<Begin Segment 27>

MN: Now by the time you're discharged in '47, September, were your parents back in Glendale?

KM: Yeah. They came back about... as soon as they could, so by then they probably went back there by about '46 maybe.

MN: Did they share with you any troubles they had about moving back into the house and reestablishing their lives?

KM: Uh-uh. They didn't share any knowledge of that. They never talked about it.

MN: Was your father back to gardening?

KM: Yeah, my dad went back to gardening.

MN: What about your mother?

KM: Well, instead of doing laundry, she started doing housework.

MN: And then once you returned to Glendale, did you have to help your father with a gardening route?

KM: Yeah. In fact, after I got out of the army, I used to help a lot. In fact, he was getting much older, so he couldn't do some of the heavy stuff, so I used to help him. So I enrolled at SC when I went back to school. I usually left my, I took my classes in the late afternoon or evening so I could help him out during the day.

MN: And when you enrolled at SC, what were you majoring in?

KM: Accounting.

MN: Now I understand it was really competitive at this time with all the soldiers coming back and going on the GI Bill. Were you able to stay, keep up academically?

KM: Huh?

MN: Were you able to keep up academically? Wasn't it pretty competitive?

KM: You're much older and much, you know what you wanted to do, so as far as the study is concerned and something like that, I don't know. I was maintaining pretty good grades at SC.

MN: So you're going to school, you're helping your father with his gardening, what did you do on your free time if you had any?

KM: [Laughs] Not too much, not too much.

MN: Did you get a chance to go into Little Tokyo?

KM: Oh, yeah.

MN: Were there still a lot of African Americans in Little Tokyo?

KM: Oh, back in the... yeah, I'd say the early, late '40s and early '50s, yeah. It was about, I guess... in the early '50s there was a pretty good turnaround. It was mostly Japanese in Little Tokyo. Early '50s or late '49. I think the first Nisei Week was in '49 after the war.

MN: Now in the early years when you returned, did you go to any of these African American nightclubs?

KM: No, no, I didn't.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.