<Begin Segment 1>

SY: Hi, today is January 9, 2012, and we're at the Centenary United Methodist Church talking to Arnold Maeda. My name is Sharon Yamato, and Tani Ikeda is on camera. So Arnold, can we start with you telling us your full name and when and where you were born?

AM: My full name is Arnold Tadao Maeda, and I was born in Santa Monica, July 17, 1926.

SY: Very good. July -- Santa Monica, California?

AM: Yes.

SY: Can you sort of tell people where Santa Monica is in relationship to Los Angeles?

AM: Santa Monica is roughly fifteen to seventeen miles west of downtown Los Angeles, and it, of course, starts from the coastline and then comes in about four, four and a half miles to the border of West L.A., Sawtelle, what we call Sawtelle. And toward the south is Ocean Park and Venice, and to the north is, oh gosh, Malibu area.

SY: So very much a beach town, right?

AM: Yeah. Brentwood.

SY: Brentwood and Malibu. And were you born in a home or in a hospital or where?

AM: I was born on a farm. My birth certificate has the name of the, the lady that delivered me. I can't remember her name.

SY: I see. And your, the farm was a farm that your parents were working?

AM: I beg your pardon?

SY: Were they working on the farm, your parents? This farm that you were --

AM: Yes. Don't ask me what they were doing. [Laughs] I was too young.

SY: You don't know. Well, maybe we can go back a little and talk a little bit about your parents. Do you know where they were from originally?

AM: They're from Kochi-ken, which is on Shikoku. And my mother always used to call it something like Kochi-ken Agawa-gun Nagahama-machi. I'm not sure that's right.

SY: That's the full name of the town?

AM: Yes. Well it, I think it's a village where many of their friends came kind of, well, they conglomerated together after they got here.

SY: I see. And your parents were from the same village?

AM: Yes.

SY: So they met in Japan?

AM: Well, they knew each other, I guess, before they came. My mother -- I'm sorry, my father and his parents and brothers came to the United States, I'm guessing in the early nineteen, maybe '15 to the '20s, something like that.

SY: And what was your father's full name?

AM: His name is Toyoshige Maeda, and he went by Norman.

SY: He named himself?

AM: That I don't know. I know he went to school here, so... there's a lot of things I wanted to ask him, but when I realized I wanted to ask him it was kind of late.

SY: So he came to the United States with his brothers.

AM: Yeah.

SY: And can you tell me about them? Do you know anything much about them?

AM: Well, the oldest was Shitsuke, and my father was in the middle, and Toyone was the third boy. And they had a sister, I don't even know her name. She didn't come to the United States.

SY: So his parents, then, stayed in Japan as well?

AM: No. They both came.

SY: His, so your grandparents and your father --

AM: Yes.

SY: -- all came, but left the sister in Japan.

AM: Yeah.

SY: And on your mother's side, how, do you know about how they, how she came?

AM: She came with my father, just before, well, they managed to get on the last boat to the United States and so that was 1924. And that's how she came over here.

SY: Okay, I, so your father and mother weren't married then, but they came together? Or were they already married when they came here?

AM: [Laughs] I don't know.

SY: That's quite alright. [Laughs] But somehow they, they both were together when they came here.

AM: Yes. Yeah, because he went after her.

SY: He came, he, I see, he came to the United States, went back to get her, and then they returned together.

AM: Well, he went back alone.

SY: To Japan.

AM: And I don't know if they got married and then came back together or what.

SY: I see.

AM: Or got married here.

SY: I see.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 2>

SY: So the two of them, then, where did they eventually end up? Or actually, let's go back to your father, when he came with his parents, where, do you know where they ended up when they came to the United States?

AM: No, I don't. I think my mother said that they landed in San Francisco when she came with my father, and she was talking about getting on this amusement pier and how she lost her jewelries and things on the Ferris wheel. Maybe she was exaggerating, I don't know. [Laughs]

SY: That was, she remembers that from San Francisco, when she got here?

AM: Yes, I believe so.

SY: I see. And when they first came here, do you know what your father was doing for a living?

AM: No, but I assume that they were farming.

SY: And he and his brothers were still together when they got here?

AM: I don't know that either, because I don't remember much until we got to Venice and we were farming in some acreage over there.

SY: And that was after you were born, obviously, and you were a young, youngster. Like how old?

