<Begin Segment 14>

TI: Okay, so let's go back to your life, and so you're at the YWCA and how long did you work at the YWCA?

KY: I worked for the YWCA for eight years. And I felt that I wanted to go to college and I felt that it was time for me to do this and so I started undergraduate college in 1952 and started at Navy Pier. This was a time when many of the soldiers were coming back from the war and going to college and so they made a branch of the University of Illinois at Navy Pier.

TI: Just for, need more space.

KY: So I went to Navy Pier for two years and then I went to... went down state for three years and then finished up at the University of Illinois, UIC one year, and I got my masters in social work.

TI: Good, okay, and before we go on with your career I just wanted to sort of backtrack a little bit in terms of the family. So when you left Topaz, your parents and your sister were there. So when the war ended where did they go?

KY: Well, my sister left camp and she went to a college in Wisconsin, Waukesha College, and got her degree, BS degree. And then my parents came out to Chicago in 1945 and came to live with me. And then they were able to get jobs at Curtiss Candy Company, that's where a number of Japanese were working at the time, so both of them were able to get a job.

TI: And earlier we talked about the house in Richmond and how you had this realtor taking care of it. So whatever happened to the house?

KY: Well, that house we were able to sell and then eventually with that money we were able to buy a building for ourselves here in Chicago.

TI: Okay, so you and your parents stayed in, or resettled to Chicago, got it. Now going back to your career -- well, before we go there I just wanted to ask, how did your parents, how were they changed by the war years when you think about before and then after, they came to Chicago. Did you see differences in them?

KY: I don't know. Again, our parents are not very articulate, they keep a lot of their thoughts to themselves. But I really felt that it was... they had to start, they lost... we had nothing and they had to start all over again. But I felt that they never complained, I think that they were determined to make a life for themselves again and they worked very hard to do that. And at the end they were able to... with the money that they got from the sale of our home in Richmond, to buy a building and make a home again. So I really felt that they were very determined that they're going to survive and to make a new life because they really had nothing.

TI: And they were able to work at the Curtiss Candy Company and you mentioned there were other Japanese who worked there. So was this something that... is your sense that the Curtiss Candy Company really helped the community by offering these jobs?

KY: Oh, yes. Yes, there were a number of Japanese and there were a number of companies that helped the Japanese resettle.

TI: Do you think they went out of their way to help the Japanese?

KY: I think they extended themselves, I think so.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.