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BN: So you're working at the hotel, doing the telephone operator work. How did you learn of the opportunity to come back to California?

NK: On the telephone, working as a telephone operator, we had access to making calls all over Japan. So I had friends that went from Tule and they were throughout Japan, because it's just like... right now, there's probably people that lived in Venice with me that went back to Japan the same way, (but not in one spot). (They were) throughout Japan. But working at the telephone, we kind of kept in touch with each other and so we... somehow word filtered down that... what to do if you want to go back. And I started working on, to get myself back. I was eligible to do that because I was underage at the time that they did the "no-no" thing, and so I started my paperwork. When I say paperwork, like get a sponsor in the United States, that was one of the main things. You had to have monetary means for the boat fare. And I remember I needed ninety-eight dollars. Again, going back to Mr. Obayashi that I spoke about earlier, I went to him and I says, "Can you please lend me ninety-eight dollars? And I'll pay you back sooner or later, when I get back to the United States." So got ninety-eight dollars and made several trips from Kyoto to the Yokohama consulate, American consulate in Yokohama. And I had to work (through) there, and the U.S. consulate, Japanese consulate, and at that time, I still had a dual citizenship, Japanese and American citizenship, but the law was that if you're going to do this, you have to renounce your Japanese citizenship. So although I had dual citizenship, I lost my Japanese citizenship when I returned to the United States.

BN: How did your mother feel about that?

NK: Well, she understood, and I told her that once I get established, I will get her. But by then, the crisis of the no food on the table was kind of disappearing, because as time went along, things got better and better. But I think the worst period was 1946, and a little bit better in '47, but '46 was a bad, bad year.

BN: So can you tell me about, now, the voyage back?

NK: Yeah, in 1947, mid-year, my father passed away and my sister passed, Kazuye, passed away. And that left my mother by herself there, but I was determined to get back to the United States and make a life here in the United States. And so I started working on the papers, and I finally got passage on the same boat that took me to Japan, the USS Gordon, but now it was under the President line, and it was the Gordon. Same ship, but I needed ninety-eight dollars for my passage, and I think that included a few dollars of spending money. But that was the fare I needed from Mr. Obayashi to get back to (the) United States. And he went along with it, and let me borrow that, and that's where I got my passage. Really, I didn't have any suitcase to speak of, but with the clothes on my back, I headed for San Francisco.

BN: Was the ship conditions a lot better?

NK: No.

BN: Similar?

NK: There was no improvement. Instead of six layers of bunks, they made it to two layers. So it was not an improvement, but it was uncanny having to go on the same boat back and forth.

BN: And then you wrote about, you were going to surprise your sister?

NK: Well, something backfired. One of the things I did was when I left Japan, I had my idea of what I want to do when I get over here, so I thought I'd get to San Francisco. And about two months earlier, about three of my friends had come ahead of me and landed at San Francisco and were living in that area. So I thought, well, I'm going to stop by and see them and then I'll come down to Venice here to stay with my sister and brother-in-law. Well, when I got off the boat and was walking down the gangplank, I look up and I see my sister and brother-in-law in the crowd. I said, "Uh-oh, what's going on here?" I didn't mention anything, and I was going to try to surprise them that, here I am. But when they saw me, they cussed me up and down, saying that, "How come you didn't let us know? We had to, last minute, take off work and come down here." And I explained how I was going to surprise my friends, and they were very, very upset about it, but eventually they got over it.

BN: How did they find out that you were coming if you didn't tell them?

NK: I believe they told me that there was some kind of an article in the Rafu Shimpo, which I never saw.

BN: I actually found an article with your name in it (coming back), so yeah, that sounds about right. So you go back with them, then.

NK: Yes. So I just said hello to my friends and we ate dinner and then we headed home.

BN: And then what did you do then?

NK: Most... I shouldn't say most, but many of the Japanese Niseis or Sanseis, when they got out of camp, started in the gardening business because you could go work for somebody at hourly wages, or you'd buy some equipment and start your own business. You could start a business, gardening business, with a reasonable amount of money, and so that's what many of the people did. And my brother-in-law was one of those people. And he rented a house, small cottage, in Venice from an acquaintance they knew from before the war. And so by then, my sister had a baby boy, and so her husband and her mother-in-law, I moved in with them and slept on the floor and went to work for my brother-in-law. He did the gardening and he had a very, very good... he got very good at talking with people, and so at the jobs he had, gardening jobs, he had homes in Beverly Hills that he maintained. There was a house that was next door to Robert Taylor on Sunset Boulevard. He worked for them. And he did a good gardening job. Amongst other things that he had to worry about is what are you going to do about me? And so he suggested, well, why don't you come work for him, and he could get some kind of business going. And so what he had in mind was that he would do landscaping putting in new lawns, because new homes are popping up all over the place. And so in Mar Vista, near Culver City, there was a Grandview Hills, they had the tract homes up there... (Trousdale tract homes)... and he went there, and every home needed a landscaping job. So that was one of the projects that my brother-in-law Kenny decided that he would tackle.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.