AM: Well, I found a photograph of the Japanese school, and then it's dated 1934, but I remember walking to Japanese school.

SY: So that was fairly, fairly soon after your parents... what, exactly how did they end up in Venice? How did, do you know how they...

AM: That I don't know either. I know I was born on the farm, and then the next thing I knew, I was in Venice.

SY: Venice, which was about two or three miles from Santa Monica.

AM: In the '30s.

SY: And what, was there a thriving population of Japanese Americans in, living around you at that time?

AM: Yes. We, the Kitaokas farmed on the corner of Inglewood and Culver Boulevard, and then we farmed with, oh yes, his younger brother was farming with him, and then the other farmer to the east, Yoshimoto, Mary... I'm getting too old for this. [Laughs]

SY: Can't remember names. Me too. So what was the crop that was being farmed? Do you remember that? Do you know what they were farming in Venice?

AM: Well, it was either, I think it was string beans at least, because they used to have those lath sticks planted in the ground and we used to pull them up and play samurai with it, so that much I remember.

SY: And there were just a few of these Japanese people that worked for other, for the farmers, or did they have their own farms at the time?

AM: I think they, most of them had their own. They probably leased it 'cause they couldn't own the land.

SY: Right. So did you actually know your grandparents on your father's side? Did you, did they...

AM: Yeah.

SY: So did they stay with you as you moved through southern California?

AM: That I don't know. I think they were on their own on the, for their own business. But I remember my grandparents, they liked to swim and so they usually swam in the evening in the Santa Monica water, or Venice water.

SY: And you, do you know why they chose to, that particular area, Santa Monica?

AM: No. Today I understand Santa Monica is a well-known place for people from Japan to stop and visit, but why they did I have no idea.

SY: Because it wasn't, it wasn't really a place where a lot of Japanese settled, was it? Or...

AM: Well, in that area, including West L.A., there were many village friends farming.

SY: From your parents' village.

AM: Yeah.

SY: I see. So they sent, they might have been there because they knew others from their home village.

AM: That could be.

SY: That could be, yeah.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 3>

SY: And so as you were growing up, where did you live?

AM: Well, actually, from, I have to, in sequence I can't name it, but I know we lived in Sawtelle for a while. My father worked at some nursery places. And we also worked on a nursery in Gardena area, and I went to Moneta Gakuen.

SY: And where was that?

AM: Pardon me?

SY: Where was that?

AM: That's right by Gardena.

SY: So it was a Japanese school in... and where there, so there were quite a few Japanese in that...

AM: Yeah. So when we moved back, moved to, when we were at Sawtelle, I remember the elementary school and the Japanese school there, but presently that elementary school is known as Nora Sterry, but I don't think it was that name when I went there.

SY: So there was a gakuen in the Sawtelle area.

AM: Yes.

SY: And that was the only one in that whole, that served that West L.A. area? Or were there others?

AM: Well, Santa Monica had their own Santa Monica Gakuen, but as far as I was concerned, Sawtelle was the only one. I was too young to know about outlying places.

SY: So did you learn Japanese there, or did you learn it at home?

AM: Probably both, I would say. Yes.

SY: Because your parents, were they bilingual or did they only speak Japanese at home?

AM: My mother spoke mostly Japanese. She spoke some Spanish. My father spoke both.

SY: And I'm sorry, I didn't get your mother's full name.

AM: She's Sasami.

SY: Sasami.

AM: Her maiden name was Takeda.

SY: And she was the only one from your family, from, I'm sorry, from her side of the family that was in the United States.

AM: Yeah.

SY: And she never was joined by any others in her family?

AM: No. Not to my knowledge.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 4>

SY: So now, I think you mentioned to me that your grandfather started a ranch, an egg farm?

AM: He had an egg, egg farm.

SY: And that was in where?

AM: Near Fullerton area.

SY: So southern.

AM: That's my best guess.

SY: So way south, so was that someplace that you, one of the places you lived? Or did, it was just your...

AM: No, we never, to my knowledge, lived down there. 'Cause one of the brothers had a hog ranch, and my Uncle Shitsuke, I really don't know what he, he must have done egg ranch, egg farming too.

SY: I see. So they, they farmed on their own, then.

AM: Yeah.

SY: And your father farmed on separate, in separate places.

