<Begin Segment 13>

MN: Now, you graduated from Poly in June 1949.

KY: Yes.

MN: Now once you graduated, while you were growing up, did your parents ever pressure you to go into a certain profession?

KY: No, they did not. They didn't encourage me to do anything or discourage me from doing anything. I think when I was in the ninth grade, I took a class called Junior Business Transactions, in which we manually filled out spreadsheets with columns and rows. And this was to keep track of the profits that a hypothetical business achieved. And I was able to do that well, and it interested me, so I took a commercial course in high school learning bookkeeping, typing. So that sort of geared me to what I was going to do as an adult. And I went to L.A. City College as did most of my classmates, and I got a AA Degree in Business Administration with an (Accounting) major.

MN: After you graduated from Los Angeles City College, what did you do?

KY: I found a company in the wholesale produce market that was willing to hire me without any experience. Because most of the jobs that were being offered required that you have some experience. And if you didn't have any experience, you couldn't get a job, and if you didn't get a job, how can you have experience? But he was willing to hire me as a bookkeeper, and so I worked there, I worked hard, and I stayed there for, like, ten years, until I felt that I had no future there, because I could not advance any further than where I was. So I asked my mother if I can go back to college. She asked me, "Who's going to pay the bills?" and I said, "I will." And she said, "Okay, then you can go back to college." [Laughs] So I went back to L.A. State for a semester and a half, daytime, and got my Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration with an (Accounting) major, and I passed the CPA exam, and I kept going to night school once I got my professional job and got my Master's in Business Administration with an (Accounting) major in 1967.

MN: Now those of us who don't know how difficult the CPA exam is, can you share, like, how many days you have to take it, and on average, how many times do people take it before they pass?

KY: Well, it's a two-and-a-half day exam that covers the subject of law, principles of accounting, principles of auditing, and practical use of how to record transactions. I don't think there are that many people who pass that at one time, because if you pass two portions, you get credit for that and you can come back and take the other portions later. Luckily for me, they asked the right questions, so I passed the entire exam at one sitting.

MN: That's quite an accomplishment because I understand it takes, on average, three times to pass it.

KY: Oh, I don't know. The funny thing or frustrating thing is I told my mother that I had passed the CPA exam, and she says, "That's nice." [Laughs] Because she didn't really know what a CPA did, and I really couldn't explain to her. So later on when I was making pretty good money, I would show her my paycheck. Because I was working for the state, and we only got paid once a month. So at that time it was a pretty big paycheck, so I figured, well, if she sees how much money I'm making, then maybe she'll think I must be doing something worthwhile. Three of my nephews and one of my nieces became schoolteachers. And that was very... my mother was very impressed, because I think Isseis particularly were proud that their children were in education and were schoolteachers, and that was an honorable profession.

MN: But you almost became a teacher also.

KY: Well, I was debating whether I wanted to become a teacher once I was working as an auditor. And so I signed up to teach Advanced (Accounting) at L.A. City College at night, just to get my feet wet, to see if I can handle it, and especially if I can handle the discipline. I thought if I was teaching an elective at night, the only people who would be in class would be people who were interested, and so they would be more motivated to study. And especially at night, they're not going to go there at night and raise hell, 'cause they can do that not in class. And it was gratifying when a student will say, "Oh, I understand what you mean, Mr. Yoneyama." But after I had taught like a semester and a half, my mother ended up in the hospital. And so I was going to see her every night, I was working full time in the daytime, and the easiest thing to give up was my night class. So I quit teaching and never pursued it after that.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.