<Begin Segment 17>

MN: Going back with you after the war, I mean, you're at Cal Tech right now, when you were there, did you get a chance to visit Japantown?

AK: Visit what?

MN: Japantown? Little Tokyo?

AK: Yeah... no, I didn't have, until she came.

MN: Okay, so that was afterwards.

AK: Afterwards.

MN: What was, what did it look like?

AK: You know, nobody harassed me, or they didn't say anything. I was on a crowded bus and I was the only one in there. They didn't say anything. They don't know whether I was Chinese or what, maybe.

MN: This is when you first came out?

AK: Yeah.

MN: Now, when you found out that Keiko was gonna come out of Manzanar, were you still living with Dr. Emerson?

AK: Were we? Yeah.

MN: So then you had to find a place to live after that, right? Now, you --

AK: Before she came, I already had, already had a place.

KK: Yeah, on Mary Street.

AK: Yeah, Mary Street, before she came.

MN: So you were able to find a place before she came out. Now, your wife, she talked about getting married at Mrs. Porter's place, now, do you remember what you wore on your wedding day?

AK: I don't know. It wasn't no tuxedo. [Laughs]

MN: Did you buy a new suit?

AK: No, I don't think so.

KK: I guess you did.

AK: I did?

KK: [Laughs] I guess you did.

AK: I don't remember.

MN: But it wasn't a tuxedo. You probably got a new suit.

KK: No, just a regular suit.

MN: New suit.

KK: Dark suit.

MN: When you got married, were you already thinking about quitting Cal Tech?

AK: No.

KK: Not then. [Laughs]

MN: When did you start thinking about going back into gardening?

KK: Soon after.

AK: Yeah, right after, soon as, after some of the people that I worked for, they all, they were all waiting for me and they wanted me to hurry up and come. There were several places where I went back to work, same place.

MN: So your customers from before the war?

AK: Before the war, uh-huh.

MN: Was it hard to get equipment after the war, gardening equipment?

AK: No, it wasn't that hard.

MN: How did you get new customers?

AK: I put an ad in the paper. They needed somebody that knew something about plants. I guess the people that worked, they didn't know anything about planting, so they got rid of 'em.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.