AM: Well, I believe he somehow knew that he wanted to be a nurseryman, so predominately he was employed under a nursery person, and he must have been learning the trade because in, around 1936 or seven, he established his own nursery in Santa Monica.

SY: Wow. And that nursery was called...

AM: The nursery was called Santa Monica Nursery.

SY: And your father ran it?

AM: He owned it.

SY: He owned it and ran it, then.

AM: He must've leased the land under my name, or if he could lease it under his name, he could have.

SY: Wow. And that, was that, what kind of people did that serve, that nursery?

AM: It served some Issei because he raised celery in bedding plant flats, and he also raised flowers.

SY: Not the cut flower type? Or what kind of flowers?

AM: Well, in flats. It was a retail and wholesale nursery, so he sold to the public as well as delivered to other nurseries, and then he sold his shoots to the, mostly his friends, farmers.

SY: I see. Was that unusual, or were there other nurserymen, Japanese nurserymen during that time?

AM: There were, I think, a lot.

SY: A lot. And, but your father really learned that trade from, on his own.

AM: Yeah. He must've put together all that he had learned when he was employed by other nurserymen. He had an idea what he wanted to do.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 5>

SY: Was, was your father an educated man in Japan?

AM: Well, I know that whenever memorial services or when people died, they'd come to our place and he would conduct a service, and he sounded like a bonsan.

SY: You're gonna have to tell me what that is, bonsan.

AM: And along that line, he also taught how to sing different shigin, utai, "Nani wa Bushii," all kinds of song.

SY: And a, what is a bonsan? I'm sorry, I don't know.

AM: A bonsan? A priest, reverend or, I'm not sure what you call a Buddhist.

SY: So he was, he was well versed in Buddhism, then.

AM: Yeah.

SY: And is that how he raised his family? Were you active in the Buddhist church?

AM: When I was a youngster, yes, I had to follow them and put makeups on when they had events.

SY: Interesting. So that was another center for Japanese Americans then, in those days. Was there a Buddhist church in, that you went to regularly?

AM: I don't know how regularly it was, but in the main, in the big events, I know we always had to go.

SY: And which one did you go to?

AM: [Laughs] I'm not sure if it was the Nishi Hongwanji or the Higashi Hongwanji.

SY: So you went downtown to the Buddhist church. There wasn't one in the Venice, Santa Monica area?

AM: Not then, I don't think. No.

SY: So that must've been a big deal for you to go downtown. I mean, it's a little bit of a trip.

AM: Yeah. We got to meet my parents' friends' children in those times.

SY: I see. And you were fairly young then, during the '30s.

AM: Yes. It was, let's see now, when the Second World, when the war with Japan started I was fifteen.

SY: So that was Pearl Harbor.

AM: Yeah.

SY: I see. And prior to that time, where had you gone to school?

AM: Well, I started Japanese school at Venice. American school in Venice, I think it was at the Playa Vista. I'm not sure of the name, but the same spot that it's located now. And then the next place I remember is Moneta Gakuen, and then I remember Sawtelle Japanese School. But just a few years prior to evacuation, I went to Santa Monica Gakuen.

SY: So you were traveling around, your family was traveling around quite a bit.

AM: Yeah, quite a bit.

SY: To go from Venice, Sawtelle, to Gardena, and then back. And do you remember your earliest memories? What do you remember, where do you remember living?

AM: I remember living in Venice. I remember we were playing, what's it called, kick the can, and it was my turn to count on, with my head down on the can, that's when the Long Beach earthquake struck and I was knocked to the ground. I remember that. And I remember, I think my father was trying to make me strong or something, but he caught a gopher snake or something in the outdoor bathroom and he wrapped it around my neck. And I never got over that, I was always scared of snakes. [Laughs] Just the opposite happened to me.

SY: Wow. So was your father very strict? He must've been very strict.

AM: I think so.

SY: And how else would you characterize him? What was he like?

AM: Well, he was probably an assistant judo sensei and assistant kendo sensei. He also did sumo. And both his brothers were good at, well, Uncle Shitsuke was very good in judo. In fact, I think he attained a seventh or eighth degree black belt. I heard my younger uncle, Toyone, he was slender, but I heard that he was very good in sumo. And on weekends my father and I used to put boxing gloves on and spar with each other, or we did, we tried to knock each other doing judo, and I could never understand how he could flip me so easily. I didn't find out the reason until when I was an adult, when I got into the martial arts more deeply, what he was doing.

