Densho Digital Archive - Frank S. Kawana Interview

<Begin Segment 1>

SY: Today is September 19, 2011. We're talking to Frank Kawana and we're at the Centenary United Methodist Church in Los Angeles. I'm Sharon Yamato and Tani Ikeda is on the video camera. So, Frank, it's wonderful to see you again and we'd like to start way back if we can, if you will tell us a little bit about your parents and where they were from.

FK: Well, my father and mother they're both from Ehime-ken, that's in Shikoku. My mother was born in a small village called Misaki Osada and my dad was in next village, Natori, and I just can imagine that they had known of each other since they were... and it's not where the villages are miles apart, it's very close. And I'm sure as they grew up they knew of each other and my dad... and they got married.

SY: So they met in Japan and married in Japan as well.

FK: They were in Japan, yes. And soon after, my dad decided to strike out for the United States and see if he could make his fortune and come back as a wealthy individual I'm sure. And he left Ehime and went to Seattle, Washington. The reason for Seattle is because my uncle, which would be my mother's relative, they had a restaurant in Seattle and so that was the place... meeting people and meeting the relatives and getting situated. I'm sure that he had a very difficult time trying to find something to do being that he had no profession to speak of, and I think they dabbled into farming. I recall him talking about farming hops which is for beer, the beer industry and lettuce and lots of other different vegetables. And then from the conversation I take it that he was like a (...) tenant farmer that go from place to place, and because he mentioned various cities and towns in Seattle from all the way from Tacoma and Spokane and all those various places, and so he had his share of travelling and trying his luck.

SY: So do you remember when or did he ever tell you exactly when roughly he came to the United States?

FK: I believe it was about 1920... in the early '20s, yes.

SY: And your uncle's restaurant business or his uncle's, actually your uncle's.

FK: It would be my great uncle.

SY: Great uncle's restaurant business was already --

FK: Established in Seattle, yes.

SY: And they didn't have anything to do with that?

FK: Well, that is where most of the immigrants would go if they were from that town, that part of Japan. They would seek them out and be housed there until they get the directions and deciding what to do.

SY: I see, so he dabbled in farming and then how did your mother get here?

FK: Well, she waited and waited and there's no word of telling her to come and the time was getting short where they were cutting the immigration, especially from Japan. And so she had to either try to come over sooner than later because I think she was probably on the last boat to get over to the United States. I don't know how they and who gave her the idea but she married another person, Oishi, and she came as Mrs. Oishi to the United States with the understanding that as soon as they land that she's going to be with her husband which is my father.

SY: So this Mr. Oishi knew about your father.

FK: Yes.

SY: And she was legally married already to your father?

FK: Yes, legally married in a sense. In Japan I don't think it's as documented as it is here.

SY: I see. So that's exactly what happened. She came here and then got divorced from Mr. Oishi.

FK: I don't even know if there was a divorce, but that's when they got together again and soon after my oldest brother was born, 1925.

SY: So she knew exactly where your father was?

FK: Well, there again, my great uncle was the place where she could find him.

SY: Wow, she must have been determined.

FK: Yes.

SY: She wanted to be with her husband. Just to back up a little bit, do you know much about their parents and what they did in Japan?

FK: Well, my mother's side in Ehime they were in the orchard business. They grew... they raised what they called natsu mikan, that means summer tangerine, and it's the size of a grapefruit and it didn't have much sweetness to it. It was more sour than anything, but that was something that the Japanese people liked. And so he had hundreds of acres of natsu mikan and that's what was grown in that area and so did my dad's family. They were big natsu mikan farmers and my grandfather also was quite successful in making fishing nets. So he had a good business making nets and he made some... I imagine he made a good living and so he bought more land and so forth.

SY: And did they each have siblings that stayed in Japan?

FK: Yes, my dad was the only one from his family that left Japan because he was the second born. And my mom of course, being a woman, they usually marry out and they usually leave the family.

SY: She had siblings?

FK: Yes, she had three older brothers, and in fact she was the youngest and she had I think two other sisters.

SY: Now your father's desire to come to this country, did he talk about that?

FK: You know, I feel very badly and sad that I really didn't have much opportunity to sit down and talk one and one with my dad. And I think back and I think there's only one time I did sit down and he was telling me about his childhood days where he used to catch birds and so forth and that is the only thing I remember. He was a person... he didn't say too much and possibly it was because of... a male you want to succeed and if you're not where you want to be or should be life is not that... that is what I interpret as he kept to himself a lot.

SY: Strong silent type.

<Begin Segment 2>

SY: So when he came here he didn't immediately... it took a while for him to establish himself?

FK: Well, I don't know what you mean about establishing because he was, again, in doing various types of work to support the family, but somewhere he decided that he would like to go into the kamaboko business. And again I don't know why, he never explained to me and why he selected that business to go into. But he knew of a young man in Vancouver, Canada, which is a hop, skip and a jump from Seattle, that was in the business and this young man, he was in his late teens, he took over the kamaboko business in the Vancouver and the name of company was Yamasan, yama and san, ichi ni san. And the proprietor, he was old so he wanted to retire and he sold the business to this young man. And somehow my dad met him and convinced him to teach him, teach my dad how to make kamaboko. And he did and in fact he shared a few of the equipment, equipment in those days is a usu, a stone bowl that is a piece of machine where it is motor driven and the usu turns as the clocks turns and then there's four legs that goes counter. So it's a mixer and that's where they put the fish and --

SY: Fish parts.

FK: Well, okay, let me go back. To make the paste which is called surimi the fish flesh is taken off the fish so you get a fish and you take the head off and you take the innards out and then you would fillet it in such a way where you have two fillets and one bone in the center and you get a spoon and you scrape off the white meat and you would leave the stomach portion which is the fatty part. And then the white meat portion of it is then rinsed and re-rinsed and re-rinsed in water to take out the fish smell, the oils and the blood. And so when you squeeze the water out of it you have a fish protein that is not dry but is pretty well dehydrated. And that would be refrigerated overnight and then the following morning you would get through a hamburger machine, you would run it through there and then into the usu, the bowl. And then you start the bowl and start mixing it and you would add your sugars, salt, water and then flour or starch and then you would make it into a paste, and then it turns white, a white paste. And from that you have your knife and then you got your kamaboko board and you would place the flesh onto the board, shape it and then put it on a rack and then it's steamed and then it's ready for sale.

SY: So originally when your father first got into the business, most of this was done by hand except for the usu.

FK: The usu, yes.

SY: So he had to actually do all of that work?

FK: Yes, I remember because as I used to come home from school if there's some work to do and if there was unfinished work I would be part of the scraping the fish and so forth and cutting the fish and things like that. We did a lot of that during the Christmas break, the summer vacations, I had no vacation time. Every time there's a school break you'd catch me in the factory working. And this is just not me, it was in that era people that had businesses, the children would be involved in the business. So I thought nothing of it, I didn't like it but I didn't think that it was unfair or anything like that.

SY: Now backing up your father... when your father bought this equipment and was taught how to make kamaboko, did he decide to stay in Seattle?

FK: No, again he obviously figured that there's a lot more Japanese in southern California than in the Seattle area, which was true. So he packed us all up and I do still recall George Hosaki he's the young man that taught my father how to make -- well, he in his Cadillac mind you, and he's a young man, he had a Cadillac in those days, and he drove us from Seattle to Los Angeles. I remember the huge car and my mother, my two sisters and I, we drove really in high fashion.

SY: In style and this George Hosaki was such a young man. You don't know how he made his money?

FK: Well, he was caught in the same web that we were... all of us were. In that I'm sure he was very successful in doing the business, the kamaboko business, but when the war broke out they also in Canada they were placed in camps. And they pulled him away from the Pacific ocean, Pacific side, and he was in camp somewhere in northern Canada which is very cold and it was terrible. They had it much rougher than we did.

SY: But he actually must have been pretty close friends with your father to come drive you all.

FK: I really don't know how close they were. Many years later after I got out of the army and then I was running the business he and his wife visited us and I had some kind of feeling that there's some kind of a connection. So I asked him and he said yes, that he was the one that shared the technology as well as the equipment and so forth with my dad but my dad had already passed away.

SY: So you met him after?

FK: Many years after.

SY: That's interesting.

<Begin Segment 3>

SY: And then when he drove you... okay, I'm going to have to back up just a little again, so you were actually born in Seattle?

FK: I was born in Graham and that's a little bit south of Seattle and in between Tacoma and Seattle.

SY: And what was your dad doing at the time?

FK: He was probably farming at that time. My two brothers and my three sisters were all born in different areas in Washington.

SY: So your whole family --

FK: We were always on the move, yes. We were all born in Washington.

SY: Can you just go through the line with your --

FK: My oldest brother George was born in 1925. And my number two brother and my oldest sister are twins and they were born four years later, so that's '29. And then the next older sister or the younger, my oldest sister, she was born in 1931 and then myself '33 and my youngest sister '39, 1939.

SY: And so if my math is correct there are six of you.

FK: That's right.

SY: And so the six of you and your parents and Mr. Hosaki all came?

FK: No, my dad and mom... I guess it was because of the difficulty in raising a family and again, this is just my thoughts that he wanted to become successful and go back to Japan. And so he figured that I'm going to do this, go into the kamaboko business and become successful and then bring the whole family back. But meanwhile he's going to send his two older sons to Japan to be cared for by the grandparents, and so George and Harry were sent to Japan. And my sister, the twin, Miyuki, she was adopted by my uncle because they had no children and Japanese when you have twins... I don't know what it is or what it is at that time it was not a, my interpretation, it was not a joyous thing so they were talked into giving up their daughter to my uncle. And many, many years later talking to my sister, she was quite bitter when she was in Japan to be given away. Of course she was just an infant, she was just born so she didn't... but she realized why would a parent give her away. But it all came out nicely because while she also was in Japan, she went to Japan after the war from Tule Lake and they had a miserable life there too. And sometime later she did find her way back to the United States and came back into our family.

SY: So they all managed to get back.

FK: Yeah.

SY: So it was your father's parents that took in your two brothers?

FK: It's my father's parents and my mother's parents.

SY: Each?

FK: They went back and forth and they were well cared for according to my number two brother. They were really taken care of and were loved and they enjoyed it, just that they were away from their parents.

<Begin Segment 4>

SY: So then there were fewer of you in the car, in the Cadillac and then you came... that was the next stop from Seattle or from Washington?

FK: Seattle to --

SY: To Los Angeles.

FK: We located in... he found a commercial piece of property and he leased it, it's a small piece of property on 7th Street between San Pedro and Crocker. And we lived in a hotel on the... there used to be a hotel on the corner of 7th and San Pedro.

SY: And do you remember how old you were when you moved?

FK: Well, you're good in math. I was born in 1933 and we came to Los Angeles in 1938. So I was five years old.

SY: But you remember that trip?

FK: Yes, I do. I still remember that.

SY: And so the only reason that your father decided on Los Angeles was because of the number of Japanese?

FK: Yes.

SY: And was there a kamaboko shop in Seattle yet? I mean, were there kamaboko places all --

FK: I'm sure there were several kamaboko factories in Seattle but I think, again this is just thinking, he didn't want to open there and become a competitor of George Hosaki. I mean one's in Vancouver and one's in Seattle but I don't know, but I think he was pulled by the fact that there's more Japanese in southern California. But unbeknownst to him when he came here, there were eight other kamaboko factories in Los Angeles so he was number nine with the least amount of experience. And I can't imagine how difficult and trying it was for my dad and mom to try and make a living in a new city being the number nine kamaboko factory in Los Angeles and it was miserable I'm sure.

SY: So there was no way of his knowing that there were that many?

