Interviews

1. Memories of railroad workers who stayed at family's prewar hotel in Spokane, Washington

2. Working as a night clerk at family's Spokane, Washington, hotel, throwing out the drunk residents

3. Family's hotel clientele, transients traveling by rail

4. Japanese American railroad workers are fired following the bombing of Pearl Harbor

5. Losing job with railroad because of being Japanese American

6. A racist encounter at a movie theater following the bombing of Pearl Harbor

7. Encountering a train full of Japanese Americans being transported to a concentration camp

8. Description of the process of chick sexing

9. The rigorous work schedule of a chick-sexer in upstate New York

10. The importance of speed and accuracy in the chick-sexing industry

11. The enormous demand for chick sexers in the chicken hatchery industry

George Yamada

(b. 1923) Chick sexer

The rigorous work schedule of a chick-sexer in upstate New York

My work was in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and one day in say a 24-hour to 48-hour period, I worked in five states. I think it was New York, Connecticut, I even ventured into New Hampshire to work up there, sexed up there. We were getting in the neighborhood of around one and a quarter cent per chick, one point quarter for a chick. In the smaller hatcheries, we were getting a nickel a chick, and we also sexed turkeys, turkey poults, and we got anywhere from a nickel to seven cents or a dime a poult, as I remember. And it was real decent money for what people in the country were making at that time.

chick sexing

Date: March 15 & 16, 2006

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Megan Asaka

Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Interviewee Bio

Nisei male. Born 1923 in Spokane, Washington. Spent childhood in downtown Spokane where parents ran the World Hotel. Father also worked as a mail handler for the Great Northern Railroad. Attended Lewis and Clark High School and Washington State University. During the war remembers seeing train cars pass through Spokane with Japanese Americans headed to Heart Mountain incarceration camp, Wyoming. Drafted into the army in 1944 and served at the Military Intelligence Service Language School in Fort Snelling, Minnesota and Presidio, California. After World War II, worked as a chick sexer in upstate New York and surrounding region for thirty years. Returned to Spokane in the mid-1970s and pursued a career in real estate. Currently lives with wife, Susie, in Spokane and is an active fly fisherman. (March 16, 2006 )

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Episode 17
November 12
5pm PDT | 7pm PET
Featured Nima:
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George Yamada

The rigorous work schedule of a chick-sexer in upstate New York

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