<Begin Segment 35>

AI: And then, then you had a child.

CN: Uh-huh.

AI: Was that, when was your child born?

CN: She was born almost five years after we were married.

AI: So during this time, by then you had already graduated and finished your bachelors degree.

CN: And my masters, and started working.

AI: Could you tell me a little bit about that, the early years of your career path?

CN: I was... you know, in those days, it was very easy to get jobs.

AI: Even though you were Japanese American, you didn't face...

CN: Well, I was not too sure whether I would be able to get a job or not, because of my ethnicity. And in those days, I don't, I didn't see any social workers other than maybe one or two. Maybe there were more, but I was not aware of any more than that. And I took the first job that I interviewed for and that was at the Red Cross. And it was, there was a service called Home Service where we would work exclusively with families of servicemen. And I was given the job of doing marital counseling. I hated it. I didn't even know up from down and it was, it was tough going, but I decided I would stick with it for two years, which I did. And then decided that I would, we wanted a child, and so that I would stay home and see if I could get pregnant and nothing seemed to happen. So I was offered a job at the Children's Home Society working with kids and, of course, that's what I wanted to do. So I worked there full-time at first, and then after a few months I got pregnant. I had quit working trying to get pregnant. That was it. So there was another couple of years there that I hadn't worked after I left the Red Cross. Maybe I said that. I must be repeating myself. And then I, after being on the job for just a few months, I became pregnant. And it was suggested, because of what was taking place, that I would have to spend the rest of my pregnancy in bed and so I...

AI: Because of health concerns?

CN: Well, they were afraid that I would lose the baby. We were afraid that I would lose because I started bleeding.

AI: Oh. That must have been very worrisome.

CN: It was. I felt okay. And she was born early. And we went through some struggles there of worrying and all. But anyway, I, after she was about two years old, I worked part-time at the Children's Home for quite some time until I was offered a job at Ryther Child Center. And I keep saying, "offered a job." It's just that once you've been in the system, people hear about jobs and would give you a good "I'll talk to the director about you" kind of thing.

AI: A reference.

CN: And so jobs were, I thought, were easy to come by.

<End Segment 35> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.