FK: Well, I don't know whether he knew and came or I would like to believe he didn't know because if he knew and he came well I would think, my god.

SY: And kamaboko must have been fairly popular though if there were eight?

FK: Well, yes.

SY: It was a staple.

FK: It was almost like a commodity, yes I believe it was something that was a must. You don't eat it every day maybe but you would eat it more often than not. Hamburger and hot dogs were not that popular with the Japanese people at that time.

SY: So he came fairly early on and managed to make a living though still.

FK: I don't know how he managed, it was very difficult. There again it was just a matter of years, a couple of years and then the war broke out. So again, it's terrible to say but it was sort of blessing for our family that it was interrupted to a point where he had a breather. All Japanese Isseis and the older Niseis, they had a breather, four years of... of course they're wondering what's going to happen tomorrow but they didn't have to worry about shelter or food for that number of years.

<Begin Segment 5>

SY: And what did he do with the business?

FK: Well, as soon as the war broke out, and again we didn't know what was going to happen, again I don't know what was going through my dad's mind but I'm sure it was very traumatic. For me as a young boy about seven and seven, eight, and the following day my friends no longer talked to me and rocks were thrown at me and not only me. I used to go to Ninth Street School which is a grammar school that's still there and it was very... not difficult, it was for a young person trying to understand what's going on. How can your friends that was yesterday and today they're told not to talk to you and to be treated as such and people would drive by and would roll their windows down and slow down and yell at you. A lot of words that as a child you get scared and wonder what did I do? Every evening of course all of the windows were painted black so that if you put the light on that there'd be no light reflecting outside. And everything was hush-hush and everybody talked in whispers wondering what happened. Japan invaded Pearl Harbor and created all this problem and being Japanese and so that was the main topic of the conversation.

SY: Do you think it was worse or it's hard to say but in the area that you lived it was sort of the outskirts of Little Tokyo then right?

FK: Yes, Little Tokyo to me if you ask me my experience in Little Tokyo I had none because I don't recall going there that often. I do recall sometimes that there was a theater in Little Tokyo, I'm trying to think of the name of that theater on First Street. Anyway, I guess occasionally we would go see a movie, the family but that was about it and maybe when there was a wedding we went to eat a Chinese, either at San Kwo Low or Nikko Low or Far East Cafe.

SY: So you were not really considered Little Tokyo, you were really on the outskirts?

FK: No, outskirts, yes.

SY: And so you grew up with not... did you grow up with a lot of Japanese kids?

FK: Yes, in fact there's two stores down there was a restaurant, Fujii, the Fujii family had the restaurant and another store down was a barbershop, the Sakata family. And then another block down there was a Kusumoto family that had a grocery store, and right around the corner on Crocker Street there was a lot of Japanese.

SY: And these were the same kids that you went to school with at Ninth Street?

FK: Yes.

SY: So it was all of you?

FK: All of us had the same experience. I don't recall talking to some of my friends today or lately and asked them, "What was your reaction?" because I never did ask them, I should ask them.

SY: Because if your memory serves you, you were still pretty young, right?

FK: Yes.

SY: Seven or so.

FK: Seven, eight years, yeah.

SY: And were you helping your father and mother at that time?

FK: No, but I recall it was early in the morning and late in the night they used to work. It was very difficult.

<Begin Segment 6>

SY: And do you remember what the process was of your leaving your home? I mean where you were living, did they have to sell all their equipment?

FK: No, there's nothing to sell because there's no buyers to buy kamaboko equipment. Had we been in the barber or the grocery store or something like that you have something to sell. But he had the foresight to find someplace and someone willing to warehouse the few pieces of equipment that he had. And I recall once within the four years that we were in camp that he and this Kusumoto family, the husband Kusumoto, they both left Rohwer, Arkansas, and came back to Los Angeles for some kind of... some reason and I recall and I just imagine that he came back because of the equipment or to renegotiate or whatever. So he did leave for a couple weeks and came back.

SY: Wow, that's amazing that you remember that, but they were able to pack what they had and what you had?

FK: Well, we were just allowed -- you mean to leave for camp?

SY: Right, to leave.

FK: I thought it was just one suitcase per person but I understand it's whatever you can carry. But I remember carrying a cardboard, brand new cardboard suitcase and my two sisters had one just like mine. And packed our clothes that was about all we could put in there. And I don't remember what my mom and dad put in there but they had some photographs and I do remember she had a half of jar of umeboshi and that half a jar lasted four years. That was only eaten on special occasions like someone caught a cold or whatever and of course the ume was white with a salt and it was almost dry by the time the war ended but that I do remember.

SY: But do you remember what you chose to take with you?

FK: I don't remember anything I took.

SY: So did you end up getting... reporting to Little Tokyo for the --

FK: No, I don't even know... I'm sure probably we went to Nishi Hongwanji and we were all picked up on a bus. And we took a short ride to Santa Anita and being the later evacuees going there, we were in the brand new barracks. The Kusumoto family were placed in there much earlier and they were in the stables. And it was a little bit of irony where they were more well... they were well off as compared to us and they were in the stables and here we are in the brand new barracks. We visited them and gosh and it was terrible, dirt floor, no privacy, smells and it was terrible.

SY: Do you know why your family was able to leave later?

FK: Well, now it's just the call of luck. Some people were told okay you leave tomorrow and then you leave next week and I don't know how we got delayed. It wasn't much more than two or three weeks but the first come they went into the stables and then rest filled the barracks.

<Begin Segment 7>

SY: So having gone from living in a hotel, right, you were living in a hotel to going to live in this brand new barracks was that easy for you?

FK: You know, as a child there's no hardship for a child. You could find a little cubbyhole and maybe put something in soft where you could lay and go to sleep. But as a parent it had to be devastating to have your children be placed into something like this with no explanation except that your country created this problem, now you're part of the problem.

SY: And you were there with your sisters?

FK: Two sisters so we were in a barrack. There was no potbelly stove in the Santa Anita I don't think just five cots and that was about it.

SY: The weather wasn't as bad there. So then do you remember... you went to school in Santa Anita?

FK: No for whatever reason I was in the second grade before I went in and we were there only for six or seven months. We played outside every day. We roamed the whole... I know every nook and cranny in Santa Anita and we roamed around and we had a great time. Again the adults and the parents, it must have been devastating. If I look back and if I had thinking about having my three boys and myself going into camp, gosh it would have torn me apart.

SY: But at the time it wasn't as bad.

FK: Children are... it's just wonderful to be children.

SY: Yeah, innocent. And then when you finally ended up... I bet there was some not so certainty about what... where you were going to go after that?

FK: You know again for myself nothing was uncertain, I mean, it didn't even occur to me what's going to happen tomorrow. I get up in the morning and then go to the mess hall, we had a tag, everybody has a tag, red, orange, yellow, green whatever and that's where you report to have your... I still recall to this day the clamor and the clanging of spoons and knives and forks and the stainless steel tray. The clanging of that and so when I go to a large restaurant and I hear that I close my eyes and it brings back memories of the camp days. It's funny things like that that kind of jolt you and for a split second you think back, gosh I heard this sound before. And to me it's not a terrible sound, it's something that reminded me of my childhood.

SY: So the food didn't bother you?

FK: Food, you know I don't recall have to eat so an adult would have problems, again children you could adjust to almost anything. If you're hungry you eat and if you're not you don't. The only thing I do remember is on Sundays there was a special day for all the children because they served ice cream. And it was sliced ice cream with a wax paper in between each so it doesn't stick, and somehow I managed to go to about three mess halls with a different... I don't know how I got the different tags but I ended up going to about three and then eating... Sunday was my day.

SY: You still like ice cream?

FK: I still like ice cream.

<Begin Segment 8>

SY: We didn't talk about what camp you ended up going to finally.

FK: Then one day again they told us okay that you're to report... get your suitcase and then we got on the bus again and we went to the Union Station and we were all told to board a train. Again not knowing where we're going we boarded and we were told to keep the blinds down, the curtains down during the day and not one word. I don't know if the adults knew where we were going but I don't think they knew and for five days, five nights we were going eastward and we had no idea until we stopped and they say okay. And then they put us on another bus and we took a little ride through the countryside not knowing where we are and then we found out later they cleared this forest and they made blocks and that's where 10,000 of us were housed for the next four years. It was the middle of Arkansas about fifty miles west of the Mississippi River, and again as a child it was a brand new experience. As a parent or an adult you're being placed in a place where God knows where it was and this is where you're going to live until you're told to leave again.

SY: But that is probably one of the furthest camps so you were on that train... do you remember being on that train?

FK: That's right, train five days, yes and it was not like a train is today. It was wooden seats and so you had some space above but with everybody carrying their baggage so you had baggage on the floor so you had to kind of lift feet up. And sitting on the wooden... I don't know how the elder Japanese people made it, no cushion or anything. And they had to sleep sitting down for five days.

SY: But was it kind of an adventure for you being on the train?

FK: As a child I would run up and down the train and things like that but I don't remember too much on the train except that every so often when the train would stop we'd kind of lift the curtain up and peek and it's usually a stop to get refuel coal and water. And then you peek out and you see Indians out there and try to sell their goods. Of course nobody bought anything because they didn't have any money. So the Indians would come and they'd try to sell their trinkets, I still remember that.

SY: Wow, do you remember there being guards?

FK: You know, I believe there were guards on the train. Yes, I'm sure there were. (...) I don't remember them coming by every hour on the hour or anything like that.

SY: So that didn't frighten you?

FK: No, Japanese are usually very well disciplined people. And if they say don't do that and don't do that they pretty much follow.

SY: Interesting. So when you arrived in camp there was a time where it took a while for you get settled, right, and go to school?

FK: Yes, well, they started school immediately. We were one of the earlier ones there so they were still constructing barracks when we got there. And so they were working and there's another thing that every once in a while when I go camping... I don't go camping that often but when we go to the forest and you smell that burning of the leaves or the branches that brings back memories of Arkansas because they were clearing the fields and they would burn the twigs and the leaves and the branches and so forth. And that smell is something that has really, to me it brings back fond memories for whatever reason but it's of my childhood in Arkansas. We used to romp through the forest and all kinds of animals and rabbits and squirrels.

<Begin Segment 9>

SY: So you really had a good amount of fun with your friends.

FK: And my block there were only five or six boys and we had our share of fun and getting into trouble and mischievous things that... which usually they pointed to me as the leader of that and I spent many many lonesome weeks by myself because the other parents said that, "You're not to associate with Frank because he's a bad influence." [Laughs]

SY: So you were kind of --

FK: I was a mischievous one.

SY: I see, and do you remember what you did?

FK: You know, being a boy and looking for animals to pets, in other words looking for pets and so we thought we'd catch some rabbits and we tried that for several weeks and you can't catch a rabbit it's... they're too smart. But I noted that the corner of the camp where they administrators lived they had cages where they kept their rabbits.

SY: Really?

FK: Now whether they kept it for as a pet or whether they kept it as a food because the people in the south they eat a lot of things that we normally don't eat. So I got my gang together and four of us went there and we snuck up on this cage and we stole about four or five bunnies. And we brought it back and we kept it in the boiler room where it's always warm and we fed the bunnies milk and then the little kids in the block said they'd like some pets too. So I told them alright I'll get some more for you. And I gathered my troop again and we ventured to... you know, you should never attack the same place twice. This is what I learned and to this day I remember that, you never go to the same place twice. And I went back there and we saw that guy, the adult there, he was doing gardening work and we kept... we lied low and then as soon as he went into the house I said, "Okay come on let's go." So we went in there and I snuck up there and just as I put my hand in there he comes running out of the house with a hoe in his hand and I tell you... did you know that if you're scared and you're running you're feet doesn't touch the ground? We took off so fast we kept running and we ran out of the camp.