SY: So when you were young, he didn't have you go to learn all these sports as a child?

AM: Yes, I did.

SY: You did.

AM: It was konbanwa judo, konbanwa kendo, but I didn't regret that later.

SY: So you were, resisted at the time, though?

AM: I thought I did. [Laughs]

SY: So he must've spent a lot of time away from home doing all those kinds of activities.

AM: Yeah. That, plus he was kind of like a community volunteer. Whenever they had to raise money or something he'd go out and solicit for the community. Yeah.

SY: Wow.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

SY: So at the time you were the only child?

AM: Yeah.

SY: And subsequently, did you, did your parents have other children?

AM: Another, I have another brother.

SY: Just one brother, who was, when was he born?

AM: He was born in Manzanar, 1945.

SY: I see. And his name is...

AM: Brian Tadashi Maeda.

SY: So all these prewar years, you were really the only son.

AM: Yeah.

SY: So your father, then, probably, did he put a lot of pressure on you?

AM: Well, I think he did. He, I remember when I'd say something that he thought was bad, why, he'd let me know it was bad and... [laughs]

SY: Yeah, the snake incident would probably be a good... [laughs] And in the meantime, what, how was, what was your mother like? What would, how would you describe her?

AM: She was always, she worked in the nursery. And we had a Hispanic help and she knew how to communicate with him, and I thought that my haha, she could speak Spanish, but I found out when I took up Spanish that she was pretty close but not the correct Spanish word. It sounded, sounded like the real word. [Laughs] But the helper understood what she was saying.

SY: She learned on the job, right?

AM: Yeah.

SY: She learned, never went to school for it, just learned.

AM: No.

SY: So she, so did you have to work too on the, in the nursery?

AM: Yes. When I was in junior high school I had to wheelbarrow sand and manure and soil and make different piles, and then with a shovel I had to mix it, left hand, right hand. And in junior high school, when we had to get into our gym shorts, my classmates would envy my biceps because they were larger than usual. [Laughs]

SY: So it paid off, all that hard work. Were you, were you in sports in high, in junior high school?

AM: Not to a great extent. Track and, I don't know what you call it today, but we'd take a football and drop kick it to hit a target or punt to a target, things like that.

SY: So you, and this was at what high school?

AM: This was at Lincoln Junior High School.

SY: Lincoln Junior High School. You never made it high school before the war. You were still in junior high school.

AM: Yes, I went to Santa Monica High School for almost a full year.

SY: So you were almost graduated when the --

AM: No, just a, the first grade in high school.

SY: Tenth grade.

AM: Freshman, junior, senior, it's a three year high school, and at my age I don't remember if it was freshman, junior, senior or what.

SY: But you were, at least you had spent, you remember how many years were in high school there at Santa Monica, how many years?

AM: Not quite one.

SY: Okay.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 7>

SY: So then when the war, when Pearl Harbor happened, do you remember what that was like? What, do you remember where you were when it happened?

AM: We were coming home from a movie and we heard it on the radio.

SY: You were coming home with your parents?

AM: Yeah.

SY: So you, they had a car? You were in a car driving?

AM: Yeah.

SY: And they, do you remember their reaction?

AM: I think they were kind of like, "Oh my gosh."

SY: And you, did you understand what it meant, or did you have any idea what it meant?

AM: Not really, because I didn't know where Japan was or, even though I went to Japanese school, the language was Japanese, but I didn't know too much about Japan.

SY: But did you feel, being Japanese, that you might be discriminated against? Or were, was there, were there instances?

AM: I probably did, because I remember, I remember a Chinese classmate at Lincoln and he'd call me some kind of name and I'd call him back a name, and we didn't hurt each other, but we were sluggin' at each other. And when it was over we became good friends. [Laughs]

SY: So since Pearl Harbor happened on a Sunday, then you went to school on Monday?

AM: I don't remember that.

SY: So you don't remember reactions from your classmates. Do you remember that period between hearing about Pearl Harbor and then going to camp, going to the... I assume, did you, do you remember going to...

