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TI: And so what year did you graduate from high school?

CS: '37.

TI: And after you graduated from high school, what did you do?

CS: Went to UCLA.

TI: And was it pretty common for your friends and others to go to college after high school?

CS: I wouldn't say it's common, but many of 'em did. I hated to study. The only reason I went was my mother kept nagging me, "You got to go to college, you got to go to college." [Laughs]

TI: And so why did your mother want you to go to college when, oftentimes, many Niseis would go to college but they would have a hard time getting jobs? I mean, did she talk to you about education?

CS: That's why at UCLA I was the president of the Business Students Club, and we sent out a questionnaire to about seventy-five American firms saying, "Would you hire a qualified Japanese graduate?" And the responses were put in the Rafu Shimpo every week, and I brought a copy here. Bank of America just came out and said, "Except for Little Tokyo, we never have and never will hire a Japanese." And at the museum, on my tours, I just show that this is how it was back then. Especially when the minority students come, there's a picture of three college grads working in a fruit stand. So (when) we get some of the students just from the minority area. I tell 'em, "This picture, you could forget everything in the museum, but don't forget this picture. Because this is what it was when I was your age. Today, it's not your face or your color but what's up here." So I told 'em, "Study hard, and if you feel like dropping out or quitting, I want you to keep thinking of this picture. That, 'Yeah, I can't blame my face for it.'" So that questionnaire, we're still using it. I pass it out to the teachers all the time.

TI: And when you started getting the results from that questionnaire, did it surprise you?

CS: Well, that's when I decided the future and getting a decent job until... so that's why I figured the best job I could get has to do with Japan-America relations. So my mother arranged so that I'd go to Keio University right after I got out of UCLA. But then Congress passed a law that men of military age could not leave the country. That's why I went to UC Berkeley for graduate study, hoping things would die down, then I could go study. But Pearl Harbor came instead.

TI: Okay. Going back a little bit to the questionnaire, I have another couple questions in terms of what was the response when this information was published in the Rafu? Were people angry, surprised?

CS: I don't know what the response was. I remember then, because of those, I was called out to make talks to different groups about our survey, I remember that.

TI: And was this your idea, to do the survey?

CS: Yeah.

TI: And what were you hoping to do with the survey?

CS: I wanted to see what our future was. What companies, most of the positive results came from companies that were already hiring. Like companies that owned the fruit stands, like that. But a few, there was a clothing store, I remember, that hired Japanese. And there were very few, but most of them just negative.

TI: And so it was interesting, because based on that survey, you decided your future would be U.S.-Japan relations?

CS: I didn't know whether it was going to be in business or government or what, I didn't know what. But all I know is I had to learn the language, I had to learn the Japanese culture, and the only way was to go to Japan.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.