SY: You ran out of the camp?

FK: Out of the camp and now we had to figure how the hell we're going to get back into camp and so we made our way and then the patrol came and picked us up, the four of us. And they brought us through the main entrance and my dad was the superintendent of the produce and fruit warehouse so he accepted all the fruits for the camp and then he'd warehouse them and he would distribute it through all the blocks. Obviously he heard of the rabbits thefts or thieves and so he came, of all the persons, he came to the car he came and he said he wanted to see the kids that created this problem and as I saw him coming I went [slides down in his chair] down as low as I could so that my head was below the window and he opened the door and he looked at me and I looked at him and we both... I didn't say anything, he didn't say anything, he just closed the door and then oh my god, all hell broke loose. They took us into the police department, the camp police and they gave us a lecture and they told us, "Well, you boys did something wrong and you're going to have to pay for it so every day you're going to have to go the cotton fields and pick five hundred pounds of cotton every day for x amount of days." And I don't know, I couldn't even imagine what five hundred pounds would be but that's a big bag of cotton and they scared the daylights out of us. And so then they released us and says, "Okay well, maybe the next time you do something like this we'll do this but this time we'll let you go." And I came home and ready for a beating and everything else and he didn't say one word and of course the next couple of weeks I was by myself, nobody associated with me. [Laughs] That was my first experience of being arrested at the age of seven or eight or nine.

SY: That is terrible.

FK: So I've been a good boy since.

SY: Ever since? No further arrests?

FK: Well, there were a couple of them... not a couple of them but there were some incidents that I'd like to forget, yes.

SY: So now, 'cause it's so hard to believe that you were that young when all of this went on. This was from about eight to eleven, ten... eight to ten? I remember you telling me a story about starting your own business.

FK: I don't know whether... I'd like to think it was to contribute to the family fund but I've always felt that I would like to do something on my own and make some money. And so I ordered through the... in those days we all received free from Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalog and those catalogs were maybe about two inches thick. And it's all colored merchandise and they give you price and so forth and I looked it up and I ordered a shoe shine kit, black and brown, those are the two and so when it came I opened up my business and in the mess hall I told everybody that if anybody needed their shoe shined to let me know. And I got one old man that brought his shoe and said, "Okay Frank, shine my shoe." I don't remember how much I was going to charge, nickel or dime or whatever and he had a brown shoe and in my excitement I opened up and I put it on... I put a black paste on his brown shoe and you can't take that off.

SY: You can't.

FK: And I looked at that and I says, oh my god, what did I do, I smeared the black... it's not a paste what is it... polish on his brown shoe and so I had to explain to him. He didn't say anything, he didn't get upset, he didn't... obviously he was upset but he didn't say anything, he didn't hit me or scold me or anything and he paid me. And I felt so bad that I closed shop. So I was in business one hour and I closed shop and I think to this day little bit of that reminded me of if you're going to do something you better do some research. Of course in my book there I've got a number of businesses I started which I shouldn't have started so I learned a little bit but not enough.

SY: But it's interesting to know that that was your very first business.

FK: Very first, yes.

SY: And yet you continued to think of ways to make money even though your first business was such a failure.

FK: Yes, so every time I polish my shoe it reminds me. [Laughs]

SY: You still polish your own shoes?

FK: Of course.

SY: And your... it's interesting to me that you had this desire to make money at such a young age.

FK: I think all boys have that desire to do something or accomplish something whether it's sports or whatever it is. We have this inborn thing of leadership or whatever you want to call it.

SY: And were you into sports at all?

FK: Well, being that young I really enjoyed football and we used to have football teams in the camp, they used to play other camps and so forth. And I went to every game I mean I really enjoyed football but as you can see I never grew out of my shell, five feet three and a half, so football was by all means my sport and there was really no sport that I could participate except for judo which I did after the war and came back. I did and I enjoyed that and today of course judo is out of the question and I took a little bit of kendo but that too as you get old, golf is the only thing that could get my interest and I feel good about.

SY: But you've always been interested in sports throughout your life?

FK: Yes.

<Begin Segment 10>

SY: And the issue of school?

FK: I was not a good student, no. You know why I think, and I blame this on the school system because when we went into camp at Santa Anita I was in the second grade and when they went to school in Rohwer I don't know what happened to third grade, they put me in the fourth grade. And from day one it has been a battle to try to keep up with the rest of the kids.

SY: Really.

FK: I skipped third grade.

SY: And you don't know how, huh?

FK: Well, they looked at me and they said, "Well, you probably belong in second grade but your age says you're in the fourth," so they put me in the fourth grade.

SY: Oh my gosh. Now I was told that the competition among the other --

FK: Oh, those Niseis are yes, you had the smart ones and then you had others like myself.

SY: You didn't have a strong suit?

FK: No, school is something that I blame it again on missing third grade all the way through high school it was a battle. I made it but it was a battle.

SY: Did you study hard?

FK: Well, you know, when you're behind all the time it doesn't matter if you study extra hours, it doesn't matter. And so there's a book report due of course I didn't read the book so the last page you're looking at I would copy word for word and of course the teacher knows that Frank didn't read the book. He's putting words in there that he can't even spell but somehow I managed to finish.

SY: Finish.

FK: Yes, finish is the word. I didn't graduate, I finished school.

SY: Well, it doesn't sound like you were... you had your heart in it.

FK: Well, my heart may have been in it but my brains just couldn't keep up with it. You know, if you get behind there's no... it's like running a relay race and the guy's a hundred yards in front of you and as fast as you run he's just as fast as you, you can't catch up.

SY: I see.

FK: So it took its toll.

SY: So I guess the next question would be do you remember then leaving camp?

FK: We were again about the last ones leaving camp and my dad --

SY: Back up a little, what did your mother... your father had a pretty good position?

FK: Yeah, he had a good position he was paid sixteen dollars a month.

SY: Top wage.

FK: Top wage, my mother was twelve dollars a month and she was a cook in the mess hall. You know as I recall as we're talking now, the camp experience it was a terrible experience I think for the adults, but what I look back and I think that what this had done to the family, the family structure, that most people don't realize that being in a camp for four years in my particular family, my mom working and my dad working, the three of us we would go to mess hall and we would eat with our friends or whoever. And so the eating with the family three times a meal, three meals a day was not there anymore and so I think there must be other people that feel same way that the family closeness was strained. And it had some effect later years as well I'm sure because and then the older people too, they sat with their friends, and there was not a family structure anymore. And I think the war years did change the Nisei and the younger Sanseis thought process of family. And the other thing is that if we were in Japan we would be living in a house with a grandparent, parent, and the children so there's three generations in the house. The Niseis, or the Issei, Shin Isseis that came here, they left their parents for me a Nisei there's only a mother and a child so there's only two generation. We had no third generation, the grandparents' influence. And so I think that too is a big difference in how we care for, or the feeling that we have to take care of our parents. In Japan the structure is you're in the same house and there's three generations so they're taking care of their own. Now the U.S. side you have your parents, I had my parents but I don't have any grandparents and then now so the Niseis feel that they have to take care of or they should take care of their parents. And because of that there's a lot of problems today of the caretaker being totally exhausted caring for their parent, mother or father and because they feel they shouldn't or they can't place their loved ones in a nursing home or anything and they struggle to take care of them at home. And that's tough. It is something that's... and so many families are disrupted, siblings argue, they don't talk to each other anymore, they fall out of the family structure and that's because the Shin Isseis came here without their parents. That's just my opinion.

<Begin Segment 11>

SY: I want to get back to that family structure issue because it's interesting to me that you think that in this country the Nisei have a more direct responsibility for their parents.

FK: Well, let me ask you are you a Nisei or a Sansei?

SY: Sansei.

FK: Now if you had children that was say an adult right now would you feel that they feel that they had to take care of you when you get old or when you get to the stage where you... or would they be more, would they accept the fact that well, mom is getting to be in the sixties so we should place her in a retirement home versus no, no, no we're going to take care of her.

SY: That's true, there's a less of a responsibility for young people.

FK: I think so.

SY: And you think that is good or bad?

FK: I think it's good. The burden of a child -- because I was on the other side, I felt very, very strongly that when my dad passed away earlier that I told my mom always don't worry I'm going to take care of you. I will take care of you and it's not because I said that it's just something that I felt I should do and I have to do. And of course my brother and my three sisters at that time they had the same feelings and so I said, "Well, I'll take care of my mom from Sunday to Thursday," and then they would in turn take care of her over the weekend which is Friday, Saturday and then return her to me on Sunday. So they would in turn once a week, since there are four of them and we were doing that and it was doing okay until she broke her hip again. She was at my sister's house and she fell and broke her hip and then at that point it got to a point where they couldn't lift her and then so we looked and we very, very reluctantly I agreed to put her into a nursing home. And it was very difficult, very, very difficult. I'm not saying it that it wasn't difficult for my brother and my sisters, I'm sure it was, but for me especially it was really tough. And I used to go visit her every morning and then every night coming back from work going home and I would check in on her and she's eating and so forth and slowly after a couple of months I began to realize that yes, that was the thing to do because there's twenty four hours in a day and when you're caretaking there's no such thing as you're taking care of person for eight hours or ten hours, it's twenty-four hours. And they get up in the middle of the night and all this kind of stuff and then pretty soon you're tired, you get exhausted and now your voice... you raise your voice every so often and when they don't take their medicine or they don't eat you get upset. So after a few months at Keiro I started realizing that I'm coming well rested and I can come and smile and have good conversation with her and spend good quality time and then I go home and rest and the following morning do the same thing. And that's where I felt that, gosh, that Keiro is a blessing, it is a blessing and there are so many people out there that still have the old feeling of, no I don't care what you say I'm taking care of my parent and they're just wearing themselves out. You just can't do that.

SY: And the Japanese American community was wise enough to set up Keiro.

FK: Yes, thank god for the founders of Keiro.

SY: Yeah, so it's a place so that's kind of happy ending. I assume that's then where your mom passed away after your dad had died.

FK: Yes.

<Begin Segment 12>

SY: But let's back up a little and go back to you're just leaving camp.

FK: Yes, we left Rohwer and another five days and we ended up in El Segundo, it was a trailer camp. They probably had about seven or eight trailers and our family was in one of the trailers they had a bed on both ends of the trailer and we stayed there maybe about five or six months.

SY: Explain where El Segundo is?

FK: What?

SY: Explain where El Segundo is?

FK: Yes, El Segundo is a city between is it Redondo Beach and in that area. Well, our camp was on Sepulveda Boulevard and today it's all buildings and so forth there but we had a camp there and we had a camp in Hawthorne. It was a much larger camp I don't know why we didn't go there but it was walking distance. And I still remember it was a very, very... it's a very negative thought for me to remember this but my dad and I went to visit people that was in Hawthorne camp so we walked from Sepulveda Boulevard and walked to the camp and on the way back there's an aircraft industry, I don't know whether it's North American or one of the big... and as we were coming back it was about five o'clock and the whistle blew and then so everybody was leaving and we were caught in a traffic stop, you had to wait there quite a bit because a lot of the cars were coming out, it was one way. It was probably about ten minutes but it seemed like ten hours every other car would roll down the window and "Goddamn Japs! Get the hell out of here!" and all that and my dad he's about five feet one or two and we were just both of us just standing there and he grabbed my hand and he just looked straight and a little bit of him and a little bit of me died that day. It was very sad and had somebody got out of the car and beat us up that would have been something else. But being told and yelled at, it's uncalled for for a young boy to go through that kind of experience or anybody to go through that experience. I still remember this day and how... I'm trying to think of how and envision how my dad felt and how I would have felt if I had my son and there I was caught in the traffic and pick up a rock and throw it 'em or what would I do? It's got to be really... yeah, and if I'm thinking of my son, what does he think of me? He went through that thing and I went through that and obviously I still remember it so it's something that would bother me for a long time or for the rest of my life.

