Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community

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    BIJAC > Artworks > Oral History > Farming with the “7–ups” – Yae Yoshihara (OH0040)

Farming with the “7–ups” – Yae Yoshihara (OH0040)

Transcript

Interestingly enough, in Idaho, because of the manpower shortage on all the farms in that area, they closed the school for six weeks, October through part of November, and giving the able persons to go out and help with the harvest, in apple picking, onion topping, picking potatoes.

So the 7–Ups went out and that’s what we did. We stayed with a camp bunkhouse in Twin Falls. Toshi’s mother went with us. She became our cook. Then every morning the farmers would come, pick us up, and take us to the farm where we would work and earn some money, which was great. Then, that was over, we went back to school, returned to camp and went back to school.

With

Video Interview — December 2006

About the narrator

Yae Yoshihara

Yaeko Sakai Yoshihara was 12 years old and in the 7th grade when she was evacuated. She was the youngest of six children. Her family had a strawberry farm before the war. When Yae was in camp she was part of a group of young seventh grade girls who played together nick–named the "7-Ups."