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Title: Tad Kuniyuki Interview
Narrator: Tad Kuniyuki
Interviewers: Tom Ikeda, Shin Yu Pai
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: October 28, 2008
Densho ID: denshovh-ktad-01-0017

<Begin Segment 17>

TI: So you graduated from Broadway High School, do you remember what year you graduated?

TK: 1928, I guess. '29, I think.

TI: Yeah, so that would make you eighteen or nineteen, so that's about right. So you graduated the same year that the stock market crashed, so 1929.

TK: I don't remember that part.

TI: Or the beginning of the Depression was about when you graduated.

TK: I guess so. I'm not...

TI: So let's, so 1929, graduated from Broadway High School. And then what did you do?

TK: Go to university.

TI: So you went to university.

TK: Washington, here.

TI: University of Washington. And what did you study at the University of Washington?

TK: I started out in chemistry, but I dropped it and went into economics.

TI: And why economics? What was interesting for you in economics?

TK: Well, it was chemistry was pretty tough. Yeah, every night you have to go finish up your experiments and everything and it was getting to be a bore. So I dropped it and some friends of mine, I belonged to the Japanese Students Club, and they, all kinds of engineers, scientists, everything going there, and not one of them had a job after they got graduated. So, I thought that the percentage of me getting, going to take chemistry and doing all that, isn't worth it. So I took economics as my major. It's the easiest way to get out.

TI: And so that's interesting. Because as you saw your fellow Nisei students, or classmates, they would get science, engineering, these degrees, and when they graduated, they couldn't get jobs. So at that point, even though you're in chemistry, you thought that it wasn't worth the work.

TK: No, it wasn't worth the effort. I felt that way. Then, well, it was very hard, difficult, too, so, so I took, I started in economics.

TI: And then when you graduate with a degree in economics, what, what kind of jobs would you be able to get?

TK: There were no jobs. [Laughs]

TI: So all the Niseis, I mean, your classmates, you know, they would graduate from the University of Washington, what would they end up doing?

TK: Nothing, same thing, just look for any job. Some of them went to Japan, but they didn't get any jobs over there. Because the Japanese didn't hire them. Some of them then did work because they needed their English part, they were able to speak English. That's what I heard anyway, but, so, it was a height of Depression, too, you know. World Depression then.

TI: So was that, so your classmates who were Caucasian, white, were they able to get jobs?

TK: No, they had a hard time, too.

TI: So it was just not the Niseis, it was pretty much everyone.

TK: Of course it was easier for them to get jobs, as far as I know.

TI: So was there pressure -- so I guess the question that I'm wondering, if you have to spend money to go to school, and then you work really hard and then you graduate, and you don't get a good job, why did you decide to go to the university?

TK: I don't know. Just to get the education, I guess. To get the diploma, I don't know. It was a goal, I guess. I don't know, that's the way.

TI: So do you think a lot of Niseis decided not to go to college because it was hard to get jobs?

TK: I don't, I don't know. A lot of them couldn't afford it, as far as I can tell. And some of them just didn't want to go. I don't know.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.