<Begin Segment 24>

MN: And then after that, what did you do?

DM: I got home, and by that time, my sister Jun had left camp and came to L.A. to look for a place so the parents can come out of camp. And she found an old wooden two-story building on Third and State Street in Boyle Heights. The house was so old that they used gas lanterns to light the house, 'cause that's about all they can afford at that time, buy a cheap old house. So after they bought the house she had it wired for electricity, and that's where I stayed for the first year or so.

And I found a job as a mechanic at Asahi Motors, which was on Second Street in J-town. I worked there for a few years. Of course, the other mechanics were all Niseis from camp. In the meantime, my sister had got a job with the Board of Education, and one day she brought home a pamphlet, a bulletin printed out by the board showing what job openings there were available. And I saw this part where it says "looking for mechanics," heavy duty mechanics. So I applied for that job, and the board garage was located on San Pedro Street and Sixteenth Street. Went there for interview and he hired me right away, said, "Start tomorrow." I said, "I can't start tomorrow," because I had to notify my employer I'm leaving. So I was assigned to the night shift. Night shift began at four in the afternoon 'til one in the morning, and there were two mechanics on the night shift at that time and I was the third.

The first job given to me was a big old dump truck in the shop called an auto car, which no longer exists. The engine was torn apart, and parts laying on the bench (by a mechanic who quit). He pointed that out to me and says, "Put it together." So that was my first job, I remember. I got it together it went back on duty running fine. After that the foreman came up to me and says, "I want to hire another mechanic. Are there any people like, you know of, good like you?" Says, "Yeah, I can ask another fellow that I know." His name was Sam Saisho, that worked in Asahi Garage. So I asked him if he wanted to try for that job and he said sure, so he came. Of course, we were assigned temporary assignment pending the exam. So one Friday night about a month later, we were told to set up this exam on the bench, we're gonna have the exam for the heavy duty mechanics the next day, on Saturday. And the exam consists of welding two pieces of sheet metal together, and a transmission that was torn apart and you put it together, that kind of jobs pertaining to automotive. So next day we went through the test, of course, we came out with flying colors, and we were hired one and two.

I stayed on the night shift for a year or so when an opening on the day shift opened up and I turned to day shift. Of course, the day shift were a bunch of old fellows, Caucasian fellows, they would all give me the dirty work, they would all do the easy work. Until they retired and I became the senior mechanic on days. I got a job as, my title was changed to Senior Mechanic, and my job was to take in the jobs as they came in and assign 'em to the other mechanics. So after the age of sixty-two and thirty-two years on the job, I retired.

MN: That's a long time.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.