AM: I remember where we lined up, on the corner of Lincoln Boulevard and Venice. We were trying to put up a marker or memorial. I remember lining up there, and I was obsessed with the fact that I had to part with my German shepherd dog and so I was just moping around that he wasn't with me. I wasn't too worried, as I recall, about where we were going. I didn't care. Where's my dog, you know?

SY: Do you know what happened to your dog?

AM: No. My father must've either taken it to somebody or turned it loose. I don't know what happened.

SY: And do you know what happened with your parents' nursery?

AM: They lost it all.

SY: So, and do you remember them packing up and selling things, or getting rid of things?

AM: I remember people coming to buy furniture. I remember especially one man who flipped a coin and said something like, "Heads, I'll pay you fifty cents. Tail, I get it for free."

SY: And that was, that was an interesting way of doing business. So he, your parents were, it sounds... did it make you feel like they were desperate to get rid of things?

AM: Desperate to get...

SY: To get rid of their things?

AM: No, the people knew that we had to leave, and so they really took advantage of... in fact, I remember a scene in Farewell to Manzanar where the lady broke the dishes because the man offered her some ridiculous price for her precious dishes.

SY: So you identified with that, huh?

AM: Yeah.

SY: And so you do have some memory of that time. Do you remember, did you have friends who were not Japanese?

AM: Yes. Oh yes.

SY: And how, what was their reaction? How did you deal with leaving all your friends?

AM: It must've been pretty bad. There was, I could remember this lady because she wrote me a letter to camp, and she's been in touch with me all these years. In fact, she called me the other day just before Christmas, and she said, "I don't have your address. I have your phone number, that's why I'm calling you. But I want to send you a Christmas card."

SY: And this was just a friend of yours.

AM: Yeah, a classmate.

SY: A classmate.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 8>

AM: And we've had some, I went to one or two reunions. In fact, Santa Monica High gave, was one of the first schools to award diplomas to us, so many umpteen years later. And that principal in '42 managed to get the diplomas to those Niseis who were eligible to graduate, but he became ill and he couldn't do it for the class of '43 and '44. And somebody found out about that, so they gathered up the names of the students and awarded us, they had a small graduation exercise for us, especially for us.

SY: And that was recently, or relatively recently?

AM: Maybe seven to ten years ago. In fact, my brother, Brian, he filmed that scene, and it's in his Music Man of Manzanar.

SY: When you mentioned, since you mentioned that, what is the, what is your brother's Music Man of Manzanar? Can you describe it?

AM: Well, I had a music and drama class instructor in Manzanar. His name is Louis Frizzell. And I managed to land a part in "Growing Pains." I played the part of Professor McIntyre, and then I got to play in the chorus when he produced a Loud and Clear musical. Well, he remembered me, because about, '44, about twenty-seven years later, when my brother met him on a movie set, they overheard each other talking about Manzanar and Mr. Frizzell went to my brother and asked him what his name is. And Brian said, "Brian." Said, "Yeah, yeah, but what's your last name?" He said, "Maeda." And Lou Frizzell said, "Are you related to Arnold Maeda?" And my brother says, "That's my brother." [Laughs] Well, when I first heard about it I was shocked. He remembered me, all those years later? 'Cause he became an actor, and... I forgot your basic question for why I brought this up.

SY: I was asking about Music Man of Manzanar.

AM: And they talked about the fact that it would be nice if he could produce something about Manzanar, and so he always had that in his mind, Brian did. So not too long ago he made a documentary. And I wondered how he was gonna do it because Lou Frizzell was gone, and, but I thought he did a fairly good job. The only part I didn't care for was, he put me in there too much. Said, "You're supposed to be shooting Lou Frizzell, something about him," but I didn't know he was gonna put me in the documentary.

SY: Well, he interviewed you for it, then. So you, did you tell stories about Lou Frizzell?

AM: No. Bruce Kaji, the founding father of the museum, he's in there, and he spoke quite a bit about him. But to me, he just occasionally would point the camera at me, and he didn't tell me anything, so it's a good thing because otherwise I would've choked. [Laughs]

SY: So, but you, there were probably few people who actually remembered, or not remembered, but worked with Lou Frizzell in camp.

AM: Yeah.

SY: And you were among --

AM: Well, he had Rosie Maruki Kakuuchi say something, and Bruce did most of the talking. And he had a mixture of things in there.