SY: And he was never actually able to say anything to you about it?

FK: No, we never talked about that. But anyway, in El Segundo where we were, two or three of us would sit on the sidewalk, nothing to do because we just got to camp and then one day this bus stopped in front of us and beckoned us to get on board to go to school and we backed off and said no. And then obviously reported to the school system and the very next day we got a notice to report to school so we went to El Segundo Junior High School which is an all-white school and they were very nice. Nobody ever made us feel badly or anything, it was a very, very nice school.

SY: Good experience.

FK: Yes, it was a very good experience.

SY: Even though it was very brief.

FK: Yes.

SY: You didn't really get to make friends there.

FK: No, well I had some friends but, yeah, it was a beautiful school, it was the first time I saw a school with a swimming pool in junior high school and I said, wow this is really nice. And they made me feel at home and of course all my clothes is tattered and everything else but no one ever mentioned or laughed at me because I had a hole in my sweater or something like that. It was a very nice experience.

SY: That's great.

<Begin Segment 13>

SY: And in the meantime what were your parents doing?

FK: My father was commuting every day to Los Angeles to get this business in order. And he started on Second and San Pedro, he rented a storefront and he also rented a storefront about five stores down and that's where the family, that was our living quarters. And it was right under the Alan Hotel, it was an all-black hotel, lots of music... maybe that's why I still remember a lot of it, every night 'til two o'clock in the morning... music.

SY: So the Little Tokyo that you returned to was still peppered with --

FK: I'd say it was more blacks than Japanese

SY: At that time.

FK: Yes.

SY: And your father had to take the bus to go back and forth?

FK: Yes, and once he established himself he called all of us back and we started living on Second Street.

SY: In a house?

FK: No, no it's a storefront that was a makeshift house or living quarters.

SY: I see, so he managed to buy... lease.

FK: Lease two lots.

SY: And when he came back to Little Tokyo were there still nine kamaboko shops?

FK: No, at that time there was only one and this kamaboko, Marutama Kamaboko, the Yoshiwa family, they had their kamaboko business in Fresno and after camp they came straight to Los Angeles and he was the first to open and we were the second.

SY: And you don't know what ever happened to all those others?

FK: The others because of the hardship before the war, they probably thought, well, this is not the business to get into and they didn't except a few years later a Nagamoto company which was the company before the war, he opened up and so there was three and then a number of years later Ono Kamaboko from Honolulu, Hawaii, came and then there were four kamaboko factories in Los Angeles.

SY: So your father then was able to get most of the Japanese American business then?

FK: Well, yes, so we shared the markets with Marutama and the two companies did a pretty good business.

SY: You noticed it growing?

FK: Yes, it was a good business at that point.

SY: And that's when you started having to help out.

FK: That's when I used to come home from junior high school and whatever was not done I had to participate and help and clean up and so forth.

SY: And so you got a taste of what it was like working?

FK: I didn't like working in the family business, no. That was a fishy business and smelly and no, I knew this is not something that I would want.

SY: It was fishy in what way? You actually had to wash the fish?

FK: Well, we literally behead the fish, gut it.

SY: The fish came from the fish market?

FK: Yeah, in those days most kamaboko factories, in Japan as well, they utilized the species of fish that was closest to their proximity. In other words for us San Pedro was the closest and so whatever they bring into San Pedro we would be able to get that as freshest fish and whatever was not available here we would get it at San Diego or Santa Barbara but mostly from San Pedro. And what we used to get mostly, the barracuda was the species that was most abundant at that time and so you know what a barracuda looks like? It's a long slender fish it's probably about maybe three feet long, average, and so you cut it and you slice it, fillet it and then you spoon it, spoon the meat and wash it and rinse it. And then the belly portion, that would be the second, we call it the second grade because it has more fat, actually it's more tasty. When you go eat sushi you eat toro, that's the fatty part. The fatty part of the fish is more tasty and that would go into the tenpura, the fried tenpura and that's why tenpura to me has always been more tasty than kamaboko.

SY: I see so you took the not so great parts of the fish.

FK: Well, it's not that, it was just that it was a second because it was darker meat and you can't use it for kamaboko because it has to be white. Kamaboko and chikuwa uses the white meat and then tenpura was the better portion of the fish but it was darker so in the eyes of other people it's a second grade but it's the better part of the fish.

SY: And you actually had to participate in all of those stages or was it more for clean up?

FK: Well, it's mostly clean up because that's when I would come home from school. But on Saturdays I would be in the fish cutting the fish and so forth and scraping the fish off.

SY: So you really knew the business, knew how to do it?

FK: Well, you really don't know how to do it but you know what your chores are. You know if you're a gardener's son, well, you know you got to go and mow the lawn and do this. That's not learning the business but you know what you're supposed to do or you'll get it.

<Begin Segment 14>

SY: And did you have your enterprising side? Were you interested in other things?

FK: Well, yes, because I feel that parents... part of educating their children, teaching children facts of life that they had to learn how to earn money. I never knew how to earn money because I was given an allowance when I needed, so it wasn't a weekly or anything like that. And I'd go there almost begging with two hands out and say, "I'd like to go to a movie so can I have a quarter?" And then he would give it to me. So I grew up not working, I was working but I never got paid so I believe a child should not get an allowance. I'm hundred percent against children getting... that's the opposite, that's socialism, for nothing, you get money for nothing and you get used to that. So I said, "Well, wait a minute, I want to have to earn my own money outside," so I went to the Rafu Shimpo and I got a job delivering newspaper. So I delivered for Akira Komai for maybe a couple of years.

SY: And what happened? Why did you stop delivering the paper?

FK: Well, I was in high school, I just started high school and I think the main reason was that while I was getting paid I think something like sixteen dollars a month for delivering... my route was the biggest, it was the Little Tokyo route, so I had to go in and out and up and down the hotel rooms and so forth and Christmas was the best because I would get tips and so forth. And I remember the first paycheck that I got, I brought it home and I said now this is my money I can do whatever I want, and then my mother threw a curve at me. She said, "Frank, if you give me that money, for every dollar you put in the bank I'll match it." So I says, "Okay," that sounded pretty good, but it was in the bank and I can't touch it, so after I agreed to it I'm back to base one again, I had no money in my pocket. Then I had to go ask my dad.

SY: So your mother made you save all that money?

FK: She did, she's a good saver.

SY: And then you started another?

FK: Well, I thought if I'm going to walk the same path, so I'll go see the competitive newspaper, Shin Nichi Bei and I was delivering their paper so I delivered Rafu Shimpo, Shin Nichi Bei and there was another one-sheeter that was called the Town Crier. (...)

SY: You were the all-around newspaper person?

FK: Yes, I was doing that and then Mr. Komai says, "Frank you're a Rafu Shimpo delivery boy so you just deliver Rafu Shimpo," and so I had to quit the other two.

SY: He didn't want you delivering his competitors?

FK: I don't know why.

SY: But you thought it was a good idea?

FK: Well, sure, if you're going to walk the same path then you can earn maybe twice as much well why not? I found that everybody doesn't agree with my philosophy.

SY: I'm really amazed you seem to have developed this whole sense of business or how to make more money.

FK: I don't know, I think all young boys or most of them would because weekends they need money... of course, there again, most of them received allowances so they had... it was not too many like me that had to beg for my allowance and it made me feel bad actually. Almost like stealing money from your parents and so it was --

SY: But at the same time you must have been working? You believe in hard work too.

FK: Well, work never... once I made up my mind that okay I came home from school and I got to work it never bothered me now why am I doing this or my friends are outside, it never occurred to me. Once I got to work my job was work and my concentration was there so it never bothered me once I started.

SY: You had to do this paper delivery in the early morning?

FK: No, it's in the afternoon.

SY: So you got out of the kamaboko business.

FK: Well, but it takes only a couple hours.

SY: And then you went back to helping.

FK: Yeah, whatever I had to do.

<Begin Segment 15>

SY: So at this time where were you going to school when you moved back to Little Tokyo?

FK: From El Segundo my school district in Los Angeles, Second Street was Central Junior High School which was on the hilltop where the department of education is today on Hill Street where the music center, there was a Central Junior High School in that area. And that was mostly Hispanic and that was a terrifying school to go to. I did not like to go there. I was confronted almost on a daily basis, two or three of them would encircle me and say, "Okay, give me a dime," and they don't say, "Give me dime," they just reach in your pocket and take what you got. And of course you learn to be street smart and I used to carry my money in my shoes and things like that. But it was not a happy experience on top of my not liking education, so it was a double whammy for me to go to school, not learn anything and getting behind and then on top of that and being small they pick on you.

SY: Was it because you were Japanese too?

FK: It's because I was small.

SY: And your father was making fairly good money then too.

FK: I would imagine he was doing much, much better than before the war.

SY: So you probably had a better appearance?

FK: Yeah. The end of the holey socks and shirts and things like that were gone and we were decent.

SY: And your sister's were going to the same junior high school?

FK: My younger sister, being six years younger she was not there but then they closed the Central Junior High and then they transferred me to Lafayette Junior High School which is on Sixteenth and near Central Avenue. Now that's an all-black school so from an all Hispanic to an all-black that's like from the frying pan to the fire and that was an experience there too.

SY: Different?

FK: The experiences were about the same but --

SY: You got picked on still?

FK: There not too much people going in my pockets and things, but I noted that some of my buddies, the bigger guys were picked on. They pick fights to see how strong they are or how weak you are or whatever. So they'll be fights on a weekly basis outside but they're fist fights and there's nothing dangerous in that sense, after the fight's over they make up. I still remember in Lafayette the students, the teachers would fight.

SY: Really?

FK: They would have right outside and they'd go at it and then there would be no reporting or anything and that'll be the end of that.

SY: And the teachers do you remember what ethnicity they were?

FK: The ones I remember were white teachers.

SY: And they had to defend themselves basically?

FK: Well, you know, you get challenged and you either got to stand up or you have a problem with your students.

SY: And there were many Asians? Were there many Asians?

FK: It was mostly black and scatter of Hispanics and Chinese and Japanese, maybe ten percent, not even ten maybe.

SY: So did you find that you hung out with the other Asians?

FK: Yes, we hung out with each other.

SY: Completely.

FK: We were raised that way.

SY: So the whole experience was not particularly... junior high was a hard time for you?

FK: It was not an enjoyable time, no.

SY: So that's when you probably concentrated on the after school and working?

FK: Well, but even then I really didn't have any dreams or aspirations of becoming a multi-millionaire or anything like that, no. It was a matter of survival and being able to live that day without getting beat up and things like that.

<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.

<Begin Segment 17>

SY: You graduated high school when?

FK: '51, summer of '51.

SY: When did you graduate high school?

FK: Summer of '51.

SY: Oh, I'm sorry okay.

FK: And that's when my dad called my brother from Japan. He was a junior at Doshisha University which is a prominent university in Kyoto. He was accepted there and he was going to stay and finish his senior year but my dad said, "Well, it's summer vacation so why don't you come on over to meet your family?" So he brought him over and then the Korean War broke out and now he couldn't go back because he's a Nisei, so my dad had him enlist and myself as well, enlist in the National Guard to be deferred from draft. So my brother went through and continued his school here and he graduated from SC, and then he got his master's in engineering and he got a job immediately at North American. And myself, all my friends were being drafted and I just felt... I don't whether it's boys or men or it was a Japanese thing but you feel that your buddies are going into the army and why aren't you. And you had the guilt feeling and but my dad said, "No, I don't want you to," because he lost his son and I understood that and all but it got to a point where I just felt that and I got out of the Guard and immediately within a month I was drafted.

