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NK: Myself, like I said, I got off at San Francisco, and from San Francisco, we rode down to this home in Venice there. And that was on a Saturday, and Sunday, I said, "What's going on?" They said, "He's going to work." I said, "Okay, I'm going, too." So without a day's rest or anything, I started to work with my brother-in-law. And I started out as a gardener's helper. And it's hourly wages, and I don't even know how much he paid me, but it seemed that it was not more than a dollar an hour. And I think that was the going rates at the time, but that's how I got started, and one of the first jobs I had was doing the gardening work for my brother-in-law.

BN: How did you like doing the gardening and landscaping?

NK: I hated it. [Laughs] No, it was, to me, at that time, knowing the conditions in Japan, my first goal was to, what can I do to ease some of the pain for my brother and mother back in Japan? And every week, I'd set some money aside and I would buy things that he could sell on the black market, and they were things like lipstick, saccharin -- a number one item. Anything that you could buy at a drugstore, like saccharine and lipstick, in Japan it was so scarce that people were paying high prices for these things. And so I would try to buy something that was light enough that I wouldn't pay too much for the postage, and I used to send these packages to my brother and mother, and they in turn would sell it and get money to help survive on. So I did that for a number of years, I want to say, but it was that first crucial month or so that I believe it really helped them out.

BN: You were a good son and younger brother.

NK: Well, I want to feel that I was, but it made me feel good inside.

BN: When you came back, because you grew up in Venice and you were back in Venice, how had it changed?

NK: The change was the farm. There was a few of the farmers that came back to their old stomping grounds and continued farming. But they're slowly getting edged out and, amongst the farmers, there was two groups, you might say. The group that had bought the land, and people that didn't. And the people that bought the land were usually (where) the parents used the son's or the daughter's name to get... bypass that law that they had against the "enemy aliens" owning land. And then the others were the people that rented or leased the land. And so the people that bought the land became millionaires, and then there's the others.

BN: Did a lot of the other Japanese that you grew up with return to Venice, or did they kind of go all over?

NK: Many of the people returned to the area, but that gradually changed as the kids grew up and they moved to, further out to where more homes were available. And so there were a number of people throughout the area that returned to the close vicinity of where they left.

BN: So you were working for your brother for a while, and then after that, you went to trade school?

NK: Yeah, what I did was I worked with my brother-in-law. And along with that, my mother always, my father also... was always harping on me to go to school. And so once I started working for my brother-in-law, I thought, "Well, I've got to do something about the schooling end." And so I started going to Santa Monica trade school, and they had a welding, mechanic, auto mechanics, body and fender and machine shop, beauty shop -- all these different trades that was available. And I started out in machine shop. I didn't even know what a machine shop was. But I started out in machine shop, and told my mother, "Okay, now I started school, so I hope you're happy." So that was my excuse to fulfill my school. But along with that, I did go to night school to get my high school diploma.

BN: And then can you talk a little bit about also working at a lawmower...

NK: Yeah, there was a lawnmower shop on Olympic Boulevard in West L.A. It was a one-man operation, and it was a good friend of my brother-in-law Kenny (Kiyohiro). He says, "Well, if you want a job, I can get you one at the lawnmower shop." And so I was open to anything, so I started working for him part-time, and it didn't interfere with school or anything, so that worked out okay. I worked for him for a number of years... had to be a couple years or so, but right about then, I got my draft notice. And so in 1951, early 1951, I was drafted into the army and went to Camp Roberts for basic training, went to Japan, and went to NYK building for two months' training on Japanese. And I was supposed to go to Korea from there, but they sent me to a detachment that was in Sendai. (And so I stayed in Sendai) for six months or so. Then we went to Korea and spent one year, and after one year I got discharged out of the army in 1953.

BN: What was your, having been sent to camp and Japan, what was your feeling about being drafted?

NK: I felt it was just a way of life and took it in stride. In fact, after I got out of the service, I felt that that was a good experience for me. I didn't have a... it wasn't hindering me from doing what I wanted to do, and it taught me a lot of things I would have never known. So I think it's good training (ground) for a young person.

BN: And then while you were in Japan, were you able to visit your family?

NK: Yeah. When I was in Japan, whether it was in service or traveling or otherwise, I was always able to go see my relatives, including when the time was, it could have been my mother, my sister, or I had many cousins in the Kyoto area. All these people were mostly concentrated in that Kyoto area, so made it convenient when I went to Japan, that I could go to one spot and see all these friends.

BN: Were you able to do that on a fairly regular basis?

NK: It depended on the situation. In some cases, I was on vacation, I would kind of (route) my itinerary so I passed through Kyoto, and it gave me a chance to talk to my relatives.

BN: I mean, you had been in, it was what, five, six years after you had left (camp). How had Japan changed, too, in your eyes, in that time period?

NK: Japan was changing so fast that it was not believable really. It was quite a change. It made me very surprised.

BN: In what ways?

NK: Well, when I was in Japan in 1946, '47, right after Tule Lake, the area from Yokohama up to Tokyo, you know, it's that Shinagawa area, that there was not a building standing. Everything was leveled down to flat or maybe one story or just a twisted rubble there. And when I went back later... that had to be in early 1950s... buildings were going up and all those flat areas (are starting) to build up and there was food at restaurants. It was coming back to normal, you might say, and it was very surprising.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.