<Begin Segment 4>

TI: Okay, so let's keep moving, because a couple months later you were down in Washington, D.C. looking for a job, and you'd had an interview at the Office of Indian Affairs. Do you remember getting a job, or interviewing for a job?

CH: I know I did look for a job in the Indian Bureau. There was some confusion. I interviewed for one kind of job but got another. One had to do with Indians, the other had to do with... I have to think that one over.

TI: Yeah, in your memoirs you applied to get a job working, I think, on an Indian reservation, but then they asked you if you would be interested in working with, at that point they called a Japanese relocation camp, is what they asked you.

CH: That's right.

TI: And you thought that that would be a good idea, or that was fine.

CH: Yeah, well see, it made sense to me since I had, had friends that were Japanese, so it wasn't as though they were foreign, but I don't think I used any logic in making the decision. I just was here.

TI: Well, so yeah, so you got the job, and what was interesting to me was you mentioned how this was kind of the first time you, you sort of made a decision on your own, that you talked with the people, they asked you about going to a Japanese relocation center is what they called it, and you said yes. And I think you noted in your memoirs that that was kind of a big moment for you because you decided on your own to do this.

CH: Is that so? You talk about these memoirs. What memoirs?

TI: So this is the book that I'm referring to, Dusty Exile, which you look back at your memories.

CH: Okay. I told you I forgot things very quickly. Okay.

TI: So from D.C., then you went to Chicago to the War Relocation Authority office, or actually, I'm sorry, back then it was still an office for Indian Affairs.

CH: Where was the office?

TI: It was a Chicago office. You were there, and what you did was you decided to become an assistant teacher.

CH: In Arizona.

TI: In Arizona.

CH: Well, I didn't decide. I got on the list to be employed and when they said, you know, "What will you do?" and I had no idea and... whoever, I made a list of jobs and among other things was assistant teacher. I didn't know anything about teaching. I didn't know what an assistant teacher might do, but that sounded reasonable, so I said, "I'll do that." And so they signed me up, and I didn't know what I was getting into and they didn't know that I didn't know anything, so it was all very inexpert. That's the word.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.