SY: So that was really a conscious decision. You purposely got out of something that could keep you from being drafted. I do want to back up a little and talk about your brothers because we didn't mention that. Your two brothers who were still in Japan, this was the first time you'd been reunited with the one brother, right?

FK: That's right, since he left in 1937.

SY: So it had been about twenty years.

FK: Oh yes, many years.

SY: Twenty years. And the other brother, what happened to him?

FK: Well, George, he was seventeen at the time when he volunteered for the Japanese army.

SY: And that was during --

FK: That was World War II, yes. And he volunteered and I don't know whether he was placed or whether he volunteered for the suicide unit, it was not on the plane, it was not the kamikaze pilot, but he was on the water where they trained them to guide a... it's like a rowboat with an engine on the back with a bomb on the back and their job was to ram the enemy ship and to sink it. So it's a suicide where one person, one bomb and one boat and of course we didn't know anything of that. And he volunteered and I met a gentleman that was... my brother was in group number two, unit two. Unit one went toward Okinawa and they were all killed at Okinawa. My brother was group two, was shipped to the Philippines and a ship was sunk enroute right near the Philippines so that's where he passed away. And this gentleman that I met, he was in group three and he was saved because when his group was ready to move that's when they dropped the bomb in Hiroshima. So he was saved but then he was training near Hiroshima so he went into Hiroshima as a -- this is my friend, not my brother -- and he went into it right after the bomb and he got the radiation. And of course he didn't know that at that time and he being also about eighteen at that time and then the war was over. And then they found that he's a Nisei so they drafted him for the Korean War. So he was in the Japanese army and in the American army, and he had an interesting story and we convinced him to give his interview. And they did an interview at the museum about a year and a half ago and he passed away last year. So between him and my brother, we put a lot of pieces together in the puzzle of my brother that passed away near the Philippines.

SY: He knew your brother then?

FK: He didn't know him, no.

SY: He was on the third --

FK: He was in the third group. He says, "Oh, I know that group that went out."

SY: And what was his name the one that passed away?

FK: Suto, Henry Suto. Yeah, you might want to look him up in the archives in the museum.

SY: I guess there were no interview procedure for being drafted into the Korean War where they would ask him?

FK: Well, obviously they knew that he was in the Japanese army.

SY: They did know.

FK: I'm sure they did. And so at that time he only spoke Japanese and his English was very limited and he was not sent to the front but he did a lot of work within Japan.

SY: So when did you find out that your brother had passed away?

FK: We found out in 1945. He passed away in October of '44 and so it was more than six months after that we received the information, the letter from Japan stating that, "This is what happened to your son," to my parents. That was the first time I saw my dad cry, first time.

SY: And your oldest brother was... that was your oldest brother?

FK: That was my oldest brother.

SY: And so the one who ended up coming here never --

FK: He was fourteen years old so he was saved. But he was working in the ammunition or one of the weapons factories during the war.

SY: And do you know if your parents had contact?

FK: No, contacts until after the war.

SY: Until after.

FK: And my relatives in Japan didn't know as well of what happened to George. So we all knew about the same time.

SY: Amazing story.

<Begin Segment 18>

SY: So when you decided to enlist, or I'm sorry, you were drafted then can you tell that story about how you ended up where you ended up?

FK: Well, we were drafted and we were shipped to Fort Ord, and in those days it was a sixteen week training, basic training. Today it's only eight or nine weeks but we had eighteen weeks and I always seemed to have lady luck on the other side of the street. When we got there there was no room in the barracks so they put us because there were so many draftees they put us in the boondocks. In other words there's no barracks. We had to pitch our tent and for every practice like shooting range it was on the ocean front right by the beach and we had to march maybe about seven, eight miles just to get there and because it took so long to get there we'd have to camp there. Whereas the other ones they would just march there in the morning and come back. We lived in the those tents a number of months and then finally put into the barracks and we went through the whole sixteen weeks and that's where I... the first time on the firing ground, we learned how to shoot everything from forty-five pistol to a bazooka and so forth. But I have this physical problem with my ear because the first round I shot with a forty-five pistol, it blew my eardrum. So this ear is just about gone. I could only hear about maybe thirty percent, so if I sleep on my pillow on my left ear I can't hear anything really.

SY: And you knew that as soon as it happened?

FK: As soon as I pulled that trigger I knew that something's wrong. Today they teach you how to shoot like this and I'm sure now they have ear plugs. But they told us to shoot like this and that's right in line with your right ear. And as soon as I pulled it I blew my eardrum and to this day... from that moment to this day I have this twenty-four hour ringing in my ear and it's a loud ring. And right now I can't hear it too much but in the still of night it's --

SY: Really bad.

FK: You would think you would get used to it but this is when I was eighteen and here I am seventy-eight so it's sixty years.

SY: Is that called tinnitus or what is that?

FK: It's tinnitus. There's nothing you could do I've gone to several ear nose and throat specialist and they said don't waste your money on the hearing aids because it's not going to help.

SY: Amazing and thanks to the Korean War. So then basic training was probably the worst part of that experience for you?

FK: Well, I wasn't the only one so it's everybody so it's not that bad. They didn't expect you do things and not the others, so I never felt... but you have the yamato damashi, where you when you're marching and you're tired, you don't say you're tired you just keep up with everybody else. Yes, we, all the Japanese Americans, we kept up with everybody. There's always stragglers and people that say I'm tired and then they sat down and they quit. Not us we would always encourage each other.

SY: It wasn't segregated then?

FK: No.

SY: But there were other Japanese in your unit.

FK: Yes.

SY: And you sort of stayed chums, friends with the other Japanese Americans during the war. So then were you sent to Korea?

FK: No, right after I was drafted in July, the following month, August, they signed the armistice so the war was over. So my dad and mom felt very much safer that now it's okay and so it was not that bad. But I do remember after basic training was over that I came home for leave before I was going to be sent to Japan and I came home and normally I'd just say, "Okay, goodbye," and I'd go. But this time I was flying out of Burbank to go to San Francisco and that just happened my father, my mother, my sisters, they all came to see me off, my brother too. And I still remember this day as I got on the plane I looked back and they're standing there waving and then I left and then I landed and then I called and said that my sister answered the phone and she says oh, that I had landed safely and she said, "We just got home from the airport." Dad refused to leave, he stayed there until the plane was out of sight and then he stayed there and he looked and looked and then that was the last time I saw him. There was something there that he felt that, "That's it, I'm not going to see my son anymore," and he just stayed just on and on and on until they forced him to, "Come on, let's go." So he just got home just before I landed in San Francisco.

<Begin Segment 19>

SY: Explain though how you ended up in Japan?

FK: Got to Japan? Every so often they come up with something like if you're a typist you could try out. In the bulletin it said that those who want to try the Japanese language test or the Chinese language test, report on such and such a date at a certain time. So I followed my Kibei friends and we went and took the test. Well, it just happens that the person that's giving the test, he had to... one of them was missing so he had to go back and forth from his room to our room. And every time he left, well, I kind of looked over this side, looked over this side and I copied all what they wrote because my Japanese was not a good Japanese, it was a Nisei Japanese. So I copied whatever they had written and I passed as a Japanese interpreter. So that was my MOS, I was an interpreter, so the chances looked pretty good that I might be going to Japan and sure enough that's what happened.

SY: And what happened when you got to Japan and you weren't really --

FK: Well, before we got there I have to tell you that we all got on the boat in San Francisco and it was late November and we got on the boat, there was a small transport, we left San Francisco and that's the roughest day is the first day out of San Francisco. In the winter time the water is very rough. It got so rough that sure enough within an hour everybody was over the rails or in the bathroom. Everybody threw up including the merchant marine. Everybody threw up; it was a mess. The next day you would think they would serve you something dry and, you know, fruity or something but they give you something like Hungarian goulash that looks and smells and I looked at that and we had to stand up and eat. So we had our tray so if you were the one in front of me, your tray and my tray would bump and then we would face each other, and they would have rows and rows of it. And I could see that probably about ten rows and I could see about fifth row down everybody's kind of... and then this one guy went like this and just like a domino, everybody threw up and everybody ran out the galley sick as a dog. And one of my buddies, a Japanese guy from Japan, he was drafted he was in bed twenty-one days of the twenty-one day trip. He didn't eat anything. I don't even know how he lived twenty-one days without eating. He would just sip some water and go back to the bunk.

SY: The whole trip?

FK: The trip was not a good trip, no.

SY: The entire trip and it takes how long?

FK: Twenty-one days. We landed in Yokohama, from there we bused to Camp Drake and that's where --

SY: You were stationed.

FK: That's where we were going to be detached or attached or whatever to where we're going to be going. But as soon as I got there, all of us the following day they had another exam, this time it's a Nisei soldier one on one, and he started rambling Japanese military terms at me and after a couple of sentences I told him that's enough. Assign my name and I said, "Thank you very much," and I left and then I went to pack my duffle bag ready to go to Korea and all my buddies that took the test, they were very happy. And then they were celebrating that evening that they were going to be staying in Japan. Well, the following day we all got our orders and they were all shipped to Korea and I was told to report to, in that camp, to the Korean language school. So I spent... I was supposed to spend six months learning Korean eight hours a day.

SY: And they figured that you were better learning Korean?

FK: My English was better than their English, my Japanese was nowhere near as where it should have been.

SY: It didn't matter though.

FK: So they put me in Korean language school.

SY: And you're the only one?

FK: The only one.

SY: The only one of all your friends.

FK: So I said, wait my luck is changing. [Laughs]

SY: You got to stay in Japan. What was that like?

FK: Well, it was very difficult it was trying times. A yen was 360 yen and we would get rationing of a carton of cigarettes a week and we'd pay a dollar for it and we'd all gather all our cartons of cigarettes and we would go into Tokyo and then we'd go to this Chinese restaurant and then we would unload our bags of cigarettes and go upstairs and eat our fill and after we would finish we'd come down and they'll give us our change. Yes, it was difficult times.

SY: Did you save any of that money or did you spend it?

FK: No, we got paid, what, twenty-eight dollars a month now how much can you save? But I got to tell you this experience that I had the very first time I went to Ginza. Now you got to keep in mind where I'm coming from that as a young eight year, nine years old I was confronted with this change of events and from a friend I became an enemy of the country and so forth and being scorned and everything else. Okay, now we took this bus, the army bus from our camp to Ginza and it takes about maybe forty minutes and we got there and then I got off the bus in dead center of Ginza and I looked around and I said, I looked around and I could see everybody about my size, some taller, some shorter, black hair, glasses on and looked kind of like me. And I said, gosh, and then this warm feeling this real warm feeling came from me and my heart and I said gosh, no matter what it is, I know this is my mother country and this is where I belong. If everything turns the wrong way I got to come because I feel very, very comfortable. And then so I was looking around and that only lasted ten seconds because within that time, now as I'm walking in Ginza, the people are looking at me with distain and looking at me like "you traitor." I'm a Japanese American wearing an American uniform and they still didn't forget the World War II, of course Korean War was on at that time but they looked at me like, "What are you doing? You're a Japanese, why are you in an American uniform?" And so I came to realize that no, this is not the place where I belong either. So my world shrunk again back to normal.

SY: Yeah, it is surprising that so many years after the war there was that feeling against Niseis.

FK: Yes, I couldn't believe that. The only ones that really... when I didn't wear my uniform, of course they can't tell but as soon as I open my mouth they know I'm not a Japanese. But usually the ones that look at you the way that, you know, "get the hell out of here" look is the ones that really don't know you. And they had something, an experience or something in the past, but your relatives and things, they're very nice to you and they're very happy and so forth. So I think no matter where it is, what country or whatever it is.

