<Begin Segment 20>

TI: So Jack, we're gonna do the third part of this interview, and we had just finished your navy career. So we talked a little bit about that, and now you come back to the States, so tell me where you go. What do you do next?

JK: Well, by then my folks had moved to San Diego, so I went back home to San Diego, and then I applied to go to school. I wanted, I wanted to be an engineer, so I applied for UCLA and then I applied at San Diego State College. Then I found out that UCLA only had a three year curriculum for engineering students, but the only institution had a four year, full Bachelor's program, was UC Berkeley. So I decided I'd stay in San Diego, my first year at San Diego State College, then I transferred up to Berkeley the following year, '53 -- I'm sorry, '49.

TI: You talked about your grades not being the greatest in high school. Did you have any trouble getting into San Diego State?

JK: No, not there. 'Cause they're, the standards are a little bit lower than UC Berkeley.

TI: And why did your parents decide to resettle in San Diego?

JK: Well, there was no, there was no future for them to go back to Imperial Valley, so when they left, when the camp was starting to close, they actually closed the camp in November of '45, but prior to that, in August of '45 my oldest sister, Yo, had, got an assignment to teach Japanese language to naval officers at the University of Oklahoma, University, Oklahoma A & M in Stillwater, so my mom and dad moved from the camp to Stillwater, Oklahoma.

TI: Okay, and that's where that, those dishes, that story came in earlier.

JK: That's right, exactly. But then, in the meantime then, they couldn't handle the really tough lifestyle in Oklahoma because of the humidity. In fact, my brother living in Boulder, I was living in Colorado Springs, and my mama ordered us to come back to Poston because we're, all the family were gonna go move to Stillwater. So, by the way, you'll notice what's happened? Yeah, she ordered us back from where we were 'cause we're a family unit and we're all gonna go to Stillwater and live. We got to Stillwater and they didn't like it. My brother and I didn't like it. We said, "This is not a place for us to live." So just coincidentally, there was a Japanese, Nisei family that was there, and they were going back to Colorado -- and don't ask me why -- so my brother and I hitched a ride with them and we went back to Colorado. [Laughs] And he went back to Berkeley, I mean to Boulder, and I went back to Colorado Springs where my sister Haru still was. So she was stuck with me for another year. So then my dad had a friend that was from Shizuoka-ken that lived in San Diego, and his wife was a barber, but he was a gardener, so somehow they got, made a connection, and so my mom and dad moved from Stillwater to San Diego, and then that's how that became their postwar home.

TI: Okay, and your older, your oldest sister Yo, she stayed in Stillwater?

JK: Yes.

TI: For her job.

JK: For that, for her assignment and doing that navy language school.

TI: That's interesting, there was a navy language school in Boulder too.

JK: Yes.

TI: But she was stationed in Stillwater.

JK: She went to, now, in Boulder, my mother's younger brother Dave Suzuki, he was an instructor at Boulder.

TI: So your, so this is your uncle.

JK: Yeah, Uncle Dave.

TI: Okay. Interesting. And did he have any stories about teaching there that you recall?

JK: No, not particularly. I'm, the only thing I remember is that he got my brother a job working in the mess hall of the Navy V12 program, and he would bring home all the leftover food from the mess hall, and so every time I visited him he said, "Hey, we've been eating pretty good." Anytime, turkey, roast turkey, anything like that, they'd all bring home. I remember him bringing home butter, butter by the ton. All that stuff was kind of scarce in the civilian market, but the navy folks, they didn't, they're doing okay.

TI: Now, do you think that may have influenced you about the navy too, just having your uncle working with the navy?

JK: No, I don't think so. I think it was just more seeing the guys in the uniform, join the navy and see the world, very fickle-minded guy that I was.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.