SY: So I, it's interesting that you were active -- actually, we should maybe back up a little and then we'll talk more about Lou Frizzell, 'cause I think that he's, he's got quite a big name now because of your brother's documentary. But can we back up a little to after your parents found out about camp and then you ended up selling everything, where you end, where you went next. Did you spend time in an assembly center? Do you remember if you went to an assembly center once you got rid of all your things, once you boarded from that spot in Venice?

AM: Yeah, well, but back, backtracking, he did manage to leave his stake truck with our neighbor at the nursery.

SY: What kind of truck?

AM: Well, I call it a stake truck. It has some wooden beams on the back of the truck.

SY: Kind of open.

AM: Open. Because when we were told that we could return to L.A. he came back, retrieved the truck, and helped many people move back to L.A. But I'm sorry, I took the subject away from --

SY: No, that's good. I am glad you remembered that.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 9>

SY: So the truck was, was left, and then you guys got on a bus at that corner. And where did the bus take you?

AM: To Manzanar, straight to Manzanar.

SY: So you went directly to Manzanar. And do you remember roughly how many people, were there several buses?

AM: Well, I don't know how many, but in about three days we're guessing that over a thousand of us left from Santa Monica, Venice, and one family from Malibu, from that corner.

SY: That corner. Because most, weren't most Japanese Americans told to report downtown, to the Union Church? Or do you, I know you probably, as a child, didn't know that, but...

AM: Well, yes. Some people left from a train station, and I could relate to that because there's a story about Ralph Lazo, who sneaked into camp, you might say, accompanying his friend, and they left from a train station. And then some people went to a, what's the name of that racetrack?

SY: Santa Anita. Santa Anita, it was in the --

AM: They stayed there in the horse stalls. They were probably, that's, those two are probably the closest assembly centers that they went to prior to being shipped to a camp.

SY: And do you know why you didn't go to an assembly center? Do you know that now, why you, why they took you directly to Manzanar?

AM: No, I don't. But Manzanar was the first camp to be put up, and somehow they had determined where we were going. It's funny because the people from Bainbridge, Washington, were in Manzanar too, and they were, I think they were the early ones there.

SY: So do you remember that, that bus ride at all? Do you have any memory of that bus ride to Manzanar?

AM: No, I don't.

SY: And arriving there, do you...

AM: Yeah, it was, it probably had rained because it was muddy and the tire, wheel tracks were all over. And we kind of had to, I don't know how the, or when the getas came in, but we were walking around early on, on getas in the mud. And stuffing our mattress with straw. But because we were a small family of three, we got put in with the Tanaka family, who also had three. And the reason I say this is they had a two or three year old son named Ted, and I met him about two years about in Sawtelle, and I remembered his name, so when they had a reunion I asked Jack Fujimoto if Ted was there that day, and he pointed him out to me. So I went up to him and I kind of questioned him to verify that it was the same Ted, and he was tickled pink to have somebody fill in his young days. And he took me out to lunch one day to talk to me.

SY: That's nice. So you actually shared one room in a barrack?

AM: Yeah.

SY: So you had, there were two families in one room.

AM: Uh huh. They had a sheet or a blanket or something hanging down to separate two rooms.

SY: So I wonder if that was common. Do you know?

AM: Oh yeah. Well, only if the room, families were small. Families that were large, they got to have the twenty by twenty-five rooms to themselves.

SY: Weren't the rooms on the ends of the barracks smaller, though? There was...

AM: No, I think they were divided equally, probably. But I don't know, I'm only familiar with Manzanar. Some places could've been different. Because I understand the roofing in the hotter climate, they had double layers of roofing, and we didn't.

SY: So you, did you feel uncomfortable sharing this, this room with another family?

AM: Probably, because I never did in my life before. [Laughs]

SY: And how, do you remember your parents' reaction, or how, what they, did they say anything?

AM: Well, they probably did because we moved a couple times to other barracks and, before we finally got a barrack by ourselves, because my father got sick for a while and they wanted him to have a quiet room when he came out.

SY: And how was your, what did, what happened to, what was he sick with?

AM: He had some kind of ear infection, inner ear infection.

SY: I see. Was he working in camp? Did he have a job?

AM: In what sequence, I don't know, but he was a fireman. That's, I know that was the last job he had, but I can't remember what other jobs he had.