SY: So you didn't have a warm and fuzzy feeling when you left there or did you still?

FK: No, when I left Japan?

SY: Yeah.

FK: Yes, when I left Japan

<Begin Segment 20>

SY: When did you end up leaving?

FK: Meanwhile, while I was there, I was in the midst of the Korean language school, this is 1954 in April.

SY: Did you learn very much Korean?

FK: Well, you learn eight hours a day so it's mostly conversational and then... the Korean language is very easy to learn. The alphabet is just, there's less in the Korean alphabet than the English alphabet. It's just a matter of putting words like if it's ka put a k and a a together and it's a ka. So it's very easy and you could read it. You may not know what it means but I can read pronunciation. I can pronounce and read so then the structure, the grammar structure is the same as Japanese. It's not like English which is more difficult. But while I was in Korean language school, my dad got sick and he was in the hospital and then I was told, "If you can come back on an emergency to come back," because they didn't feel that he could live much longer. And so I went to the airport, got my papers right away, and I got to the airport that day and then I was bumped every day, bumped off, bumped off for three days because an officer took my place. And that's when I felt that life is not really fair. If you have a viable reason to go somewhere or do something and you're bumped because somebody with a higher rank or someone with more money than you got on, this is not fair. And I still remember this day and because of that I came home on a Saturday and my dad had passed away on a Thursday. So I missed seeing him and it was in time for the funeral and then about a month later I had to go back and then resume my... so I started the Korean language school all over again. So the class that I was in, they had graduated and they went to Korea and I so I started all over again.

SY: And you managed to avoid going to Korea?

FK: Well, there was no really action or anything but the about the second month of, might have been about the third month in Tokyo, I mean in Camp Drake, they moved the camp to Etajima which was a naval camp. That was where the Japanese navy trained their officers and it's a beautiful camp and it was an island right off of Hiroshima, and so during the weekends or whatever we'd take a boat, half an hour boat to go on land and then we'd go into Hiroshima.

SY: Hiroshima must have been --

FK: Yes, they had just started accumulating pictures and so forth and I remember going to that and it was just a building, a very plain building and they had the pictures and whatever was left after the bomb, the melted metal and soda bottles and things like that, yes.

SY: That must have been awful to see. And then you ended up being at that particular camp?

FK: I was there for about three month and then I graduated and then I only had about four or five months left on my two year stint so they figured well no use to send me to Korea so I stayed in Camp Drake and I was a courier, a military intelligence courier and I had a holster with a .45 pistol and I had a driver. I carried documents back and forth from the airport.

SY: So it was a comfortable job?

FK: And I did that maybe two or three times a week and the rest of time I was on my own. So I used to spend my time in the supply office and it was a very difficult time. [Laughs]

SY: So in the meantime were you thinking in your mind, "How can I make money here"?

FK: I'm thinking in my mind I'm going to re-up and stay in the army because it is such an easy job. But my dad had passed away and I thought I'd better report home and tell my mom that I want to go back into the army again, and when I got back she convinced me that I should help the family business.

SY: So that's what you did.

FK: So that's what I did.

<Begin Segment 21>

SY: So, Frank, now you returned to Los Angeles and you ended up staying and you got back to your favorite business.

FK: Yes.

SY: And so what did you end up doing?

FK: Well, I told myself, I didn't tell my mother but I told myself that my mother needs help and that I should do whatever I can. But I felt that the kamaboko industry is, has a limit as far as a business and that maybe in five years that the business would slow down to a point where you could close up and then it would give me an opportunity to do what I want to do, whether it's going back in the army or doing whatever I wanted to do. But year two I started thinking business is picking up and my dad's biggest dream was to make something for the American people, the American masses rather than concentrating on Japanese. And that, just his intent, it left something obviously because I kept remembering it, that well maybe I should try that.

SY: At the time what was kamaboko business? Was it as physically strenuous or was there now new machinery?

FK: Yes, it was the era of machinery. This was the phenomenon that took place in Japan whereas before, just like what we were doing, they would sit on a table and they would have the surimi and they would form that with their knife by hand and make everything my hand whether it's kamaboko or tempura, everything was done by hand. And then I heard that in Japan someone discovered a machine where you put the kamaboko boards on one end and you put the surimi in the center and then you push a button and then boards one at a time would come out and then this surumi would be place right on top of the board very neatly, and all you do is cut it with a wet knife and then you place it. So it saved... well, what we used for of us from early morning 'til late in the evening I believe that our daily production if we worked just on that one product we could probably make about a thousand kamaboko in a day's production. This machine, you push the button and with two person you could make a thousand in one hour. So, yes, it was a big advance in the industry, and so I asked if there was anybody that would make the machine for me and of course the manufacturer said they'd be happy to make it but I didn't know how to operate it, so at that time there were always people coming... Niseis, Kibei Niseis that want to come back to the United States and we heard of one young man that wanted to come back so we asked him -- he's from Kagoshima -- we asked him to go to, I believe it was Osaka at that time, to go there and learn how to operate this machine that I'm going to buy. So he went to the factory and he learned how to operate it and he flew in and then the machine came in by ship and then we put the machinery together and we went into the twenty-first century there, from one machine. And from then on we were always looking for other machinery and we found a machine that would make tempura so we didn't have to make that by hand and then we found a machine to make chikua which we didn't have to make by hand so now it became a very proficient --

SY: And were you still one of how many kamaboko --

FK: We were one of four.

SY: One of four. So all four survived?

FK: Yes. And I was the first to bring in the equipment.

SY: You were the first.

FK: And I was the first to, in the United States, that's including Hawaii too, to package kamaboko. In those days we sold kamaboko loose, as is, we'd steam it or fry it or whatever and then we would sell it and it would be in the fish counter and it had no covering. The saran wrap came out, and so I would cut off a twelve inch square and then cut it off and then place the kamaboko in and then wrap it and now we had wrapped kamaboko, sanitary, well, a lot more sanitary than the way it was. And we sort of revolutionized the kamaboko, we took one step forward.

SY: And then you sold then to more people? You were able to sell to more people?

FK: Yes, in fact we had customers in New York as well as Chicago, and to this day I wonder what kind of condition the product reached there because we would pack it in dry ice, but dry ice would last maybe twenty-four hours or thirty hours at the most, and it took about four days to get there by train, but that was the business. Of course, wintertime was not a problem, it was the summertime that was a problem.

SY: So there's no preservative that lasted longer.

FK: No, we didn't know of any preservative.

SY: So it's very fresh still?

FK: Yes, we sold everything fresh. We didn't sell anything frozen because if you froze it and you thawed it out, it made terrible kamaboko.

SY: And you sold mainly to Japanese markets?

FK: Japanese restaurants and Japanese markets. That was ninety percent of our business, ninety-five percent.

SY: And did you do the marketing too?

FK: There's not too much of marketing there's only a few kamaboko manufacturers or they'll call you if they want and we didn't have anybody in sales.

<Begin Segment 22>

SY: How big a business was it when you came back?

FK: Gosh, I don't know. Dollar-wise I couldn't even --

SY: How many people?

FK: Well, when I came back it must have been about six people in the factory.

SY: So you didn't have to do all the dirty work anymore.

FK: No, we still had to make the surimi, so that was part of the manpower we needed to make the paste. But then a number of years later, when the fish started getting scarce, then we couldn't get the fish out of San Pedro and we started getting it from San Diego, San Francisco and then Portland, Oregon, and then the last bout was in Washington. And then I started to worry that we're running out of fish and it's getting more and more expensive. Then Japan came up with this system where they have a mother ship that docks in the Bering Sea, it's a huge ship and they would have satellite boats that go out and catch the fish and bring it back and they would process... do everything that we did on board the mother ship and freeze it in twenty-two pound blocks, forty-four in a case, and then they'd sell it frozen and that solved our problem of not having to go through this cutting the fish and spooning the fish and so that again was another step forward.

SY: Wow, and that was how far into the business?

FK: That was about 1975 so that was a little bit later. But meanwhile, in talking about trying to find something for the American public...

SY: You started thinking about that right?

FK: So my dad tried making some canned... he'd make surimi balls and fry it and can it, but you got to remember in those days, because of the religion, fish and seafood was eaten on Fridays. And it was almost like being penalized for all the sins that you had done for the first five days, so on Friday you're a sinner so you have to eat fish. So fish was not something that people went out to go look for and to go eat. That was like they were being penalized. So when I came out with my product and I thought it was fantastic, I came out with three products. I called my company Sea Bon Seafoods. C'est si bon in French is "good." But my si bon is S-E-A-B-O-N, Sea Bon Seafood. And I came out with an imitation bologna, salami and sausage. So I called my bologna "Sea-loni."

SY: Clever.

FK: And then my sausage, "Sea-lami" and my sausage, "Sea-sage." And the products were pretty good. I mean, obviously it was different, but the texture is little different and the flavor base is different but it was pretty good.

SY: I'll take your word for it.

FK: Yes, it's not in the market today. [Laughs] The reason was going back to religion. I personally was one of the demonstrators to go to the markets like Ralphs and Vons and I would have my little cart there and then I would cut a little piece and I'd say, "Would you please try it?" and most people would gather around and they say, well, and they'd grab it in the toothpick and say, "Well, what is it?" And I'd say, "This is an imitation bologna made out of fish," and then one of two things, one would put it down and say, "I don't eat fish," or they have a face like, "This is not for us." Maybe one out of ten would try it and they would say, "Oh, it's alright," but the problem was the bologna and sausage, that's very cheap commodity because maybe unbeknownst to most people, they don't put the finest part of the meat in the sausages and things like that. Well, my price was, I was selling for about dollar fifty to two dollars and they're selling for forty, fifty cents a pound so that was the two things. So the health aspect flew out the window, one, because of religion and one is because the disdain for seafood. So that ended my venture into my fame and that was one of many that I tried but it didn't work. Then about, right after '75 they came out with the frozen surimi in Japan then I realized that there might be a problem getting fish because now all the whole industry like in Japan at that time, there was over four thousand kamaboko factories in Japan, small, medium and large factories, four thousand plus. Today there's one thousand or less than a thousand so three quarters of the companies closed up already. And so what I had pictured right after the army was that there's not that much future, well, it took a number of years but in Japan they're having the same problem. The young people are not eating kamaboko like you are not eating kamaboko as we have discussed the other day.

SY: Special occasions.

FK: That's right, only special occasions, that only happens once or twice a year. Well, you can't have a business for once or twice a year. So anyway I found that the surimi, the fish that's caught in the Bering Sea, there's a limit to the catch, the biomass, they say that's the largest biomass in the world but then there's a limit to if you keep catching it. So around that time I heard that in the Gulf of Mexico the shrimp industry... or the Gulf of Mexico, the National Marine... they called me and said that, "We have a species of fish here that you may be interested in." So I flew there and I was met by the agent and he said that the shrimpers, when they go shrimping... and if you don't understand shrimping, shrimp is a (bottom dweller). They're in the mud in the bottom of the ocean or whatever. And for a shrimper to catch the shrimp, they concocted this thing, it looks like a door, a door if you unhinge that door and you took that door, they put it on ropes on both sides and they put two of those and then they lower it to the bottom of the ocean. And then as they pull the thing it bounces and it stirs up the mud and bounces and the shrimp get scared. And they jump up and then there's a net right behind it to catch the shrimp, that's how the shrimpers catch shrimp. Well, what happens is there's also ground fish that's in the same area and they get caught as well. But the medium size and the large size, they have a market, in a retail market people eat that fish. The fish is called croaker and that's one of the species in Japan that's highly sought after for making kamaboko. A different species but it's in the family, so I knew that so I went there and then the reason they called me was that the delinquents, the small fish, the baby fish were the ones where they get tons and tons, millions and tons every year but they throw them away because there's no place... they can't sell it. And there's not enough for them to bring it in and use the ice to chill it. It's a waste for the shrimper so they discard it and its unbelievable amount of the baby fish that they throw away.

