<Begin Segment 18>

TI: Going back to you, in terms of, like when you went to school, how did people treat you in Colorado Springs? I mean, here's this Nisei coming into their midst, did they know where you were coming from?

JK: Well, that was an interesting experience as well, because moving to Colorado Springs obviously changed my life, it changed my whole track of life. I had some discipline issues, but I was fortunate that I got back on, I had a physics teacher and a chemistry teacher and these two folks saw some redeeming social and educational value in me, and the result of which is that I was able to get good -- also in mathematics, my math teacher, the three of them -- and they gave me a thoroughly good education. And so, and the reason I share all that with you in the context of, when I finally got, started, wanted to go to college, they looked at my grades, my history was F, my language was F, but my physics was A, my chemistry was A, and my algebra was A, so at state college they didn't care so much, but when I went to Cal Berkeley, I was right on the cut line. But they said, "Hey, this guy, he knows a little bit about this stuff," so that's how I got into Berkeley. And so it was those folks in Colorado Springs that did it.

TI: You know, I'm curious, especially these teacher who saw something in you, did they know kind of your situation, that you had come from a camp and you were Japanese from the West Coast and things like that?

JK: You know, I'm not sure, but I, but of course I was the only, the only Japanese student in the whole school. [Laughs] They must've known. Yeah, I might've said something crazy, 'cause I know there was, I did have an element of arrogance and such, so it got me in trouble at the principal's office. But other than that...

TI: Or even, like in terms of discipline, disciplinary action, did it ever come up in terms of --

JK: No, it didn't, no, I don't feel ever, I don't ever feel like there was anything... no, actually, my two years at the high school there I thought were just very nominal. Course, I just went to school and as soon as I got out of school I had to go to work 'cause it was my sister and me, and she was working just to pay the rent and I was working to pay the food so we could live together. So yeah, as soon as school's out, I had to go to work. I mean, I got out the classroom and I walked down ten blocks and went to work. I started out in a grocery store, and I stayed in the business maybe the first year, then I became a cobbler's apprentice, shoe repairman apprentice.

TI: How interesting. So you had to just kind of hustle for work. You had to kind of go around, find after school work.

JK: After school, yeah.

TI: Summertime work, things like that, just to help.

JK: Oh yeah.

TI: During this time did you stay in contact with your parents?

JK: Yeah, yeah. My sister did. I didn't. My sister did, yeah.

TI: So she wrote letters back and forth.

JK: Oh yeah, my sister was a great letter writer. She was very good about that. Haru was a, she was a well-organized, very bright lady. She was the only child in our, other than Kichan who passed, she's the only, went to a little, took some business courses, 'cause she became a classic receptionist. She's the only one that didn't go to college, but she was a bright lady. I think any other circumstances, I'm sure she would've gone on to school, done whatever she wanted to. But she, she married an accountant type of guy and he was a great, great provider for her, so she became just a classic homemaker.

TI: So it's kind of interesting to me how just the two of you, I mean, you were really quite young, when you think about sort of a fourteen year old and a nineteen year old living alone in a city without really much, without relatives, without really friends.

JK: Out there, yeah, out in the middle of an island, the sea. Yeah, it's quite an adventure. That's what I tell people today, I left home at fifteen. So like my kids, when they got out of high school, I said, "Get out of here. You're gone." You know what I mean? My late wife, she was orphaned at the age of fourteen, so we didn't give 'em much slack.

TI: Yeah, so the expectation is you're old enough to really strike out on your own.

JK: You know, if you're not ready, forget it, 'cause you're gone. You know, obviously they came back from time to time. Life got tough for 'em.

TI: Now, did you ever have any issues about being Japanese? Did anyone ever, like any comments about you being Japanese or your sister being Japanese while you were in Colorado Springs?

JK: You know, honestly, no. In Colorado Springs, I often think of that as an interesting experience because no, in that context they were just, we were just people. If anything that, I felt was, is I was one of those common people that had to ride the bus. Today when I see people riding the bus in my neighborhood I says, "God," I says, "I can remember being, riding on a bus." I said, "Someday I'll make it. I'll buy me a car." Yeah.

TI: Well, especially with your father, who was always involved with cars and trucks, I think that would be something.

JK: Yeah.

TI: How about Governor Carr? Did that ever enter your consciousness, in terms of the governor there and his, his acceptance of Japanese?

JK: No, I don't recall any of that, that social or that cultural aspect of it. No, I really don't. We just left, I thought we left a very... there was a little Japanese, there was a church, I think, where a number of Niseis went to, went to this church, and I know that there was a Nisei couple, the husband was a chef at the Broadmoor Hotel there. I don't know if you ever, that's a big mega resort hotel, it's very world famous, and he was the pastry chef there. And so he would invite my sister and I and other Niseis to their home for a little social gathering, and among them was a guy named, Ichiuji was his name. I forget his first name. I found out a month ago that he's passed on now, but his widow, Irene Ichiuji lives in Monterey, California, and he was a shoe cobbler and I got to know him. And I have a friend that went up there to see him and told Mrs. Ichiuji that there was a connection between me and her late husband, and it's, I can't believe I'm talking about from 1944. So when I go to Monterey I'm gonna look her up and tell her sea stories about her husband before he was married.

TI: That's good.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.