<Begin Segment 9>

MN: So why did you return to the United States?

HY: Why? I missed it, my birthplace, that's why. Living in Japan and here is, it's hard, hard living in Japan. Everything you have to do, fire, you know, cook rice, you gotta build a fire. Bathtub, you gotta build fire. It's completely different, you know.

MN: So it was more modern over here?

HY: Oh, yeah, sure. You get used to living here, well, you can't, I couldn't live there.

MN: What about your mother?

HY: My mother said, "If you're going, I'm going, too." I told her to stay, I'll go myself. No, she wanted, she wanted to come with me, so I had to bring her back, too.

MN: So once you returned to the United States, what did you do? Where did you end up and what did you do?

HY: I worked in the garage up in Boyle Heights, garage around Wilmington. And eventually we acquired a farm in Wilmington. That's where I started the farm over there. Also, I didn't want to be a farmer the rest of my life, so I took up a trade. Went to this automotive school in L.A.

MN: What was that school called?

HY: National School of Automotive.

MN: Was there a lot of Japanese Americans there?

HY: Uh-huh, they were from Hawaii, all over the world, it looked like.

MN: So you liked to work with cars.

HY: Yeah, uh-huh.

MN: So your schedule was, you were farming, you had a farm in Wilmington, and then you were also going to school?

HY: Uh-huh, took me one year.

MN: What about your mother? Was she farming also?

HY: Yeah, sure, of course.

MN: Then you said on Saturdays and Sundays, you had a part time job at a car garage.

HY: Oh, yeah. That's a neighborhood garage. I used to go there and help out whenever I have chance.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.