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MA: And you were saying that you worked as a dental assistant. How long did you, did you have that job? Was it your whole career?

NM: Yes, for thirty-five years. I retired in 1990.

MA: What made you go on that path?

NM: Well, I was working at the drugstore. You know the Terasaki Brothers, their brother-in-law, Dr. Kawano just got out of dental school and was practicing. And his wife was helping out as a receptionist and assistant. And she was a pharmacist also, besides the three brothers that worked at the TK Pharmacy. And Dr. Kawano says, "Would you ask Nancy if she wants to come to work with, you know." And one of the brothers said, asked me, and I said, "Oh, I don't know." But eventually I did, and that's how I got started. And let's see, I worked for him for twenty-two years. And then I decided I wanted to work somewhere else. So I went to work for this very nice hakujin doctor who was very nice. Very, very nice. I was lucky. And I worked with him until I retired.

MA: Your first dental job, what was the dentist's name that you worked with?

NM: Dr. Kawano.

MA: Dr. Kawano. Did you work mostly with Japanese American patients? Like in the community?

NM: No. We had, I think, eighty-five percent was, no, I should say, eighty percent was Jewish. Because he lived in a Jewish community.

MA: That's interesting.

NM: So they call him a Jewish-Japanese. We had a lot of Jewish patients. And we had a lot of Italian patients and a few Japanese. Yeah, that was interesting.

MA: That's really interesting. Were there separate, so there's like a Jewish neighborhood, an Italian neighborhood?

NM: Mostly Jewish neighborhood. They all lived in a close area, because like on Saturdays, they weren't able to drive. So in order to go to church they had to walk. So they, they all kinda lived around the synagogue, or whatever, yeah. And that's where he built his house.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.