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AI: Well, so you mentioned that you went to high school, and when you were going to high school, what were you hoping to do? Did you hope that you could get some other work or get off the farm? What were you thinking of doing after high school?

JY: Oh, I was going to go into mechanics, because I see all the Japanese, nothing, or hardly anything was open then. Most all the Japanese, they go to college, they come back, they're working in the fruit stand. Seemed like it was no use, or either that, they become a doctor or dentist. All they could do is just work in the Japanese community, Japanese patrons, that's it. It was limited. So I figured, if you're a mechanic, if you're a good mechanic, anybody will come. Don't matter what nationality, they'll come to you. So I was going to Narbonne high school in Lomita, but did not have no class in mechanics, but Torrance had it, so I transferred to Torrance. That's where I graduated.

AI: And what, what year did you graduate high school?

JY: (Summer) 1940. (During the 1940s, they had B12 and A12 so there was a summer graduation and winter graduation.)

AI: So after you graduated, 1940, were you able to get work as a mechanic?

JY: No, I started driving a truck. I started driving a truck, I was making, I don't know, about fifteen bucks (...) a week, and then I went to another trucking company, about eighteen bucks, and I ended up driving a eighteen-wheeler for twenty-five dollars (...) a week. Twenty-five dollars a week, that's good money in those days. And then when the war started, he fired me. My brother (was twenty-one, old enough to buy land). See, my brother is, he's pretty sharp. We were gonna buy land for twenty-five dollars an acre. We was gonna invest in land. (...) We would have been set if the war didn't start.

AI: So...

JY: 'Cause he was working in the fruit stand. He was making eighteen dollars a week, I was making twenty-five dollars a week, and we was gonna pool our money together. 'Cause still, out of my money, my twenty-five dollars a week, I was giving my dad, I forgot, about ten bucks a week or something, because he had two Mexican (man) take my place to work on the farm, and he was paying them only ten cents an hour. That's only forty (bucks a week for forty hours). You could hire two men (for eight bucks), I'd have money left for myself, and you could ask my sister. They were really happy, because with that fifteen dollar, I used to treat her for candy and ice cream all the time. [Laughs]

AI: So that job, driving the eighteen-wheeler, that was a really good job.

JY: Yeah.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.