<Begin Segment 3>

TI: When you said growing up from twelve on, you were kind of like, on your own more, what does that mean? When you say, "on your own," what kind of activities would you do?

DK: Well, of course, like I say, it was in the Depression and any job was hard to get, and so I worked on ranches for as little as twenty-five cents a day and made my own.

TI: And so you would just, on your own, just go out there, look for jobs and doing this?

DK: Right, right. And eventually ended up in California working in a shipyard.

TI: So how did you get around, were you just hitchhiking, or how did you...

DK: Well, I, I saved my money pretty good and bought a car when I was sixteen, and so then I had a car after that.

TI: Now I'm curious, was this unusual for someone so young to be so independent?

DK: Not really. There was, during hard times, during the Depression there was, there was quite a few, but I say it wasn't a common thing, no.

TI: Well, so I'm curious; when you -- because the people who will be looking at this interview oftentimes are students about twelve through sixteen. And when, I'm just curious, when you think about your life growing up and how independent you are, or you were, and then you look at kids today, twelve to sixteen, do you see a big difference, or do you see kids being as independent as you were back then?

DK: As a whole, I'd say no, I've, we have several grandchildren, and of course, every one is different. But I don't see the initiative to do things on your own like I did at that time. I mean, you just had to survive.

TI: So it's kind of interesting, I mean, the sense I have from you is that, that sense of independence, I mean, being on your own at such a young age was something that was pretty important and powerful in terms of your, your whole life in terms of doing things. And that came because the times were really hard; this is the Depression era. In some cases, or when you think about our country today, do think sometimes things are too easy for, for these next generations?

DK: Yes, I do. I think that, my whole philosophy is you need to be responsible for your own actions and I can't see that this day and age. They're depending on their parents or authorities or something.

TI: So what do you think it would take for our country or for children today growing up in the United States to get more of that sort of strength and independence? What is it?

DK: Well, I've said many times it'd be terrible, and I don't know if they could survive it or not, but a depression does a lot of things.

TI: Hmm, that's, that's interesting. Because oftentimes in the interviews, I've interviewed lots of Japanese Americans, and they look back at what happened to them during World War II as a very hard time, but out of that came a, sort of a strength and resiliency that, that is really strong. So it's kind of an interesting theme that just, just occurred to me when talking to you about this.

DK: Yes.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.