<Begin Segment 14>

TI: Before we talk about your father and his poem, I want to talk about what happened to you. So they took away your father, he worked for the Nippu Jiji.

KT: Oh, yeah.

TI: And then they came to you.

KT: Yeah, you know, December 8th he was taken. The very next day or that day, I don't know, very next day, I had a call from Nippu Jiji. They told me, "Will you take over your father's job?" And we needed money to eat. Said, well, if I worked, then maybe at least we'd get some income. So I said, "Okay, I'll do it. And what I'm supposed to do?" or this and that. I said, "Okay, I'll do it." So I did it until my father came back. So that was '41 until '45.

TI: And how did you like doing that job?

KT: Well, I liked it, and I could talk Japanese, and the people were so happy that I can talk Japanese. And I did it right, I think, in that people liked me, so they continued taking my newspaper. That was my main purpose, so that we get jobs. And at least that income helped us.

TI: Now, the other thing that your father did, he sold subscriptions and ads, but he also wrote articles for the paper. Did you, did you do that --

KT: Yeah, he did write... I have one about his haiku. The rest, I didn't keep, she has some.

TI: But when you were in that job, did you ever have to write?

KT: Oh, I had to write about, because of the war, the 100th boys or the 442 boys passed away, then I had to go and visit them and write about that.

TI: You mean visit the family?

KT: Yeah. I had to go visit the family and write about their history. That I did. But not much, not much, it's not that bad, was in that. But it was a very... I didn't feel that good about it.

TI: It must have been very hard...

KT: Very hard.

TI: ...because the family had just lost their son.

KT: Yeah, it's very, very hard. That one experience I didn't like. I didn't like it. But since I had to work for that company, I had to do it, so I did it for that purpose.

TI: And for the, is it like an obituary?

KT: Yeah. It's not obituary, it's an article about the person. It's not obituary, it's article of what the person was and where he died and how old he was, the name and the parents' name.

TI: And when you would visit the family...

KT: I had to oshoko, too.

TI: Oshoko, and then you would ask them some questions.

KT: Yeah, I had to ask the question and all that.

TI: And was the family willing to do that?

KT: They did, they did. They gave me whatever I asked for, what I was supposed to ask anyway. So I did that.

TI: That must have been a hard thing for you to do.

KT: Yeah, it's always hard. It's a hard thing to do.

TI: Were there any other memories when you had this job that was maybe interesting or fun or hard?

KT: No, I just did my job, that's all. I just did what my father didn't finish. I finished a collection that he left, that he couldn't visit, I cleared everything with the people. Lot of them are very poor and they leave the bill up high, so I made a deal with them, knock off so many percent so the company gets some money from them. I did all that. I cleared all what he had left behind. That I did.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.