<Begin Segment 13>

RP: Let's talk a little bit about your work at the chicken ranch and hog ranch. Were these summer jobs?

JO: Well, it was a summer job. And my brother and I were workin' there. We were the cement mixer. We used to... now this isn't the little bitty cement mixer. It's a big one that takes one sack of cement at that time and we used to have to shovel those rocks and the sand and we had to count it. And then we put the... the finisher was a very good finisher and he just wanted it so, so. So much water, you know, and the thickness and all that's gotta be just right. And he did that while we poured it. He also was the one who supervised all the foundations and all that that we put in, that he put in. I don't recall his name and even then I don't think I knew his name. But he was the last one to do anything there because he just wanted the cement just so, hard and all that before he did the finish work on it. And he did the finish work. And I learned how you had to do a lot of things. Because when you have a big slab to put in there, which they didn't have the modern equipment where you could just run it back and forth. You did it by hand and he had a, he's got to stand on something. And then everything gets put on a certain way. So you learn through experience, I guess. And we did, we did the chicken ranch and about a month later they decided they wanted a hog ranch so we're doing that. We did basically the foundation all was about the same, similar. Where the hog ranch you had to have an opening so they could put 'em out. The chicken ranch, I don't know... after we put the foundation on I never did see how they put the building up after. Or either the hog ranch. The other cement job we did was fixing the water, farmland water mains that were out there, and they were, a couple of 'em broke and we had to pour cement around it to fix 'em back up. And that was something else. He had a... they were about six feet high so we had to push wheelbarrows loaded with cement up there. And usually we used to load a wheelbarrow with just about half, one quarter and then take about a fifty feet running start and halfway up they would get two persons to help us the rest of the way up. Because the cement is not light. And when you're going up six feet it's something else. 'Cause we didn't have any kind of equipment that they could just pour it in. And we did that for one day and got it all fixed, fixed up and that's about, most of the cement work I did up there.

RP: So, you, you dug the trenches for the forms, too?

JO: Oh, yeah. We'd help put the foundation forms all in. So you know, we were out there... it didn't really, well, we didn't work no eight hours a day there. Worked about six hours most of the time. But you never know. When you're doing the cement, though, you gotta stay until it's ready. Even though we were done, well, we got through and he was doin' the finish work, but we worked out there. Because we were outside the fence so they had trucks taking us in and out. So we had to wait until we get back on a truck and go back in.

RP: Where did you take, where did you have lunch? Would they take you back to your mess hall?

JO: Yeah, they usually took us back to the mess hall. Because they didn't... sometimes, once in a while they used to bring some food out. A lot of times some of the workers, they had us stay put there. Well, they used to bring the food for them and then there were some people who'd go back in and eat and come back. But there wasn't that many trucks. I think there were one or two trucks was all, all we had.

RP: You had a... how large a crew did you have working on those projects?

JO: How large a what?

RP: How large a crew did you have working on those concrete projects?

JO: Oh... probably a dozen. Yeah. People were doing different things. Because the drivers of the trucks, they didn't, weren't allowed to work. They drove. That's all they were supposed to do was drive. We had to try to keep different people busy.

RP: So you started, started golfing at Manzanar and then you did some concrete work. Did you ever work concrete again in your life?

JO: The only concrete work I did was on the first house I bought. I had to put a little sidewalk on the front and that's the only thing I did, and other than that I haven't done any. Except putting poles in the ground or something like that. That was about all.

RP: Now your sister, Misato, got married in camp.

JO: Yes.

RP: Tell us about that. Who did she marry?

JO: She married a guy named Theodore Vincent Sakurai.

RP: And where was he from?

JO: He was from Tracy, California. So you know, how they met and things I don't know.

RP: Do you remember the ceremony at all?

JO: Not too much. But I don't know. 'Cause they don't have cameras or anything like that so there wasn't any pictures that I can recall. So was it 1943 or something, sometime in there, I don't really remember the dates. All I remember is the boy was born ... what was it, Saint Patrick's Day, 1944.

RP: Patrick.

JO: Yeah, Patrick.

RP: Did your sister work in camp?

JO: When we first got there, since she was going to college before that and she was teaching, gee, I don't know, grade school. And which they were using the rec. halls for. And I don't know how long she did that. She didn't do it very long that I know of. But that's the only thing I remember that she did. Other than that I don't know.

RP: You said that your dad worked as a cook.

JO: Yeah.

RP: Did he also hold other jobs at Manzanar or did he...

JO: Not that I know of.

RP: How about your mother?

JO: Well, she worked as the janitor at the school. And then... other than that I don't think she did anything else.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.