Densho Digital Archive - Henry Nishi Interview II (denshovh-nhenry

<Begin Segment 18>

RP: When did you, why did you decide to leave camp, Henry? You said you were, went to...

HN: Omaha.

RP: Omaha.

HN: Yeah.

RP: Why?

HN: Well, we were allowed to leave whenever, if we wanted to, so I took the opportunity to leave. And prior to that we were, every season we were going out to the farming, beets and potatoes. We harvested potatoes, harvested beets. In the spring we did the thinning. We thinned the sugar beets. We worked for a family in Idaho... what's the name of that city? One of the bigger cities in Idaho. We went back there several seasons, two seasons. Well, the spring season we went and summer season, the fall season, for harvesting. And I think we went another spring, following spring we went for thinning. But that harvesting, that year happened to be a cold one. But I remember the farmer coming out. It was bitterly cold and snowing and we said, "Well, we can't be working in this," so we stayed in. He came and rapped on the door and he said, "We gotta get the, get the potatoes out before they freeze." I remember that.

RP: Did you go out with a group of guys?

HN: Yeah, yeah. With that same, the same group.

RP: The nursery crew?

HN: The nursery group, yeah, we went out.

RP: Oh, so you guys were pretty tight.

HN: Yeah, yeah.

RP: And you got out of camp for a couple of months, or whatever it was.

HN: Yeah, then plus we got paid. We made some money.

RP: More than $19 a month?

HN: Yeah. I forgot what it was, but it was hard work. It was hard work. Especially the harvesting was...

RP: The sugar beets?

HN: Because of the weather. It was cold. Those sugar beets, some of those beets are big and heavy.

RP: Almost as big as you.

HN: And the truck is way up there. You gotta...

RP: You gotta haul...

HN: Yeah. And the potatoes, we tried to make 'em light. You're supposed to get about a half sack, and you put 'em, they keep 'em in the row that you harvest and then you come back and the guys come back with the truck. Then we, you call bucking, bucking onto the... so we tried to keep it light so it wouldn't be so heavy. But, the farmers, they liked to have a full load.

RP: How, so how were you treated by the farmers?

HN: Oh, good. Good. Yeah.

RP: Did you go into any of the local towns or communities and...

HN: I'm still trying to think of the name of that, the city that we...

RP: Blackfoot?

HN: No. Not Idaho Falls. It's... starts with an "R."

KP: Rexford? Rexford?

HN: Rexford, yeah.

RP: Give that guy a prize.

HN: Yeah. It was Rexford, yeah. We went into town a couple of times and it wasn't fun because, you know, it's... the people out there are... well, the farmers, of course, who we worked for, we got to know them. But in town it was kind of, it didn't feel very, very good about it so we didn't go into town. Because the farmer said if you want to go, take the truck, go into town, which we did a couple times. We went to a pool hall and, and I remember I got to a point where I said, "Hey, we better get out of here. It doesn't look good." So we walked out. I think if we'd have stayed, we'd have gotten in a fight.

RP: Were you being verbally abused or...

HN: No, not verbally abused but you just kind of...

RP: You just didn't feel welcome.

HN: Didn't feel good, yeah.

RP: That's good to go with your instincts sometimes like that.

HN: Yeah, yeah.

RP: So you went out --

HN: But the farmers, out, you know, we were, we were harvesting their crop and they got to know us, we got to know them. So...

RP: And you worked for the same farmer...

HN: Huh?

RP: You worked for the same farmer for several seasons?

HN: Yeah, yeah. I think, I think they, when they asked for help, I think they requested if we could get the same group or... whatever reason, we ended up in the same farm.