SY: And your mother, was she, did she work?

AM: I don't think so.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 10>

SY: And what about you? You ended up going to high school in camp.

AM: Yeah. Well, school wasn't ready yet when we got to camp, so I got a job as a junior cook before school started. I was, I think I was cooking some rice. And then when I graduated high school, before I graduated high school I had gone to the hospital and applied for a job, and so we graduated on a Sunday and Monday I reported to work to become an orderly.

SY: Wow. You remember working as an orderly?

AM: I was working as an orderly until, until these orderlies in the surgery room relocated, went out of camp, and then I ended up in the surgery room. And we had to, we got more pay than the orderlies because we were on call after hours because of the shortage of workers. And people wouldn't believe me that we got nineteen dollars instead of sixteen, and I think we surmised that it was because we had to be on call.

SY: And were they other people your age, young people like your age? Or all different ages?

AM: Yeah.

SY: They were different ages, or all the same?

AM: No, they, you mean working at the hospital?

SY: As orderlies.

AM: Different ages.

SY: So you worked as an orderly after you went to school, or before you went to school?

AM: After.

SY: So there was a brief period before you started school that you worked.

AM: Yeah.

SY: And then you went to school, and then graduated?

AM: High school.

SY: From Manzanar High School. And when was that that you graduated?

AM: 1944.

SY: And then you worked as an orderly for...

AM: A little over a year.

SY: I see.

AM: And working in surgery was quite an experience because my primary job, other than sterilizing the surgical equipment and folding sheets and all of that kind of thing and cleaning the place, is, it was my duty to bring the patients down from the ward to surgery, and then putting them on the operating table and taking their blood pressure, and giving an injection when the doctor says either the pressure was too high or whatever. And I had to take them after surgery, or if there was a, happened to be a fly loose in the surgery area, it was my duty to chase it down, or wipe the surgeon's brow.

SY: So did that give you an aspiration to work in the medical field?

AM: Yes, I did. I don't know if it's because my folks always said, "You got to become doctor," or not. But when the eye surgeons from outside used to come in and operate, I noticed they were asking me, "Did it bother you to watch an eye surgery?" And I said no, and they were saying, "Good, good. That's good."

SY: So in general surgery didn't bother you.

AM: No.

SY: You ended up watching a lot of --

AM: The first surgery I watched was a tonsillectomy, and I don't know if it was, what bothered me, probably the blood or whatever, because I felt the blood draining out of my face. But that was, after that it was okay.

SY: Wow.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 11>

SY: So backing up again, when you're going to high school, do you remember your courses? Was it tough? Was it fairly easy? Was it easier or harder?

AM: I thought I was real good in math, until I hit college level math and I found out how dumb I was. [Laughs]

SY: Was it, what was the competition like? What were the other students like?

AM: In camp? I really didn't know. I, you made me remember something I said at the Santa Monica High School, when we were awarded our diplomas, that, I said something about, our grades were, the Asians' grades were high in high school, so I was wondering how it would be when they all got together. But I know many people really didn't study.

SY: In camp?

AM: In camp.

SY: In camp you didn't study.

AM: But...

SY: Was that you? Did you not study?

AM: No, I studied. We have, in our class of '44, we had many people movers. People like Dr. Gordon Sato -- was that his name? -- he did the Manzanar Project in Africa. And there's Bruce Kaji, who founded, helped found the museum in L.A., and yeah, a lot of people who were people movers.

SY: And yourself.

AM: No, I don't consider myself that. [Laughs]

SY: How about Ralph Lazo? Did you meet him in, in...

AM: He was a classmate of mine. I didn't get to know him good, but we always talked to each other when we were together.

SY: And did you find it unusual that there was somebody who was not Japanese who was --

AM: Yeah, he was probably the most popular fellow in camp because we thought that everybody in camp knew him, simply because he didn't belong there.

SY: And what about his personality? Was he --

AM: He was, he was a cheerleader in actual sports. Yeah, he was, he was really something. Outgoing, popular, knew all the girls. [Laughs]

SY: So nobody, did anybody ever ask him how he got there and why, why he got in?

AM: We often talked about it. We even talked about, did he get redress? [Laughs]

SY: After camp. But did he ever say how, he just came on a train? Did he say how he got in?

