<Begin Segment 14>

AH: Now, you're what grade in college when the evacuation comes along?

JA: I think I was in junior.

AH: And you had finished two years of engineering and both of those were at the university, right?

JA: Uh-huh.

AH: And when you were taking engineering courses you were a civil engineer.

JA: Yes.

AH: Now, was that what most Nisei were in engineering or were some electrical or mechanical or what were they?

JA: Civil was not with the Nisei. They were either chemical, electrical, aero, uh, what else -- not too much mining. But anyway, they were the main three: chemical, electrical, mechanical, and aero.

AH: Did they have petroleum engineering here or not?

JA: No, it was mining.

AH: And was Boeing an up and going concern at the time or did that not come 'til World War II?

JA: Yeah, it was going but not as such.

AH: And what was happening to engineers, Japanese American engineers, in the Northwest? In Southern California, they were ending up working on fruit stands and things.

JA: Yeah, that's the very thing. In the little composition, I said, I don't want to be like Joe such-and-such, getting a degree in engineering, and not being able to be hired.

AH: Well, how did you feel about that? Were you arrogant enough to think that in spite of the fact that these other Nisei were not getting hired, that you would? [Laughs]

JA: That I was going to make it. And that's why I fought my way, fought my way into engineering department -- first Nisei, yeah.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.