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BN: And then you mentioned in '44 the camp closes. I always get mixed up between the Arkansas camps. You're in...

KS: Rohwer.

BN: Rohwer, and you're going to Jerome. Were they pretty similar? Other than you mentioned that now you're kind of mixed in with a lot of other people not from your neighborhood. But beyond that, were the camps pretty similar?

KS: Yeah. The layout of the buildings were almost the same. Maybe the same contractor built it, but the layout was the same. So in 1945 is when the government decided to close the camps. And I think the government acknowledged that they're going to stop the schools, so now everybody's going to be forced out of camp. So then I told you my father, he did the produce stuff, so he could run that business, but I think it'll be hard for him to go to a new city. So the way our family did it was my oldest sister graduated from high school in Jerome in 1944. And then I think my second sister must have graduated high school in the winter, around January or February 1945. So then they came to Chicago first. So then they came to Chicago around January or February 1945. And then they had to find a job, find a place to live and stuff like that. So I think there was another girl my sisters knew, but anyway, they had to find a job and find a place to live. Then after they did that, then they had my father come. So now my father came around March of 1945 to Chicago, and then he found a job and found a place to live. And then in June of 1945, my older sister came back to camp, and then my mother and my youngest sister and I, we left Rohwer and came to Chicago. So we had to come to Chicago in stages, so depending on how good your English was, and how well you could survive in the new world. So then the two oldest sisters came first, and my father, and then my mother, and the two youngest. So we came in stages.

BN: So was there a thought about going back to L.A.?

KS: Yeah, I think at that time, I don't think that many people went to L.A. at that time, beginning of 1945. But my mother always talked about if they went to L.A., then I think it was almost impossible to start the produce kind of business, and then he'll have to go to into gardening. And I think he didn't want to become a gardener because that's a lot of physical work. So then when he got to Chicago, he found a job at a bakery, a huge bakery called Boysen Bakery. So he was in there right in the bread department. So that's what he did from 1945 until he retired.

BN: Your sisters went first, so they kind of had established themselves.

KS: Right.

BN: What kind of work did they do?

KS: Okay, so then my older sister, she found a job at a place called Club Aluminum, they made pots and pans. I don't think they're in business anymore, but they made aluminum pots and pans, and I think she was in the shipping department. Then my second sister, I think she got a job at this Hummel, you know, they make dolls, toy dolls?

BN: The figurines?

KS: Yeah, figurines. So she got a job there. But I'm pretty sure that if there was no war, then those two would have gone to college. But here it was 1945, and if they went to college, those two, then my father wouldn't have known how to get out of camp. He couldn't have gone to Chicago, he couldn't have been the first one in the family to go to Chicago. So my two older sisters had to sacrifice going to college so that the rest of the family could come out.

BN: And then where they settle? What part of Chicago?

KS: Okay, so then Chicago, on the north side, there was a place called Clark/Division. So that's where we lived. At first they said, before we came, at the very beginning, we lived a little bit north of there, couple of miles north by Lincoln Park. But in 1945 we moved to this place called Clark/Division. And over there, there was about two or three Japanese grocery stores, there was one called York and one called Toguri market or something. And then we called it Japantown but there wasn't much of a town there.

BN: But there was little cluster of Japanese...

KS: Yeah. So we lived there until about 1948 or '49 or so. And that's when my father bought a, what they call a flat. So then it was a three-story building, so he was so happy when he bought that. But then I didn't realize later on that he couldn't have bought land in California because of the alien land law, but he was able to buy land in Chicago. So he lived there.

BN: Was that in the same general area?

KS: No, this was close to DePaul University. So it was close to DePaul University, so then we lived on the first floor. And then the second floor was cut in half, and the third floor was cut in half, and then at that time, when my father bought it, there was a housing shortage, so people couldn't get a place to live. But on the second floor was this lady, her husband, she was our sister's friend, but they lived on Dewey. They lived next to us on Dewey, and now they rented the first half of the second floor to that lady, the girl, because there was a housing shortage. So we lived there, and then from there I went to high school. First we lived in Clark/Division, and I used to go to grammar school. And then grammar school was called Ogden grammar school. Ogden was by Chicago Avenue, so I used to walk there. So I had to walk by the Newberry Library, which is well-known. And also by Bagas Square, and then close by is where they had the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Anyway, I used to walk to the grammar school. And that grammar school didn't have any playground. So they used to block a small street with little sawhorses to make it a playground during lunchtime and stuff like that.

BN: Were there other Issei students there?

KS: Yeah. There were others, but I'm trying to figure out... see, I was in the winter class. And I think the winter class was maybe eleven students graduated, of which I think there was another Japanese guy. But there weren't that many Japanese in the school.

BN: The other students, 'cause you're north side, are white.

KS: Right. And then that school, I think most people were poor people. There was only one guy that's from a wealthy -- see, that school was their north side, and Clark/Division is right next to the Gold Coast. And then I think most of the Gold Coast students went to private school. But there was one guy whose father was a manager of the Knickerbocker Hotel, so this guy had a parent that was doing good, and he used to come to our school. And then one day he said he's going to have a club meeting, so we should come to his club meeting. And when we went, it was in his hotel. They had set aside a room for us, and I couldn't believe it, that here we're having a club meeting at his hotel. Like I said, that grammar school didn't have a playground. And then we used to go to Lincoln Park and stuff. But everybody was poor in them days. So then at that grammar school, I don't think anybody owned a football, so we had to get one of those caps, like a sailor cap, and fold it up and throw the cap around like a football. So that was how it was. And a cap is better than a football, because a football would roll around in the street and get hit by a car, but with a cap, the cap doesn't roll, so that was a good football.

BN: You said your dad was working at the bakery?

KS: Right.

BN: Did your mom work?

KS: Yeah, she worked at this knitting mill. So this knitting mill, they made caps and scarves and stuff like that.

BN: And the family all was still all together? Four kids?

KS: Right.

BN: And then you mentioned after that, you moved to this flat that your father purchased. And I don't know the Chicago geography very well, was that close by?

KS: So then I guess you don't know, but that's close to DePaul University.

BN: Gotcha. But it's also north.

KS: Yeah, north side. So then we lived there, and then I used to walk to Waller High School.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2018 Densho. All Rights Reserved.