<Begin Segment 32>

DG: And what about helping each other, did they all work together to help each other develop the hotel business, do you think?

ET: None of us knew how to operate a boiler, for one thing.

DG: What did that entail?

TH: Well, actually it wasn't hard, but --

ET: It's like running a car, once you understand.

TH: But for an Issei to take the exam it was another thing. The operation itself was nothing. When you went to take the exam, they asked you how do you know what the limits are and all that and how do you clean out this or clean out that or the safety factors involved. And they question you, but these Isseis cannot answer that in English. Mr. Hara used to go along. Before he would go with them, he would give them the basic so then he says, "I'll ask that to you in Japanese, you answer it," but even if they gave the wrong answer, I guess, he would give the you know --

DG: Well, so did you have to do that too when you were officers, that kind of thing?

TH: Once or twice. I helped one Nisei lady get engineer's license, but to her I just took out the sample questions that, the standard questions they asked, and I told her what it was, took her to her boiler room, and showed her all the different things on it. So she said she had no problem. If you can understand English and be able to read English and study one or two booklets and get the basic knowledge. However, the Isseis not able to read, they're not able to understand English when they're questioned, so needed somebody as more or less as interpreter or help them along.

ET: Yeah. A lot of it was common sense questions like if the water runs out, what do you do, or if there is a leak in the boiler, what should you do. And if you don't know, what you should you do.

<End Segment 32> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.