<Begin Segment 9>

MN: Well, I want to talk about your high school years. From Amelia school you went straight into high school? There was no junior high school?

JK: No.

MN: Which high school did you go to?

JK: We went to Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln High School, which was located on north Broadway and Lincoln Heights.

MN: So Amelia Street School had a lot of Japanese Americans. What was the ethnic makeup of Lincoln?

JK: The population was Italian. North Broadway had a colony of Italian businesses, small, no Chinatown. And they were just, Italian families were just moving out to the other stores and merchants.

MN: So in high school, were you very active in sports?

JK: Sad to say, I was delivering Rafu Shimpo.

MN: How did you get started as a Rafu Shimpo delivery boy?

JK: My oldest brother was delivering Rafu Shimpo. He had a Boyle Heights route. And so there was an opening, and so I took over and did the same thing. So it took away my sports program.

MN: Before I ask you a little bit more about the Rafu Shimpo, so you -- I wanted to ask you also about the Bakugotsu group. Tell us a little about that.

JK: Bakugotsu (crazy guys) came out of our heads, because we were suffering so much when we were practicing, like football. Daiichi Gakuen had a yard, oh, not too big, but big enough for our softball teams. Not for baseball because it's too small for that. But for softball and football, part of football. So it had a dirt yard playing football without kneepads, helmets, shoulder pad, elbow guard, if you fell, you just slid and scratched yourself all to bits. Well, I was thinking, god, what a bunch of stupid guys playing without padding. So for a bunch of nuts playing football without padding, so that's the way Bakugotsu came into being.

MN: You called yourself the Bakugotsu?

JK: Yeah.

MN: And this is when you were playing hooky from Japanese school?

JK: Yeah.

MN: Did you get any serious injuries?

JK: You know, gosh, we had ankle injuries, deep scratches, but it's just one boy that had an ankle, I mean, knee. Really, we didn't miss anybody really to injury. Yeah, I guess we were lucky. Yeah, I'm really... I can't think of anyone that really got lame.

MN: But you had to give a lot of your sports, you gave up all your sports activities once you started to be a delivery boy for the Rafu? You had to help the family?

JK: Yeah.

MN: So was your route, did you take over your older brother's East L.A. route?

JK: Yes, I did.

MN: What was your route in Boyle Heights?

JK: Well, it was hard because we had a bagful of newspaper roaring the First Street Bridge. And that bridge was steeper.

MN: Than now? It was steeper than now?

JK: Yes. They kind of evened it out. First Street Bridge over the river, flats, we called it flats because it's flatland. Then up the Boyle Avenue again. That was another climb up. Then the rest of the Boyle Heights route was kind of up in the... it wasn't too bad.

MN: Now, when you're going over there, are you walking, are you on your bicycle?

JK: Yeah, bicycle. We had a canvas bag like a sandwich bag full of paper for the bag, back half, front half. So we had, well, we had enough paper for everybody, but of course we gave it away to friends. So sometimes you might be short of paper because you're giving away some to your friends. But we made it. We had an understanding circulation manager.

MN: Now, you're a downtown boy going into Boyle Heights. Did you have any problems with the Boyle Heights boys?

JK: Oh, no. Because at the same time, the Kashu Mainichi was starting to bid for more circulation and they were, well, they had to be nice. They couldn't have fighters. So no, because the office was downtown, the Kashu Mainichi was in the old Taul Building.

MN: Where did the Kashu Mainichi print their papers?

JK: You know the building I'm talking about? Forgot the name of that.

MN: Yamato Hall?

JK: Yamato Hall. Way in the back, more the opposite side of the Tokyo Club, they had a sort of a warehouse where they printed that. At first, they were... what was that process called?

MN: Linotype?

JK: It wasn't the regular printing.

MN: Mimeograph?

JK: I don't know. Well, at least it had a printing press in the back where they printed I don't know how many, but...

MN: Wasn't Sei Fujii, the publisher of the Kashu Mainichi, very critical of the yakuza, and wasn't the yakuza who owned Yamato Hall?

JK: Gee, you know, I didn't get the inside story. I don't know. But Fujii, Sei Fujii was supposed to be for the farmers. We never got the inside story on that ownership, but gosh...

MN: Now going back to you as a Rafu delivery boy, did you deliver seven days a week?

JK: Yes. Seven days a week. Funnies section on Sundays, eight pages, which made that paper twice as big. Four pages of comics is a very heavy load, just like in other same ship load of subscribers.

MN: So how did you deliver the Sunday papers?

JK: Sunday papers we had to use rubber band. Twist it to bend over and too far to throw, so I had my father's Model T Ford, I'd bring my friends something, hamburger. We'd stop by the hamburger joint on the way to bribe the young boys.

MN: And they helped you deliver the Sunday papers?

JK: Yeah.

MN: So did the customers, subscribers give you tips?

JK: No, we didn't see any subscribers. The people were working, mama and papa had a store, papa's working, mama's taking care of the kids. So yeah, it was mostly absentee ownership.

MN: Do you remember how much you were making?

JK: I made $37.50 for one route a month, which was very good because going wages for the older Nisei, twenty-five dollars a month.

MN: And you were still in high school.

JK: Yeah. My older brother was working wholesale market forty-eight, fifty hours a week, god, making thirty dollars a week. [Laughs] "I got you beat," I'm bragging to my brother. So, yeah. And newspaper delivery wasn't bad.

MN: So how long were you a Rafu paper delivery boy?

JK: Oh, I guess about three years and three years for the market.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.