SY: And they're dead.

FK: They are dead because they drown, fish drown. So I was in the midst of perfect size for making kamaboko, eight inches, six to eight inches and so we opened up a factory there. And that's how I got to know a very good family friend that's a friend of mine and a partner of mine in Alabama and we started the Nichi Bei Fisheries and me make primarily surimi for the kamaboko industry. And I visited my competitors in Los Angeles and I told them that I'm going to Alabama to make surimi and hopefully that you would support me. I get a good and thank you very much and we'll support you, and so I went and I started to make it and it took a number of months and months to make a quality thing, but when I finally got to a point where I could sell it and I went to my competitors my price and the price they get it from Japan there was a big difference. They're paying seventy-five cents a pound and mine's about a dollar thirty a pound and so all that goodwill and everything went out the window. And so now I had to use of all of what I had so I figured I can't do this, not enough, so I took a sample to Japan and I went and I bumped into this Suzuhiro Kamaboko in Japan and they welcomed me with open arms and they said that he was there several years before and he's says, "Yes, the croaker is a good species and yes, you should be able to make good quality. The one you brought here is okay, but you should be able to make something much, much better." And he sent his son and his employees, they did that for two years, they sent a bunch of people to upgrade my product, and I began to wonder well gosh he's going to send me a bill one of these days and I don't know how I'm going to do it. So I asked him, "You better send me a bill, interim bill, because I don't know what you're going to charge me." He said, "Kawana-san, I'm glad you're doing this and it's good for the industry so please let me support you." And I said, wow, this is a good family, a really good family.

SY: So he eventually benefitted though because you gave him.

FK: Well, I gave him but he never bought any before because what had happened the following year we had the hurricane, Frederick, and it tore our company apart and we couldn't do anything for eight months. We finally recovered eight months later, the roads were blocked and it was torn up and everything. And then the following year after that we had a heat wave so we couldn't bring any fish in. And then the year after that, the fish, the croaker species disappeared from the Gulf of Mexico, the species disappeared. There were other fish that were still available but the croaker disappeared and to this day they have not given me a satisfactory reply to what happened to that species. They don't know either it just disappeared overnight. Today there's maybe some three four inch delinquents but that's gone so that ended our... we close up.

SY: So it was done, that was it.

FK: That was it.

<Begin Segment 23>

FK: And then the Japanese surimi continued so good thing that continued. Then in about '77 I saw this sample of a product that came from Japan, it was a frozen imitation crab, and I said this might be my key to success in the United States. And then my head started to grind and then I went to Japan immediately and I talked to the machine manufacturer and he said, "I've never made this machine." His competitor makes it, "So why don't you buy from him?" "No, I don't like your competitor, I want to buy it from you." So he made a machine for me and then I brought it back to Los Angeles.

SY: So it was his idea? Or whose idea was it to make this imitation crab?

FK: No, it was an idea that the Japanese kamaboko (industry), they too since they had to do something different and they started to make this imitation crab.

SY: They called it imitation crab?

FK: Yeah, they called it kani kamaboko.

SY: And there were only the two companies?

FK: No, there was several, there was a couple of big companies that were making it, so now I had to get the flavor base and I had to get the equipment and I didn't know how to do it. And then I needed some money to do all of this, so I started thinking and you know where there's a way, there's a will there's a way, and I started thinking and I said well, I got my ex-partners in Alabama that might be interested because they were interested in surimi and then I was going to go to Japan to see Suzuhiro Kamaboko and tell him that I need some help and would they help me. And so when I went there they said, "Oh, good idea, we'll help you, this out of our..." they're fifteen, no, over ten generations of kamaboko men, so there's many, many years so they can't do that in Japan but they said in the United States, "Yeah we'll help you." And then it got to a point where rather than that I asked them about three four five months later as they were sending all the people to help me, got the equipment, they sent people to help us and I said, "Would you care to join us?" and he just says, "Oh, that'll be wonderful." And he says, "I got a number two son that's in Jochi (Sophia) University in Tokyo that I'm willing to give to you," so I adopted him and he came to me and his name is Teisuke and we call him Ted. He was my adopted son from Japan, and so the father asked me, "Well, how much are you going to be willing to share?" And I believed a number of years earlier that I failed in some partnership because of the dividing of the partnership. So I made up my mind many years before that if you want a good cooperative happy partner, you got to be fair, and so I said, "How about thirty-three percent each?" And he almost fell over. He thought he was going to get maybe four or five percent but he said, "Oh, that's wonderful." So I had a happy partner there, he sent his son who eventually became the president of the company a number of years later. And then I told my partners in Alabama, we're starting this, and he said, "Frank, (...) we love you like a brother and we have highest respect for you and all that, but no thank you. Because you come to Alabama and we got the hurricane, we got this, we got all these natural disasters," and they said, no, no, no. I said, "Alright, that's okay, you're in regardless of what you think, and one of these days when you feel like it you can pay me."

SY: Was this a Japanese family or no?

FK: No, the Japanese family was very happy to join.

SY: Yeah, I know, but in Alabama.

FK: That's a white family.

SY: Yeah, got the Japanese family from Japan and then the Alabama people.

FK: Alabama people the reason I like him because every time I used to go for the surimi project they would house me in their house except the times when I brought the workers, the equipment workers or things like that or when the Suzuhiro people, came they put us in an apartment. But every time I went by myself I would be in their master bedroom and I would say no, and they said no and they would always put me in the master bedroom. And so they treated me like family and I got to know the children, they all call me Uncle Frank and we still have a very close knit. Well, anyway, we started and the Japanese company, Suzuhiro, they were fantastic, they taught us everything. And my cousin happened to be in the flavor business so we got the flavor base of the crab flavor. Now crab flavor is not getting crab and squeezing the juice out. Crab flavor is made from various different seafood and vegetables and plants to make the flavor of crab. And so we made the unique flavor for ours which was acceptable, and we had the research development in Suzuhiro at our beck and call, whatever we wanted, our information or whatever, they helped us. And so we had a fantastic relationship with my partners. And then about a year later my partners in Alabama sent me a check and they put in their amount of the one-third partnership and so we took off and it was the most enjoyable business of my life. Every year we doubled, more than doubled, we started off very small, first we had about four months of the year and we had about 600,000 in business, the following year one and half million, three million, seven million, fifteen million, then twenty-five million. I mean, we were just growing leaps and bounds, we were the first one in the United States making that but I realized that if I just let it as is, that the Japanese companies are going to come and take over the industry in the United States. So I let out the news that I'm willing to teach any company that's willing to get into this business and help this industry succeed, so gosh, a lot of big companies, Quaker Oats, Kraft, a lot of them came and then said, "This is not our thing," so but then I ended up sharing with three other companies and one was International Multi Foods, it's a very large, two billion dollar corporation and they came to us and became our... well, we taught them and we charged them a fee. And then there's another one, of all places two of them in Minnesota, two plants in Minnesota and then one in Seattle, Icicle Seafood we taught them also. And then within five years there was fifteen imitation crab manufacturers in the United States. We were by far the largest, and now the competition started and they try to infringe on our territory and for them to get in they had to lower the price, and that's where the problem started. Everybody started to make lower cheaper product, and being the spokesman for the industry, no matter where I went, whether it was Washington D.C., Seattle, Anchorage, or wherever I went I always ended up with look, competition is fine, let's compete on quality and not making cheap things. And they would foo foo me and tell me, "Frank, the housewives don't care because they put it in a salad. With the mayonnaise and the ketchup and everything, you can't tell the difference between the high quality and a low quality. So never mind, Frank, we're going to get you," so they started making cheaper and cheaper product. And I saw the handwriting on the wall about six or seven years into it. I said, no, we got to get out of it. The industry in Japan has been in existence for a thousand years, we're in year six, year seven and we're headed toward the ways where if we lasted twenty years we'll be lucky. And the gross sales of all the surimi industry at the time was heading the peak of 400 million for the industry in the United States and going up. Today it's not much more than that, it's slowed down, because their theory, the cheap stuff is going to sell is true. The Chinese cheap stuff is coming in, now they can't compete with the Chinese so they're being defeated with their own... they're not quality but they're getting beaten up. Well, anyway we sold in 1989, eight years after we started and we did very well.

<Begin Segment 24>

SY: So eight years, you really started from nothing basically.

FK: Yes, and so we split up the profit and we all went our way and then so I had nothing to do because I sold the business and then in 1975 I had also started a noodle business, a yakisoba business, 1975, very small, and we made egg roll skin, won ton skin, and gyoza skin as well. And that was slowly getting bigger and bigger and so we sold the JAC Creative Foods, JAC is J A C. J for Japan, my contingents from Japan, A for Alabama and C for California so that was JAC Creative Foods.

SY: And that was strictly surimi?

FK: That was strictly surimi.

SY: I see, you sold that business.

FK: Now I have time so I said I'm going to help the flavor business which is yakisoba business and so my partner and I we bought an old bakery, the Barbara Ann Bakery right off the Pasadena Freeway.

SY: Oh, my gosh that's the building you're in now.

FK: Yes, so that was a sixty thousand square feet building and now we've outgrown that and we're remodeling another building, a seventy-five thousand square feet building which we hope to be moving into by next year. But anyway, we started there and so when we sold that business my national sales manager which happened to be my sister-in-law, Sachi's younger sister, she couldn't cope with the corporate structure so she quit and she came and says, "Give me a job," and so I said, "Okay, let's do it again." So I gave her ten years to introduce yakisoba to the United States. So we changed the name from "yakisoba" to "stir fry noodle," and today we are all over the United States and it's a very interesting business. It's a business where our product is very inexpensive as compared to other things like meats and things like that. It's a wheat product, so we make noodles, so when times are good... or when times are bad business is okay, when times are good people that like the pasta anyway, would eat pasta, so it's a good, good business to be in.

SY: Is it more like a fresh noodle?

FK: Yeah, we sell it two ways. We sell the fresh yakisoba stir fry noodle and we sell the frozen.

SY: So no dried?

FK: No, we don't dry it because that's adding... that's taking away from the benefit of having something ready to eat. If we dried it we'd go through another process which is completely against my philosophy of business. When you start off with ten pounds and you add water to it to make it thirteen or fourteen pounds and now that's a business. When you get something like the senbei business or a business where... beef jerky business where you start off with ten pounds and you end up with three, your product's got to be expensive. So I've always believed that you got to add water or put air in it to expand it or to increase the weight and this is what we are in. We are in the business of... water business putting water in to sell.

SY: That stir fry noodle idea though was it completely yours?

FK: No, yakisoba has been in existence in Japan for years and it started to sell over here in the Japanese stores and places like that, but there again dealing with one million Nikkei throughout the United States including Hawaii, one million people, that's okay. But like the manju business, where else can you go to sell, if you can have the American people, three hundred fifty million people, if one percent of them say hey, that's pretty good, you got a business.

[Interruption]

SY: You're covering all the Americans, reaching as many Americans as you can.

FK: That's right.

SY: Wow, that's amazing.

<Begin Segment 25>

SY: So this is sort of now to start a business like that, do you think it takes mainly guts or cleverness or...

FK: Well, I have a... my formula of what it takes to become an entrepreneur, I didn't say successful person, I'm just saying entrepreneur.

SY: Please share it with us.

