<Begin Segment 43>

DG: Now, when you went to Hawaii, did you sense a difference in...

GF: Oh, it's nice, Hawaii.

DG: I mean, how you were treated and so forth.

GF: Well, a lot of Orientals there. I used to go to show at nighttime. My wife went back to Hilo and I stayed in Honolulu. I went to the movie theater and I said, "My God, look at all the black heads." You don't see that in the United States. All the black heads and here guys come and say [Inaudible]. [Laughs] I had to laugh, but it was all black heads. I said oh, my God. This is the place. I see why my wife went to college to come back to Hawaii to get a job because she could get a job, teaching job, anything she could get, but United States you couldn't get a job as the feeling was before. Yeah, I worked for this firm --

DG: So you got along with the Hawaiians.

GF: Oh, yeah. Oh, they used to treat me rough, though, at first.

DG: Why?

GF: Well, because I speak different. [Laughs] I used to go the bowling alley with a bunch of fellows... "Hey, that guy's different. He doesn't speak like we do." [Laughs] Well, nothing besides that. But when I worked as a salesman -- when I went into this furniture store as a bookkeeper, I said, my God. Getting $350 a month, that's no good for me. Salesmen are making more money. I told Bob, "Hey, how about putting me on the floor? Try me one day." So he tried one and says, "George, you stay on the floor." And those days I was bringing a thousand dollars a month with commission coming in. So those days making that much money, was good money, see. So my wife didn't have to work. I send the kids to school and everything, but it's not always a thousand. Sometimes a little bit less, but I was making pretty good money. That's why coming back to the States I thought two or three times.

DG: So you stayed there...

GF: I stayed there about ten years, nine and a half years or something like that.

DG: And then you came back.

GF: Came back.

DG: Why?

GF: Because my parents are getting old.

<End Segment 43> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.