<Begin Segment 15>

MN: Now, once you returned from the honeymoon, where did you live?

KK: We lived in, on the corner of Mary Street, right between where my mother's house is on Kensington, and the Quaker place that Mary got married, that place. A little further down is Mary Street. Anyway, Kensington ends at Mary, and we lived right in the corner house. It was for rent, so we rented it.

MN: So you were still in Pasadena.

KK: Yeah, this was in Pasadena.

MN: And was Akira still working for Dr. Emerson?

KK: Yeah, uh-huh.

MN: When he decided to quit Cal Tech, did he discuss this with you?

KK: Hmm?

MN: When he decided to quit Cal Tech, did Akira discuss this with you?

KK: Yeah. He says, "They're making more gardening than I do working for Dr. Emerson for the Cal Tech on this guayule." So he decided he can't support a wife and get things just doing the work that he's doing right now, so he decided to quit and go to gardening, 'cause they were making more money. Everybody else was making more money.

MN: Did Akira have a hard time starting up the gardening business?

KK: Well, yeah, because we were living in Pasadena and we were living... and then he decided to go to L.A., put an ad in the paper and start it up again. So it was kind of hard for him to start.

MN: So you just mentioned, from Pasadena you moved to Los Angeles. Did you share the house with other family members?

KK: Yeah, when they decided to move to L.A., his sister Fumi from Chicago wanted to come back. So we got together and decided to buy a home in the Adams district, right by Adams and what are the... well, anyway, right around there.

MN: Now while you were living there, you had your twins.

KK: Yes, uh-huh. I had my twins, and Fumi was there and my husband was there, so I had plenty of friends, people to help me with the twins.

MN: Now how did Mrs. Porter help you?

KK: Oh, she helped me by giving me one year's supply of baby diaper service, diaper service. That helped a lot.

MN: Share with us what is a diaper service?

KK: I don't know about now, but diaper service then, the cloth diaper that they have, they supply the diapers and they supply the gowns and things that go with it, and you pay a certain amount of money for the service.

MN: So you didn't have to wash the diapers at all.

KK: I didn't have to wash the diapers at all. So when they did poop and everything, I just rinsed it and put it in the bag, and the diaper service came and took it. So I had it easy the first year. [Laughs]

MN: Now, I know your husband liked to raise vegetables before the war. Did he continue to do that after the war?

KK: Yeah. We always had a garden.

MN: Now, did he carry the guayule cuttings from Manzanar, and did he carry it from house to house?

KK: Yeah. Well, we had it in a pot, so we just kept raising it in a pot, and when we got settled different places we relocated them. When we lived on Adams, by Adams, he planted it over there, too. He just uprooted it and brought it back to, over here. We had it in our backyard over here, then when we moved here, we put it in the backyard over here. So we've had these guayule plants for a long, long time that came from Manzanar. And we have shared it with a lot of people because when he was younger, he was making cuttings. And he'd grow it and then we gave the cuttings to different people. After we'd grow it so big, then we'd give it to people, give it away, and they have it. So there was quite a few people that have gotten our guayule that he started.

MN: Are these people other researchers?

KK: No, mostly people whose parents worked with Akira, like (Hirosawa)-san's daughter Julia, she has it. I forgot what her last name was. She lives in Huntington Beach now. But we gave her some, gave different people some.

MN: How about the people at the Manzanar National Historic Site?

KK: Oh, yeah, we gave them something, them, too. In fact, we gave them lots. And Sue Embrey's son came over and he brought a friend, and she took some home. I don't know whether her cutting took or not, but the first batch we gave her, she said she went someplace and she killed it off. [Laughs] So she came for her second batch and she got some more. So I don't know whether it took or not. She was going to take it to Manzanar this weekend, but I don't know if she got all those cuttings started or not. [Laughs] Poor thing.

MN: You know, Manzanar now is a National Historic Park. How do you feel about that?

KK: Oh, I think it's nice that they have it as a National Park so people can see what kind of place we live. But then if you see it from their point right now, it doesn't look that bad. But when we first went there, it was really bad. It was so stormy and sandy. It was quite an unbearable place to live.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.