FK: Okay, let me give you some choices, money, so having money, having the intelligence or the schooling, the intelligence, luck, having luck and timing, good personality. Of the five, which two would you pick as a basic need?

SY: Well, in your case...

FK: No, I'm asking you.

SY: I get to ask the questions.

FK: Well, I'm asking you.

SY: Well, obviously the intelligence was not a big factor because you never went to school and you never graduated.

FK: That's below the belt there.

SY: Well, school wasn't your biggest success. Natural intelligence, yes, I would say. Natural intelligence and timing probably, and money I would think would be important. Is that three?

FK: Well, yeah, you named three and out of the three you got one that I feel. I feel that money and intelligence it's good to have all of the five. It's good to have all of them, but if there might be a drawback with one of the five that you selected and that's intelligence. Intelligence is when you're the top of the class or you're straight A, you're expected to know everything of what you're doing. And in that field, you may go to a point where you're deciding what to do, and you use your judgment which may not be right. Rather than if you're not that intelligent you go ask people. I asked everybody whether it's accounting procedures, law, legal things, health things, if I don't know I'll go and ask. That's, I think what is a good C minus student is one of the plusses of a C minus student if there is any would be that and they have to have the sense to ask. Money, if you have a good idea, people will reach in their pockets to help you to get your business started. But you need good timing and you need a certain amount of luck. Timing and luck is the most important. In my list there I have thirty-nine businesses that I started, and I'd say most of them didn't succeed and it's not because I had the wrong idea, my timing was off, everything was too early. I started a restaurant, Mexican restaurant in Tokyo twenty years too early.

SY: Sounds good.

FK: Twenty years too early. I opened it up and I took a burrito, taco and I thought this is going to start a revolution there. Well, it ended up with the people that came were fifty, sixties, the ones that experienced the war years and they ate beans and corn and potatoes. The smell of the corn threw them off immediately so the taco was out the door and so it was a dismal failure. But timing is very important. Having a good idea is not enough, you need to really research and find out if the people is ready to accept it.

SY: So tell us some of your other failures. I'm interested in that.

FK: Well, Sea Bon Seafood, yes and then I started, gosh, the National Fortune Company which is a fortune cookie company. We were at one time the largest fortune cookie manufacturer in the United States. That's a bad business because it's again against my philosophy. You're burning off the moisture, you start off with ten pounds you end up with three. And then that became a commodity and the market is limited to the Chinese restaurants, not today's Chinese restaurants but the old Chinese restaurant where after you finish they give you a fortune cookie and that's a freebie. So if you're a restaurant owner you had to give freebie you would look for the cheapest, it didn't matter what it tastes like, it's a giveaway so you're always constantly fighting prices and trying to make something cheaper. We used to sell across the country and they sent us back thirty percent claims because they broke. So we make tougher cookies, can you believe that? Making stronger cookies that if you dropped it it won't... it will chip but it won't break. [Laughs] So you end up with a... I mean you break your teeth if you bit into it if you didn't crack it with your hand you break your teeth. Well, that didn't work out too well and then it didn't make any sense, the equipment was so expensive it would take you twenty years to recoup. So we got out of the business as soon as the machinery wore out. That was another one and...

SY: There are too many.

FK: There's just too many.

SY: Let me ask you this, when you had a failing, a big failure like that, what is it that gave you the strength, the wherewithal to keep going.

FK: My three children. I'd come home and woe is me the bank is after me and this and that and I almost faced bankruptcy twice and I had to work it out with the Sumitomo Bank manager to walk me through and they're very patient and they walked me through both of them. But I would come home, my stomach is just churning and years before I used to come home and Sachi would say, "What's wrong?" and I say ah this and that. And then she's say, "Well, why don't you do this or why don't you do that?" and then sure enough about in ten minutes we get into an argument. "What the hell are you talking about you" -- and so we got to a point where it was double whammy now. I go home now and my wife won't talk to me and so I made it my point many years later that when I come home, I take a deep breath open the door, hi kids and the wife asks me how's it. Oh, everything's fantastic. My stomach is... everything is fantastic and that's how I lived through these ups and downs.

SY: Wow, positive attitude.

FK: You know the wife is an important part, an intricate part of the family but there's things you could tell and you should tell and there's things you should not even mention because that opens the door and if it was Japanese two hundred years ago it would be chanbara, it would be a sword fight. [Laughs]

<Begin Segment 26>

SY: Now, okay, since you mentioned your wife let's talk about her. I feel sorry for her at this point.

FK: You should feel sorry for her she has stayed with me for fifty-one years.

SY: Fifty-one years.

FK: Yes, we're going on fifty-one years and she has stuck by me through thick and thin and if it was me I would have left her a long, long time ago. She has stuck by me.

SY: So you met her then... let's see.

FK: 1960 we were married.

SY: Oh, I see, so it was after the Korean War and you came back and so it was when you came back from and you were just starting the middle of your kamaboko business. And she happened to be a friend?

FK: Yeah, a friend of a friend. And she used to work at the Rafu bookstore before the war, no, after the war. Weller Street there used to be a through way and our factory was on Weller Street and then there's a parking lot back door of Enbun and then on the other side of the parking lot there was a Rafu bookstore and then the second, the branch was on San Pedro Street right next door where Modern Food Market used to be, where the Union Bank is now. Well, I used to see this nice looking girl walking back from the Rafu to the other store, back and forth, on Saturdays and I would look forward to Saturdays and I would see well, it was about time she walks and sure enough she'd be walking by and so I said, that's the gal I'm going to marry. She didn't know me from Adam. And about a year later I had my friend who knew her, we were all at roller skating and then she happened to be there and that's when he introduced us and that was it.

SY: That was it.

FK: That was it. It was a one-sided affair and that was it. [Laughs]

SY: She's put up with you all these years.

FK: Well, it took me almost ten years to get her accept.

SY: And what is she doing today?

FK: She became a businessperson and she's running the Yamasa operation with my youngest son.

SY: And does she come home and not talk to you about it?

FK: I don't ask her.

SY: So that makes it good.

FK: Yes.

<Begin Segment 27>

SY: And what are you... are you still running?

FK: I am retired. I have been retired for four years and I turned over the reins to my son, this Yakisoba Stir Fry Noodle business.

SY: Your oldest son?

FK: My oldest son and I told him at that time that, "Congratulations, and I had the opportunity to do what I wanted and I had free reign, my mother she really did not object to whatever I did. She questioned a lot of things in her mind I'm sure, but she let me do what I wanted to do. And so I'm going to give you the same opportunity you can do whatever you want, you can enlarge it make a small salad, do whatever you want and that will be fine with me but this is your company from today. But if there's a time when you do need some advice or consultant, consultation from me, we share an office, so you just let me know," and this is four years ago. About the third year I said, he never asked me for any consult or advice and I'm saying, "What the hell is going on here?" Did I teach him so well that he didn't need to know anything? Well, the first couple of years I felt, gosh, this whipper snapper he's not taking advantage and then about the third year I'm thinking well, he's doing a good job. There are a lot of things that I wouldn't have done what he did, but he did it and yeah, he's learning from it and so all's well that ends well.

SY: And what are your other sons doing?

FK: My youngest is with my wife at the Yamasa Kamaboko and he runs that and he also has a side thing that he does. He is in the stock market, he does that until one o'clock, when the market closes he comes into the shop and he helps with that. And my number two son is doing business for number one and number three, the three of them, they're involved in several other businesses, non-food businesses that he's involved with. So he's taking care of the three brothers, they're a very good team. And you know as a parent there's nothing as satisfying and gratifying as having your children get along with each other. I told them that the next generation, don't expect that to happen, your siblings, I mean their children they could get involved with each other but don't expect the cousins to get involved with each other because it's not going to work. There are companies that make it work but they have an iron clad type of understanding with each other. But my three sons, they're not involved with each other in the sense that they don't get in the way of each other. They do things and they're all involved with the yakisoba business, the three boys are involved, the kamaboko business the three are involved, my number two sons business the three of them are all involved but each one has their job and they don't get in each other's way. They consult, they have meetings, but usually after the meeting's just about over they look at big brother and say, "Well, what should we do? What about this?" "Fine," and that's it. I am pleased and I am just overwhelmed that they are getting along so well. And so all the credit comes toward me which I don't believe, it's just the makeup of the individuals and how you treat each other.

SY: And too they each sort of gravitated to the business, the family business.

FK: Yes, my oldest son, he went to law school and he's an attorney. He worked for four years and my youngest son is an architect and he happened to graduate at 1988 when it was a bad recession where there was no construction going on and he being a surfer, I thought is bad, bad combined so I pleaded with him that we need him. And I almost went on my hands and knees and said, "I know you got a profession and everything but we need your help badly." And so he kind of hesitantly said okay and so he's been with us for, what, twenty-two years. And my oldest son he's been with us about nineteen or twenty years. And so the agreement was that within five years if they did not enjoy it, they could leave and go back to their profession. But getting involved in business as an entrepreneur, aside from a professional individual, it's up to you type of thing. Being a professional, whether you're an accountant or an attorney you rely on other people to come to you to give your service. Business on the other side, you're doing something that you're trying to sell and whether it's a service or whatever you're selling.

[Interruption]

SY: She's giving me the... we have to end and I really hate to end but let me just talk... one last question because she's says the tape is running out. But I sort of want... what do you think for your future like for your sons and their kids?

FK: I wouldn't want to wish anything more for them. They're doing very well and all I wish for is my grandchildren to be happy. And I do have some advice for young people, that it is not just my philosophy, but I feel that there's only two types of living individuals (...). And the two types is not women or female or male, it's you will either become a leader or a follower. Now, that doesn't mean a follower is you're below grade or whatever it is. Followers, there's nothing wrong with that because all leaders are not successful but you become either a leader or a follower. Now in this short span that we're allowed to live on this earth, a hundred may seem like a long time to live, but it's a snap of a finger in the age of the universe. It's billions of years, it's a snap and you're gone, so what you got to do is you go through three stages in my opinion. The walking stage... (...) you go to school, you learn, and then you're working stage where you work and then your golden stage where you enjoy. [Interruption] So I would have advice for young people, if you have a dollar in your pocket invest it. Now I know a dollar you can't invest it, but I'm talking about if you accumulate something, save and buy, and the first thing I bought that started my thing was buying a piece of property, it was sixteen thousand dollars for a twenty-seven and a half feet by a hundred feet property on Fifth and Stanford and I had to make a 160 dollars month payment and there were times when I had difficulty making that payment. So you could relate to that today, you can't buy a 16,000 dollar piece of land but you may buy something for a hundred sixty thousand and you're payment would not be a 160 dollars but maybe sixteen thousand or whatever it is. If I didn't invest in something, I would have spent it and that became my foundation and I ended up owning the whole block on Fifth. And that's buying piecemeal, $15,000, $16,000 here, $30,000 here and struggled all through paying it because it was an empty lot, there was income coming in. So I would say buy something with some income coming in. [Laughs]

SY: So the real thing is it's important to enjoy everything that you earned in your later years and that's the payoff.

FK: That's right. And while you're struggling through that stage, networking is the most important.

SY: Networking.

FK: You got to meet people and meet good people and maybe that you met somebody and a few years later you might think of him and then talk to him and might become a joint venture. He might be your partner or you might be his partner and those are networking. That's how I enlarge my thing by Japan, Alabama, all my things I've been very successful in my partnerships and also be fair. Don't ever be fifty-one percent. If you become a fifty-one percent partner, that forty-nine percent, the one with the two percent less than you is going to eat you up later.

[Interruption]

SY: Wonderful, Frank, thank you so much.

FK: You're welcome.

SY: I wish we had another hour.