<Begin Segment 10>

TI: Okay. So after you graduated from UCLA, what did you do next?

KK: Well, I had a special secondary teaching credential in home economics. So I scouted around trying to find a job. But as soon as they saw my face, they decided that no, they wouldn't, they wouldn't hire a Japanese.

TI: So at this time, the schools or school districts were not hiring Japanese.

KK: No. I didn't think that at the time, there was anybody in the whole L.A. district. But after, oh, years and years later, I heard that there were a few here and there. I don't know who they were or anything. Anyway...

TI: Did that surprise you, the difficulty in getting a job?

KK: Oh, no, not too much of a surprise. Because at that time, the "Yellow Peril" literature was at its height. And so we just felt like, "Well, if that's the way they feel, why, they're not going to hire me anyway." So anyway, that was out.

TI: So what did you do next? So you couldn't get a job...

KK: Well, then at that time, the lady that did the alterations in the store quit, or decided to stop, so I was the stopgap. So I went to work and did that. So not only did we do alterations, but we had to keep a line of dresses in stock, so that people who needed a black dress for a funeral could just come in and take something off the shelf and have a black dress. It was quite necessary for the ladies especially. Of course, the men could just wear a dark suit, but the women, being farm ladies, they had no black dress to go. So it was kind of a boring job to keep that going. Because we couldn't do anything fancy, they wouldn't buy any fancy stuff. It just had to be something that would pass for a black dress.

TI: And the store you were working in, was this your father's store?

KK: Yeah, uh-huh.

TI: In the dry goods area. So what was it like working for your father?

KK: Never saw him much. We were in the, the dry goods department, which was separated, now, from the food section. So Pop had not much to do with our section. One of his best friends was the, was the boss in the clothing department.

TI: So during this time, about how many employees did the store have?

KK: Oh, gosh, let me see. One, two, three, four, five, six. There must have been about six, six or seven in the dry goods area. And I don't know how, for the men's department, I don't know how many of those guys were just filling in for somebody or what, but they seemed to come and go kind of fast. And I don't know how many people were in the grocery department.

TI: But I'm guessing the grocery department might even be larger than the dry goods, or about the same size?

KK: No, the dry goods was now larger.

TI: Larger, okay.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.