<Begin Segment 17>

DG: Tell me a little bit about your, getting your jobs.

MM: It wasn't hard.

DG: But you told me an interesting story about how you first went to where?

AM: First went to where?

MM: First, we went into...

DG: Your first job was where at camp?

AM: I went to live...

MM: Oh, you...

AM: Dining room.

MM: Mess room, mess hall wanted a helper. And she, she didn't like it at all. [Laughs]

AM: I quit on the first job.

DG: Why did you quit?

AM: I hated the ladies (gossiping) about other people's business.

MM: Hito no warukuchi nanka itteruno. She said, I don't even want to listen to those.

AM: I (said), I can't stand it. To hear that all day long.

MM: And the, the chef, of the (mess hall) says, "I knew that she was out of place there." You know, people chigau ne. Then, it's kind of, ano...

AM: Chitchat, and back, back of...

MM: She doesn't like that, ano, nante iuno? Hito no warukuchi iuno kikitakunai, she says.

DG: So who did you go to when...

AM: I can't stand it.

DG: ...you quit?

AM: Huh?

DG: Who did you...

AM: So I quit went to another...

MM: Who did you, did you tell him or did you tell Mom? Or did you tell the cook-san, Ogawa-san?

AG: I don't know who got told. But I got... I went and got a job, another job.

MM: She said, "I'm gonna get another job, I don't want..."

DG: How did you do that?

AM: Hai?

DG: How did you get the other job?

MM: You just go down there and ask for it.

AM: Well, I guess we ask for it. I...

DG: Now, where do you go?

MM: Administration building.

AM: Administration building. And I took about four bookkeeping course in the grade schools, I mean, high schools. I knew I could do a full secretary's job. Shorthand, typing, and so I went down to teach in the high school and I said, "Well have you got an opening?" And he said he (had)...

MM: Bookkeeping.

AM: Hired me on the spot. This is... and then...

DG: Was this a hakujin man or...?

MM: Yes, a hakujin.

AM: And then after I got the job I was walking up to Block 32, towards my home. And then I went to the grade school, and I says, my gosh, this grade school is closer to my home. Then I don't have to walk every morning down to the administration section. So I went down back again to the superintendent and I says, "Have you got an opening for grade school?" And he said, "Yes, I need one right away." So I said, "I'll take that job and I went." I (resigned from) the other one.

[Interruption]

AM: I got hold of the superintendent, and he became very good to me. One day he came to me and said, "You know, you're, your class is doing a fifth grade job, when you're still the fourth grade." And he was so tickled pink. Okay. He was feeling very good. I said, "By the way," I (said), "On the winter months we had to walk in the snow. The American teachers get a bus and we don't get a bus. We do the same kind of work. Aren't we entitled to the same privileges?" And he said, "Yes." So we got to go ride on the bus. So, he was very fair about that.

DG: Good for you.

MM: But I kind of wondered how come the other teachers, why didn't they ask for it? I guess they were too backwards, well, you're not. [Laughs]

AM: Yeah. I'm doing the work. So what I'm entitled to... I went to the obenjo, even going down when it was (slushy), and I said, "What the heck am I doing this?" I said, "I could ride the bus, ne, if I'm doing the same kind of job." So when you talk to him the next time, and I (will ask) him...

MM: So he was friends with us until way after the war. And my brother, when he wanted to visit camp, he went to visit them.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.