<Begin Segment 15>

BN: What year did you graduate from high school?

KS: I graduated from high school in 1952.

BN: And you went straight to college?

KS: Yeah.

BN: Were you worried at that point about being able to get a job in that field?

KS: No, I think them days, 1950s, everybody that graduated from college were able to get a job.

BN: Even if they're Nisei?

KS: Yeah.

BN: But by that point, you were pretty confident?

KS: Well, first I had to become a citizen, so that you're not going to get defense work.

BN: Can you talk about that? How that came about and what you had to do?

KS: Okay, so it was 1952, the McCarran Act allowed the Japanese to become citizens. So right away, I did that. And then my father did that too, he became a citizen. And then I think... I'm trying to figure out if the quiz was just the interview with a judge or something, but I think all the judges were told to let all the Japanese become citizens, so it was straightforward to become a citizen. So now I could apply for a job that required security clearance.

BN: Were you able to live with your family while you went to college?

KS: Uh-huh, lived at home.

BN: Close enough you could commute.

KS: Yeah, so then I used to take the subway. Well, it was elevated, then it goes underground, becomes a subway, and it becomes an aboveground elevated again. So at that time, I used to be able to read while I'm in moving traffic. Now I think my eyes are not that good, so I don't think I can read while I'm moving.

BN: And how was the... did you find the classes difficult or easy?

KS: Yeah, I think I was a, quote, "regular student."

BN: These are really at the top or bottom?

KS: Yeah, they were engineering classes. So I was, quote, "above average." So I majored in electrical engineering. It's so funny that... so I graduated in electrical engineering, then my son graduated electrical engineering, then my son and daughter, they both went to UCLA, and they're both electrical engineers. And then my son-in-law is an electrical engineer, too. So electrical engineering sort of runs in the family.

BN: And then you graduate then in four years?

KS: Yeah.

BN: And then we talked about then moving New York and getting a job. What did you do?

KS: Okay, Sperry Gyroscope, they made missiles, so they made air-to-air missiles. I think that was, at that time, 1952, we had the Cold War ready. So making missile was a big thing. So when I was working at General Dynamics, we were making missiles, too. So we were Cold War, so Russia was our enemy. And then I started working at General Dynamics about 1961 or '62, and then Russia was our enemy. And then around 1990, around there, we had the thaw, so end of the cold war. So that's when the missile business collapsed. So then before, we used to have three big companies in the missile business, General Dynamics, Hughes and Raytheon, and then what happened was a big consolidation. So then Hughes bought out the missile part of General Dynamics, so that happened in 1992, and then they sent two thousand workers from California to Tucson in 1994. And while we were there, we were bought out by Raytheon. So once upon a time there were three companies, but now there's only one company, and that's Raytheon, and they're down there in Tucson, Arizona. So Tucson is where we lived from 1994 'til about 1998, and then I retired.

BN: And then to go back, then you were in New York for a little while, because I know you went back to graduate school. So when did you come back and what made you decide to pursues an advanced degree?

KS: Okay, so then I think I worked at Sperry Gyroscope for about a year and a half, and meanwhile I was going to night school at nighttime, and it was sort of getting hectic. But I thought I should go full time. So that's when I decided to quit work and come back to Chicago and go to Northwestern.

BN: What was your specialization?

KS: Okay, so then Northwestern, I'm in the controls part of electrical engineering. So I started maybe 1957 or so, and graduated in 1961. So then I also lived at home. So I used to either commute, I mean, drive, or take the Elevated, one way or the other.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2018 Densho. All Rights Reserved.