<Begin Segment 24>

MA: And what, I'm just curious, what year did you get married?

IN: 1953.

MA: So you were working and then you had your first child. And that, what year was that, that you had your first?

IN: Oh, well, Pam was born in '55. So 1955.

MA: Pam, okay.

IN: We lived in Berkeley on top of a bakery. It was a little flat, nothing fancy. We got, we bought a sofa, I don't know if we bought it, or I don't know, picked it up somewhere, where one or two of the springs were loose. So when we had guests over, of course they'd notice the spring.

MA: And I'm just curious, your impressions of Berkeley and the Berkeley Japanese American community. I mean, coming from a more rural background, what you thought of the differences between the two communities?

IN: Not really. Everybody had sort of, you know, gone to different areas. It was not as concentrated as before. People were scattered. People didn't come back, and if they came back, they weren't as concentrated. So I guess it wasn't that bad.

MA: That's interesting. So the war sort of scattered the community.

IN: Scattered everybody. Yes, uh-huh.

MA: And what work was your husband doing?

IN: Excuse me?

MA: What type of work was your husband doing around that time, when you were in Berkeley?

IN: He was working for the, he was a officer at the Bank of America.

MA: And you had your first child, Pam, right, in 1955. And what about your other children? When were they born, and their names?

IN: Oh, Paul, I have a second son, Paul. He was born in '57, I think. And then of course, Scott was born in '58. I had them pretty close.

MA: And when did you go back to teaching full-time?

IN: And then in the meantime, we moved to Richmond. A very small house, three bedroom, but very, very small, up in the Richmond hills. And my husband worked at the bank, but he felt there was no future in that. So he, when he was a young boy, he used to help his father in a barbershop. The father had a very successful barbershop in Oakland, and he used to help my father. And he would get the money from the customer. You know, by the way, my husband was going to Cal then. So he that was his pin money. So after being rather unsuccessful at the Bank of America, he decided it was not his cup of tea. So he decided he would go back and open up a barbershop and that's what he did, in Berkeley. And he became very, very successful.

MA: And during this time, you said you moved to Richmond? And then can you talk about, I guess, did you start teaching part-time?

IN: Yeah, part-time. I taught in the Richmond School District and the Pinole School District. And the Richmond School District, to this day, one of the roughest district you could imagine. It's a city owned by the petroleum business. You know, and so I taught part-time and I noticed the condition of what was really going on in the junior highs and the high schools there, and I didn't like it. So, my husband was doing fairly well in the barber business, so at that time, I wanted to move. Because I saw what was going on in the high schools. There was no learning. Absolutely, kids came to school with knives, and I didn't want my children to be in that environment. So then, much to my husband's objection, we moved to an upscale community on the other side of the mountain, called Moraga. And it was at that point, after being there for about a year, I decided I would go back to teaching full-time. Scott was the youngest, and he was already pretty independent.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.