<Begin Segment 25>

MN: So when you were living in the Long Beach trailer park, what kind of job did your mother find?

YK: Yeah, my mother fortunately had some friends who were working in the canneries in Long Beach and San Pedro, and so she would go with them on the bus to go to the fish cannery. The canneries liked to hire the Japanese because they worked so hard for low wages. And she would say, yeah, "Muri shita," she said, "Yeah, it was a real strain," because the fish keep coming and she was very short, probably only about 4'8", and she had small hands. She said it was really, really hard work. But, of course, there was no other work, so she had to do that. And then my brothers, when they got out of the army, Takashi and Hideo, they did gardening, 'cause that was the only occupation that was available to the Niseis, even though they had served in the U.S. Army, they couldn't get any other jobs. So they learned from a friend who was doing gardening at Laguna Beach and he helped them develop a nursery route -- not nursery route, a gardening route. Hideo was, always liked to be a mechanic, so he went to, got a job as a mechanic, and he was shocked at how low the wages were. And then he said he needed to go to school, but my mother told him, "Look, we can't afford to send you to school." 'Cause my other brother Tom was up at Berkeley and going back to school again, and she said, "We need you here to help feed the family." So she said, "Why don't you join Takashi in gardening? You guys work well on the farm." So they did gardening and then they branched into landscaping and then gradually, after only about two years, they were able to start a plant nursery.

MN: Now when they were trying to start this plant nursery, they had a little problem trying to get the land.

YK: Yeah, they were right on Pacific Coast Highway, and they found that small fifty by a hundred foot lot and they were trying to buy that. But the realtor said, well, the owners were having a problem selling to you because the neighbors on the other sides said, "We don't want any Japanese running a business next to our business." And so my brothers, who had many clients in Laguna Beach, told them about the trouble and so they went to their pastor and told them to help them out. So he agreed, and he talked to the owners and also the other businesses, said, "Hey, these two sons, they served in the U.S. Army. One of them even served in Italy and France. And so they're good American citizens and they fought for our country. So how can you in good conscience say they can't build a business next to you?" So we were able to start a nursery there.

MN: Now before your two brothers started this nursery, they were doing the gardening route. And while they were gardening, did you have to go out and help them?

YK: Oh, yeah. I worked every Saturday from the time I was in junior high, in the ninth grade. I would go down there every Saturday to help them, every holiday, every summer, I would go down to Laguna Beach and do gardening. And I did that all through high school and even when I was a freshman at UCLA, went down there and did gardening.

MN: Now, let's... I'm going to go back to your Franklin Junior High School years. When you had to first enroll, you, tell me how you got to school. Because this was on the other side of Long Beach.

YK: Yeah. We had to take the regular transit bus.

MN: You didn't have a car? Your family didn't have a car.

YK: No, and there were no buses provided. So with the other kids, we'd just catch the regular bus, regular transit bus to go to school.

MN: Now, you were a new student, and you had to you had to get a checkup.

YK: Oh, yes. So the nurse saw the puffiness in my gums and my teeth and so she sent me to the dentist. And he says, "Oh, no, you may lose all four teeth. We'll try to save two of them." So he pulled them out, and so there I was without my two top front teeth. And so I said, "Well, yeah, all the fillings had fallen out," and so forth. (...) He made a quick partial for me for the two teeth, but then a couple months later he said, "No, it's no good," so he pulled all four. So there I was without four front teeth on top. And I had this partial, and you could see some of the metal parts on that. So I thought all the kids are going to tease me about having false teeth. It did happen that there were mainly four of us who would go to Franklin Junior High School, and then so one of the guys said, "Oh," one day he said, "Yukio has false teeth," and so I thought, "Oh, my secret's out." But the other two buddies, they really got after him and said, "No, he doesn't, and you better not bring it up again or we'll really bash you." So that was a one time, after that no one ever mentioned it, but I knew. So after that I never did smile too much. Kept my mouth shut.

MN: And then this is where your counselor called you in and said you're a little old to be in the seventh grade, and you were able to go to summer school and you skipped the eighth grade and then you went into the ninth grade at the Stevenson Junior High School? And then this counselor, he became a vice principal at the Stevenson, is that right?

YK: Yeah, the school, right.

MN: And then your family also moved from the trailer camps.

YK: Oh, yeah, we moved into (housing). The main housing project there was called Cabrillo 1. We were in Cabrillo 2 which was across the Pacific Coast Highway, so it was a separate, smaller complex of, they were wartime housing, actually. So we were there. But in there, for the first time, we had in-house plumbing, hot and cold water, we had a toilet and bathtub all within the unit. So it was a real luxury, it was the first time we ever had that. And I think we even had an electric refrigerator, so we didn't have to have the blocks of ice and so forth, the ice blocks. So that was a big step up.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.