<Begin Segment 40>

LH: And I guess we should go toward the more recent part of your life after you graduated from the University of Washington. Obviously you started work as a, you said a file clerk. How long did that last and what did you do after that?

FG: About six months. What I was really waiting for was I was waiting for the examination for the, I wanted to work for the airlines, Northwest Airlines, and I was waiting. I took the telephone company job while I was waiting for the... they hired only certain times of the year because they also trained so I was between the time that the books were open and the time that I graduated I worked at the telephone company. But then I applied for the Northwest Airlines. I really wanted to fly because I wanted to go to Japan. But, anyway, I went to train in Minneapolis, Saint Paul, and it's a one month training program. And that training program for stewardesses and for reservation agents is basically the same thing, but what I was told at the main office was that they weren't mixing the crew.

LH: Now what did that mean, they weren't mixing the crew?

FG: They couldn't have Japanese as, they couldn't have Japanese stewardesses, only in Japan, but not in the U.S. and it was because they were part of the railroad union.

LH: That's interesting. So the railroad union had a rule that said no mixed crews.

FG: Yeah. Yeah.

LH: And that affected your ability to get a job.

FG: Yeah, and it changed about two years after. But, anyway, so then I trained for reservation, as a reservation agent, which was really kind of interesting 'cause you do travel work. And also you do get flying privileges too, but not like if you were a stewardess. [Laughs] I wasn't particularly interested as the glamour in it I just wanted to get from place to place. But, anyway, this was a very... I don't know, very naive way of looking at things, I'm sure.

<End Segment 40> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.