<Begin Segment 26>

SY: So backing up to when you came back to L.A. and you settled, you moved in with your family, right?

HS: Yeah, I moved, me and my mother moved in with my aunt. And Tak stayed a little while, but then he went, moved up to Berkeley.

SY: Started going to school there?

HS: Yeah. He graduated from Berkeley.

SY: And in the meantime you were, you found a job here in Los Angeles?

HS: Yeah, I got a job working, I remember it was the Tail of the Cock restaurant in Restaurant Row for a while. And then I knocked around, worked there a year, and then I went to another restaurant. But people in the restaurant business one year, and boy, you're an old timer. [Laughs] But I don't know how many restaurants I worked in.

SY: So how many years have you, were you in the restaurant business?

HS: That's all I did, is working in restaurants.

SY: From the time you were out of camp to, to, I assume you retired?

HS: Yeah, until I retired, 1987, when I retired.

SY: And you just went from, you went into different restaurants? Did you make changes for any particular reasons? Or did you...

HS: Well, a lot of 'em went broke. [Laughs] But I worked down on Restaurant Row, it's called Tail of the Cock, was a pretty well known restaurant. I worked there a year, and then they changed my hours. I had eight to five and I liked that, but when they changed my hours and I lost Sundays off, then I didn't like that, so I just quit. Then I got another job. The longest I think I worked was about eight years in one restaurant. But they changed chefs, and then...

SY: So you always worked as a, as a cook?

HS: Well, I was pantry first, and then it wasn't until I went to Beverly Hills and I worked with a French chef, Francois Sergeant, and it was a little restaurant called the Salem House in Beverly, on Roxbury and, just a little in on Santa Monica Boulevard. But he was the most wonderful person, but I was working the pantry there and then he decided, the one that he had was a Frenchman, but he drank and smoked, and so he got drunk a few times so Francois fired him, and then he says, "Hy, I'm gonna train you." And so I don't know how many years we worked together, but we got to be known as a team. And a lot of the other chefs around Beverly Hills heard... "Hy, I heard you and Francois are a team." But Francois was pretty well known, but he was a good friend until he died.

SY: So you, did you enjoy that, being a cook? Was that something you really --

HS: That was the only thing I knew, and at least it helped support me and raise my family. So I never made much money, but...

SY: But you enjoyed it.

HS: Well, I didn't have, I didn't know that some of my friends were working in aerospace and stuff like that, but being stuck in, with a family to support and everything, I never went to look for a job. I just went to the cooks' union.

SY: The, because the, you were still supporting your brother, and your mother you were supporting as well?

HS: Yeah.

SY: So that was, that must've been tough for you, huh?

HS: Yeah, it was. I'm making, for a while it was ten dollars a day, and then later on, I think I worked so many years for fourteen dollars a day, six days a week.

SY: And then you eventually, did you eventually move out with, from your aunt's house?

HS: Yeah, I bought a house on... well, I bought a house in Minneapolis first.

SY: Right. And then you sold that.

HS: The one, I sold the house, when we were coming back I had seven thousand dollars. And so then, I had nine thousand, I think, in the bank, and then we lived with my aunt for I don't know how many, I forget how long it was. But then, when I saved up the money, I thought, oh heck. We weren't comfortable living with my aunt, so then I found this little house on Thirty-Sixth Street and it's right near Crenshaw, so I bought that house there, lived in that house until, I think, I got married, just before I got married. Then I sold that place and then bought a four unit place in Los Angeles, by LaBrea and Washington Boulevard.

SY: So when you came back to Los Angeles, did you end up reuniting with a lot of your old friends?

HS: Well, I was pretty busy for a while, but then I'd... yeah, I did wind up, 'cause when I had the day jobs I used to go to the Southwest JACL. And I became secretary one year, treasurer another year. I think that's the only organization I joined that I wasn't president. Every other since then I, every time I've joined an organization I've become a president at one time or the other. [Laughs]

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.