Densho Digital Archive - Yukiko Miyahara Interview (denshovh-myukiko

<Begin Segment 16>

KP: Right, we were... this is tape two of a continuing interview. And you were just talking about being in Seabrook and being shuffled around to different houses. And then you said you finally got into a cinder block home?

YM: Yes, a cinder block row house. And then we were, you know, they had bungalows, little separate buildings. So we wanted to move into one of them. And so we were waiting for a vacancy and when they told us, when they told my husband we could move it was such a busy season, at that time, so he said we can't move right now. 'Cause we can't, we don't have time to buy furniture or anything. So they start building two more rows of bungalows. And so my husband says, "You want to pay Seabrook rent or you want to buy a house?" And I thought, oh my gosh, buy a house? I don't know. Then I thought, well, I'll go with him and we'll buy a house. So, so we moved out of Seabrook in six years and we moved to our own house.

KP: And where was that house?

YM: It was in Bridgeton, New Jersey. And then it was on the other side of town. And, and then it was a house that we not really happy with, but that was the only empty house that our real estate person could find us so we moved then. And then in 1967 we built another house and we moved closer to the company, called, we lived in Carls Corner. And then from there we moved here, so... (Narr. note: In August 1953, Arlene was born in Bridgeton.)

KP: So what was, what was Seabrook like compared to being in camp? You're out of camp for the first time and...

YM: Yeah.

KP: And you are living in a bungalow again. What were... but your neighbors were different. What kind of neighbors, what kind of people were you...

YM: Oh, there was all kinds of people. You know, American people, you know, there was Germans and Estonians, and all kinds of people. It was a League of Nation. It was. After that, Japanese came from camp, then they had people come from the south and from Florida. Then when they ran out of that they start hiring people from Europe. The first foreigners that came was Estonians. And then they had from Germany, they had from, see, I forgot, there's so many different people came from this. But the Estonians were the first.

KP: What kind of people from Florida came?

YM: They're day workers or whatever, you know. They had a... before, before people came from camps and things, they had a lot of people working there from Jamaica. And then they had a lot of people working from, students from colleges down south and things like that. So when we first went there, the college people were living in that barrack I showed you. So they sent us to a little prison camp they had in Parvin Park and we lived there 'til the people went back to college. Then they opened the barracks and that's when we moved into that barrack I showed you. So we lived in two different barracks and we lived in Parvin Park in a little sixteen by sixteen.

KP: So a lotta different languages.

YM: Uh-huh. Yeah, we had...

KP: What was, what was that like after?

YM: It was fun. I mean it was, they were, everybody got along, even if they were from different companies, countries. So we got to be friends with Pollacks, we called them Pollacks. And I think my boss was from, I forgot where he was from. He was from a country in Europe. The last job I had, my last job was a timekeeper. And, and my boss was from, I think he was from Poland, I think.

KP: So you, you spent... your husband worked at Seabrook.

YM: Uh-huh.

KP: Did you work there also when you first got there?

YM: Uh-huh. I worked there for thirty years.

KP: Who watched the kids, or...

YM: We worked night and day shift and a night shift. We worked on alternate shift so we could take care of the kids. And I never dreamed that I could work at night. [Laughs.]

KP: So was there... it sounds like there was no time for any recreation activity, if you're never together.

YM: Well, we had the winter off. I didn't work in the winter. I was a seasonal worker. And he didn't, he worked seasonal at times. And he was supervisor so he had to work longer than I did. So he became a freezer supervisor, where all the stuff were frozen.