<Begin Segment 20>
SY: And maybe we should back up a little bit. I want to go back the Y because raising your children... was that a wonderful experience for you? Did you wish you were working?
MK: No, I felt I was working because with my daughter we started the Camp Fire Girls so I was a Camp Fire leader 'til they went to almost high school. So eight years I was a Camp Fire leader for this group of girls, there were about ten or twelve of them. I'm still in touch with most of them to this day.
SY: And now this was an interracial Camp Fire Girls troop?
MK: Well, we had one black girl and one white girl and the rest were all my kids' friends.
SY: So that was sort of outside of the school. She went to a school where it was probably very mixed.
MK: Right, it was. Coliseum Street School at that time became I would say almost seventy-five percent Asian. Everyone started to move into this Crenshaw area. So her friends, amazing, being Sansei, her real close friends are still Sansei kids.
SY: And so when you started this Camp Fire Girls troop, was it just, you just said brought all her friends together?
MK: Yeah, all her class anyway. So we only lived a half a block from the school so everyone, they came to my house after school once a week. And then when my two sons, Rob, joined the Cub Scouts and then Wayne also so my husband got involved in the Boy Scouts. So I had to become a den mother for the two of them for one year before the fathers took over. And at that time (I) also was PTA president for two years so I'm glad I got involved in all those things 'cause I think later on the kids said they really appreciated it so it was kind of nice to know that.
SY: So your volunteer life began with your kids pretty much, although back in New York you did a lot of volunteer kinds of things too, right?
MK: Not that much, I mean that was more for, just for my own sake, just to make friends and things. But over here it was strictly for the children.
SY: For the kids.
<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.