and say, "Oh Roy-san, you got to sell this cheaper." You know... "No, no, they told me to sell told me to sell it for this." But then that, that's the way they were. They were a lot of fun.

RP: So they'd grow the uri.

RM: Uri.

RP: At the chicken ranch?

RM: Yeah.

RP: With the fertilizer.

RM: Fertilizer. They'd grow watermelons, too. I think it was watermelons or something like that.

RP: At the chicken ranch?

RM: Uh-huh.

RP: Hm. All right. Were you involved in slaughtering the birds too or...

RM: Yeah.

RP: You were.

RM: Yeah, de-feathering. The men, old men and I was, they were in their fifties or sixties, they used to do it real good. They take it to the beak and then twist it. Really professional. But then we had to take the, take the, all the feathers off.

RP: There's an old oven or stove, like a barbeque out there.

RM: Oh, yeah.

RP: A stone...

RM: Yeah, they could, they'd cook sometimes.

RP: They'd cook 'em up there?

RM: Yeah. When they get busy they'd all go down.

RP: Uh-huh. Who'd deliver the eggs to the mess halls?

RM: I don't know. Because I never, I handled some eggs but then not... I used to get some and old men used to give me a bag of eggs like this and say, "Take this home to your mama." So I would hide it, you know I don't want anybody else to know I'm takin' eggs. And I'd hang it up real gentle and she'd know it's eggs, she had eggs. But they were nice.

RP: Did you have a little hotplate in your, in your room?

RM: Yeah, they had a, everybody had a hotplate. Sears and Roebuck.

RP: Like one gentleman said yesterday, "They made millions off us."

RM: Yeah, that and what's that? Carpenter... was it down Lone Pine? Big Pine. They had a lumberyard that they'd sell lumber.

RP: Oh, to the camp?

RM: Yeah. So they, you know, they built little chairs and things, whatnot.

RP: Uh-huh.