<Begin Segment 13>

RM: You and Grace had two daughters.

JK: Yes, uh-huh.

RM: Phyllis and Jean?

JK: Yes.

RM: Uh-huh. And can you tell us a little bit about them?

JK: Well, Jean passed away after, well, she was going to UPS and she came back one, after Christmas for the vacation and said, "Dad, my knee hurts. Take a look at it." We don't treat family, you know, doctors, okay. So I looked at it. I couldn't really find anything wrong with her, but she looked real pale, and I thought, "Well gee, she might have infectious mono or something." That's a college illness, about that time of year, Christmas vacation. And so I said, "Well you better call Dr. Kenman," who's one of my partners in the medical office. And said, "Have him see you." And so she went and came back and says, "She took some blood from me, and they're going to call us toward the evening." And said, I was to get on one phone and he was to get -- she was to be on the other phone. And he told us, "It didn't look good." So wanted to have the hematologist see her. As it turned out, it was a very acute lymphatic leukemia. She was treated, and she couldn't go to school anymore, college, because of the time lost and the treatments and things. And she, finally ended up looking for a bone donor, marrow, you know, bone marrow donor. And found one that was a fair, shall we say, match. And so we tried it as a last ditch thing. But she didn't survive. She passed away at Hutchinson Center. And my other girl, the older one, she's single, she works for Multi Care as a lab technician. She has a, in charge of one group of lab technicians in the Auburn area, that, different laboratories they have there. And so she's well.

RM: How do you look at your life as you achieved your medical degree, your, you...?

JK: Well, you know, I've thought of that, and it all goes back to probably 1940, I think it was, where I was at a oratorical contest. I was not a contestant, okay...

RM: Oh. [Laughs]

JK: ...this was the finals for the Northwest. And there were, we were at the, I think it was the Auburn Buddhist Church. That's where lot, I mean, the churches are where these things are held 'cause they got the capacity, shall we say. And there was a -- I don't even remember his name now, he was from Seattle, I believe. He gave a talk, I mean, they were talking about being, Americanism type of thing, you know, the topic. And he said, "You know, just recently the JACL passed the okay on a creed, Japanese American creed that Mike Masaoka wrote." And I knew a little about Mike Masaoka, but not really as much as I got to know later. But, and as, as he read that Japanese American creed, I thought, "That is a good thing we all ought to follow." And that always impressed me, and I think consciously or subconsciously, everything I've done since those days after the war was over, that is, was directed toward just kind of proving ourselves to be equal, and also to be, shall we say, feel good about getting the kind of education we got, and being ever remindful that the American public as a group are quite fair.

RM: Would you see internment ever happening again to the Japanese American or any other group?

JK: Well, I think not. And boy, if it happens again for Iraqis or whatever, I mean, I think the Japanese American Citizen League... I think with our economy is better, most of us are much better off now, so we could really help to stop anything of that racial tone, type of thing, to go on. Racial or sex, I mean, whether it's talking about gays or whatever. Yeah. It's our duty I think. It's every American's duty. [Laughs] But we have a special place in trying to fight things like that.

RM: Is there anything you would like to say to the next generation's students who are going to be viewing this videotape?

JK: [Laughs] Well, certainly education helps, you know. And you got to be educated. And you got to do everything you can to be educated. And parents should do everything that way, too. But aside from education, I think it's good to have the feeling that you're okay and they're okay, the organizations are okay, but you have a, you fit in it, you have a role to play in it, whatever it may be. You don't have to be president of a firm or a chairman, or even on the board or anything like that. I think that we all work toward a common ground that we're all equal, and I think that's it. Yeah.

RM: I think we're there.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.