<Begin Segment 23>
SY: And so as you got more successful, what happened? How did you, I mean, you worked for fifteen years, so what were the steps that...
AM: I right away started going to school again.
SY: And what kind of school?
AM: Evening or correspondence courses.
SY: And they were, were they for licensing, or what kind of school was it?
AM: No, it was, the major school I went to is, is like a college course, and you'd have different subjects that each so called semester you have to study and pass a closed book test.
SY: What kind of subjects?
AM: Income tax, financial help... [laughs] now you're getting me --
SY: But it was a, it was an actual, I mean, what was the --
AM: Related to insurance.
SY: And what was the end result of your going to school? Was it just for your own education? What did you get at the end?
AM: No, we get a title after our name. My title was CLU, Chartered Life Underwriter. And today I'm sure there are many more people getting it because the people who are getting into the field are college graduates and they're smarter than my peers when I first started.
SY: So you didn't have to be a college graduate.
AM: No.
SY: You just, anybody could take this course.
AM: These classes.
SY: These classes.
AM: Yeah. But people don't like to study. In fact, the company had me speak at a convention once that, this oldie here, if he can do it, you twenty-year-olds can do it. [Laughs] And it takes a lot of perseverance. You have to pass the test or you can't... experience in the field won't help you. You have to go to school and pass the -- you don't have to go to school if you know the subject well enough.
SY: So it would give you approaches to use, or how did it help you?
AM: No, they have textbooks and everything. Their main headquarters is in, it used to be in, I think it was in Pennsylvania.
SY: For the school. And then you took courses here?
AM: Yeah. They have several places in L.A. where the insurance agents gather and study.
SY: And that was an evening kind of program?
AM: Well, they have day classes too, but I was, studying was on our own. But like income taxes, I didn't take a, I didn't go to school. I used to do my own taxes, so I studied on my own and I passed it.
SY: So you didn't have to take the class.
AM: I took a test.
SY: But you didn't have to take the class as long as you passed the test. So you kind of had, again, you had sort of a natural...
AM: Maybe.
SY: You were good in math when you were younger. [Laughs] And business kind of, 'cause it was basically a business course of study, right?
AM: Yeah.
SY: And so how many people were taking this course when you were, when you were doing it? Were there very many CLUs back in the '70s?
AM: Well, I had heard that in the whole world it was only ten percent of the total agents that had this...
SY: Additional...
AM: Designation.
SY: So did it help you a lot in, in your work?
AM: Only in feeling because I didn't capitalize on it. Some people are really super smart. They knew maybe ten times more than me, so if we were in class and we're in discussion, the leader or whoever, the teacher would bring up a subject and these people would stand up and, like, recite the dictionary. I'm going, "Hope they don't call on me because I don't know that subject," kind of thing. But I managed to hang in there.
SY: And when you, I mean, how did you progress? What was your progression in terms of being a life --
AM: Well, there's a target, like ten exams, ten two-hour exams, and you take them in any sequence. But some, there's a prerequisite, like my lawyer friend who was an instructor, but he was going for his CLU designation -- he had his LLD and all that, but he wanted a CLU also -- he took the whole class, whole test, no class. And those he couldn't pass, he'd take the class. Those are the steps you take.
SY: And then in your job, in your regular job, how were you moving? Were you progressing, making more money, selling more insurance?
AM: Some people would buy advertising that, "I'm a CLU." I couldn't do that.
SY: So you were just doing what you did.
AM: My card had a CLU, and I gave it to them and they would say, "What's a CLU?" And I'd have to say that I'm not a regular agent, I've studied more, supposedly know more.
SY: But you were still basically doing the same thing, approaching people to cold call and selling. And then, and did your insurance company that you worked for, did it reward you for --
AM: Yeah, each year they would have two levels of convention, people who sold so many up to, up to a million dollars a year, and those who sell a million and above. So I hung in there and I always went to a convention below. And one time, the year that I got my CLU, I sold a million, I got my CLU, and I did something else.
SY: And who, again, your clientele was mainly Japanese Americans, right? Were there a lot of Japanese American life insurance salesmen during that time?
AM: That I don't know, but in my, in the office that I worked in, there were, the manager was a CLU and the others were... I forgot what your question was.
SY: About Japanese Americans who worked as life insurance salesmen. Was that a common profession or were you very unique?
AM: No, I don't think it was that common.
SY: So there weren't that many.
AM: Because if you don't sell you don't eat, and most people like to see a check every week.
SY: But, and also you had to sort of know people, right? You had to...
AM: That, that's a big plus. The top agent in our agency, in our company, was a Kibei Nisei who graduated from Japan, university in Japan, and supposedly everybody that came to the United States went through his door. So he always had a prospect to talk to, and he produced the most.
SY: And how about you? Where were you in there? Who did you...
AM: Hit and miss.
SY: But mainly Japanese American. So somehow you attracted, through friends that might...
AM: No, I had, I went basically to strangers, because I got too many no's from my friends. Well, I didn't, I didn't get along with their parents or something. [Laughs]
SY: So did you eventually open up your own office?
AM: I did, but it was a, there's a name for a small operation like mine. You're practically your own office, you're staffed by you. You might have a secretary, but you were the president, vice president, secretary treasurer. [Laughs]
SY: So how many, it was just you and your secretary? Or were there others?
AM: I had, for a while now, a partner who specialized in property and casualty insurance. And his wife was a secretary.
SY: So the three of you. And your office was in Sawtelle area?
AM: No, it was in Orange County.
SY: Orange County.
AM: Another agent asked me to buy his agency out. So I did, and that was mistake number one.
SY: So you got his clients, but you still had to...
AM: Yeah, but what happened was he spoke, he was from Japan, that I bought out his... his clients spoke like Kagoshima-ben. They have a different dialect, so when I go over and talk to them they will politely speak, normally, slowly, but when they had to make a decision they'd turn to the wife and start speaking the ben, the different language. And I didn't understand what they were saying, so I quit. [Laughs]
<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.