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HH: From Livingston, where did you go as far as the relocation center was concerned?

TM: Went to Merced Assembly Center and then to Amache, the camp in Colorado.

HH: How long did you stay in Amache?

TM: Well, the total of my stay, I guess I was in Merced about three months, and six months in Amache, and once I saw people plowing in the valley down below, I couldn't stay still. I had to go do something someplace, so eventually I even went to San Luis Valley in Colorado. But that's seven thousand feet up in the air, I got a bloody nose. I said, "That's no good." Anyhow, I wound up, I went to several places, but eventually wound up doing sharecropping in Fort Collins, Colorado.

HH: Yes. And how many seasons did you do that?

TM: One year, because I figured I don't have to do this. We didn't lose any money. Lots of people that left camp lost money. Fortunately, we didn't lose any money, but you don't do it just for exercise. And I had some of my friends from the camp come out and help. So we grew all kinds of crops there. The man that owned the farms was the Drayer pickle company, so that he was interested in seeing cucumbers growing. Now we grew celery, tomatoes, onions. You grow onions and root crops and carrots because you have the possibility of a hailstorm pretty good in Colorado. And if you have stuff above the ground, you're liable to lose your crop. So we grew some of these root crops, we had cabbage. Anyhow, in Colorado, you still have to carload just like you do in California. So I thought, well, I don't have to do this. If I was making money, well, that's something. But I wasn't making any money... well, not a great amount of money anyhow. So I figured, heck with this. And I always had an idea that many I ought to get closer to the markets. And that's probably what prompted me to come to the East Coast in the first place.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1994 JACL Philadelphia. All Rights Reserved.