<Begin Segment 12>

MN: So after a year, you returned to the United States. You were honorably discharged in central California. And then you sold your farm property. What did you do with the money?

JI: I divided it with my brothers and sisters, and I took part of it. So I went into real estate. Yeah, what did I do?

MN: And then the vending machine business, and then you went back to school and you got your teaching credential. And where did you teach first?

JI: In... let's see.

Off camera: Milikin.

JI: Huh?

Off camera: Milikin. Milikin junior high school in Sherman Oaks.

JI: In Santa Ana?

Off camera: Sherman Oaks.

MN: Sherman Oaks.

JI: Oh, Sherman Oaks, yeah. That's what I was looking for, Sherman Oaks, junior high school there. And I started up a farm in school and I taught them how to grow vegetables and berries and greenhouse plants. Then the principal, I fixed up the whole garden with all kinds of interesting plants. And then the principal wanted me to landscape the whole school, so I left. [Laughs] I got a school in Gardena, wanted me, so I went over there. So I didn't have to landscape the school.

MN: Now, when you were teaching horticulture at Milikin, did your class win awards?

JI: Did I what?

MN: Did they win awards?

JI: Yeah, we won first place several times. And this is why the principal wanted me to landscape the whole school, because we won first place on landscaping the gardens. I put a waterfall and stuff like that, lakes, and grew all kinds of plants, greenhouse and outside. And we experimented with all kinds of plants.

Off camera: You had a hydroponics...

JI: So we had quite a garden. Variety plus, plus landscaping, looks, too. So put in a lake and everything. Well, anyways...

Off camera: Not a lake, a pond.

JI: It was a pond. [Laughs] Well, it was supposed to look like a lake.

MN: But then you got a transfer to Gardena, Perry junior high school.

JI: Yeah, I was asked if I would come by the Japanese there. So I transferred over, 'cause I didn't want to landscape the whole school in Sherman Oaks.

MN: How long were you at Perry?

JI: At Perry? Was it twelve years? Let's see, all together I put in twenty-five years teaching. Eleven... well, anyways, it's been a long time, since, too. I enjoyed teaching horticulture in Gardena. Taught a lot of people to landscape the garden.

Off camera: Gardena landscaping, people would come to him.

JI: Yeah.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.