Densho Digital Archive - Frank S. Kawana Interview (denshovh-kfrank

<Begin Segment 16>

SY: So then you ended up going to high school nearby?

FK: Then we went to Belmont High School.

SY: Belmont.

FK: Belmont, that's on First Street or Beverly Boulevard. Now that was mostly white and lot of Hispanics and Orientals. That was a nice school. I enjoyed that school. I participated in track and field.

SY: Found your sport? You could be smaller and be in track.

FK: That's right, because in those days they have the varsity, the JV, they don't call it junior varsity, they call it the varsity, B, C, and D.

SY: D?

FK: Yeah... no, I take it back. They don't have the D, it's up to C. I was in the C category because of my size, weight and so forth.

SY: So that was a good break for you to be able to go?

FK: Well, yeah, to be able to participate in some sport.

SY: But still your grades were not so great.

FK: Making it, a C minus.

SY: C minus, wow.

FK: Don't laugh. I'm proud of it you know. [Laughs]

SY: But that's so unusual. Probably your friends were doing well.

FK: Oh yeah, the ones doing very well the straight A students and then there's a couple of others that's barely making it and so we had a good mixture.

SY: So there were others that were like you?

FK: Yeah.

SY: So you managed to finish high school?

FK: I managed to finish.

SY: High school and that was it, no more school.

FK: Well, my dad had wanted me to go to college but about two years before I graduated my dad invested in a business with his friends from Stockton that had a jewelry store and so they opened up the Tenshindo Jewelry Shop on San Pedro Street between First and Second. And when I was going to school I used to go and then watch and it just fascinated me how the watch movement works, and then they said, "Come on and sit down," and they started teaching me how to take apart watches and they would give me these old clunkers have me take it apart and put it back, over and over. And then I got to a point where I could clean watches and to a point where I started to repair watches. So I told my dad rather than going to college I'd like to go to a watch making school, and so I found one on Spring Street and it's no longer there but it's the California Horological Institute and that's a school of watchmaking. And I spent many, many hours there. The first two months all they gave me was a brass rod about a quarter of an inch thick rod, a brass rod and a file, and the rod is circular. Well, I would have to file it to make a perfect square.

SY: Wow.

FK: Yes, it took me a long time to be able to file a perfect square and that's for a watch maker's tool when you fix what they used to call the railroad watch, the old time... they would pull out their watch, it's a big pocket watch. Well, when you wind and unwind it, you needed that instrument to wind and unwind once it's out of the case. And then I went to through the school and I graduated and so now I wore nice clean clothes and wore a suit and was a jeweler at Tenshindo and I didn't have to work in the fish factory and so I was helping my dad in that way where I was taking care of the jewelry shop and so forth.

SY: So that's a very difficult business in terms of fine hand meticulation?

FK: No. Well, I found it really interesting. I had a knack with my fingers so anything with intricate things, it never bothered me and I really enjoyed it. It was something that was very nice but again, the Korean War broke out 1951.