AM: No. I guess, he was swarthy, so maybe to the soldiers, they couldn't tell the difference between a Nisei and him, I guess.

SY: And did he say why he wanted to be in camp? Did he tell you, actually tell you?

AM: Well, the story I've heard is that he thought that what the government was doing was very unfair because he lived daily with them, his Nisei friends, and he knew that they weren't doing anything bad or sabotaging or anything like that, and so he couldn't understand why they were doing this. And it upset him to the point that he had decided one day to accompany them.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 12>

SY: -- Ralph Lazo, which is really interesting, but now I would love to go back to talking about Lou Frizzell, who was the music teacher at Manzanar. And how was it that you got into music? Was that an interest, long time interest?

AM: Well, no. I really don't remember... they told me that I had enough English and so I have many other choices, and I chose music and drama. I'm glad I did because it helped me later.

SY: Later in your career?

AM: Uh-huh. When I was looking for a job, I couldn't find a job and the last place I was checking, I was checking for something else, but the man I was asking about a job said that, he had invited me to join the sales force some years back, and I was approaching the age where I couldn't be much older to become a salesman in life insurance, so he said, "How about it? Why don't you try life insurance sales?" And I said, "Oh, I can act to be a salesman." [Laughs] I thought of Lou Frizzell, I guess, because he had me play certain parts in his play.

SY: So it was an acting job.

AM: But it wasn't, you couldn't do that in life insurance.

SY: It didn't work?

AM: No, you have to be very sincere.

SY: But at least the idea came to you.

AM: Yeah. [Laughs]

SY: So you had big roles in these plays that Mr. Frizzell put on. Were you, were you one of the, did you have big, one of the bigger roles?

AM: Yeah, I think so. Although, I don't know, it could be that some of the younger people's parts were heavier.

SY: And was it because you could sing? Or was it --

AM: No. It could've been my, we had to audition for the part, and he could've liked something about me, my accent or, I don't know what.

SY: He never told you? He never said that he cast you because...

AM: No. No. I just, I was looking through my album and there was somebody that had written a review, review -- there goes my Bell's palsy -- and he said something about my accent or something that fitted the part. I played the part of Professor McIntyre.

SY: And this, was this a play that he wrote?

AM: No. Growing Pains is a well-known play.

SY: But he wrote music, right?

AM: He wrote the music to Loud and Clear.

SY: I see. And describe what kind of person he was.

AM: Who?

SY: Can you describe a little bit about...

AM: Lou Frizzell?

SY: Uh-huh.

AM: Well, he was a young man, fresh out of, I think UCLA. And he may have been a Quaker. That I'm not sure about. Many teachers were Quakers, and they liked to help people like us, that were in camp. In fact, they encouraged many of the students, certain schools to go to back East or Midwest.

SY: So there were other Quaker, you remember other teachers besides Mr. Frizzell that you had that were...

AM: No. I really, I really don't know about that. But I understand that there'd be a lot of Quakers.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 13>

SY: And how about, in relationship to you, do you have other teachers that you remember?

AM: Yes. I remember... her name slipped me, but the lady, teacher that helped us work on creating the Manzanar Our World annual.

SY: So you worked on the annual.

AM: I helped work on that.

SY: What did you do on the annual?

AM: I had to go to the office and jot down the name of each student so that I can line them up when they took the photo, so we can identify the photo and the nametags underneath, make sure it's, hopefully, accurate. Yeah.

SY: So were you active in journalism, or was that just a side interest to be working on --

AM: Well, that was a major project. Journalism, we had a, I think our newspaper was called the Campus Pepper. We wrote that weekly or biweekly, I don't know. We did that.

SY: So you were kind of involved in that, in that newspaper annual. Were you in student government?

AM: Pardon me?

SY: Were you in student government? Did you, were in...

AM: Student government?

SY: Uh-huh.

AM: No. No, I don't think you would call, I was class president, senior class president, and I don't think I was involved in any government to speak of.

SY: That sounds like, that sounds like you were elected to be class president, right?

AM: I was railroaded. [Laughs]

SY: Well, you'll have to explain how that happened, then.

AM: Well, I didn't have to campaign or anything 'cause they kind of, "Oh, get on." I guess I was, I wasn't, it was the opposite of being ostracized. I guess they knew I...

SY: There must've been, did you run against someone?

AM: No, I don't think so.

SY: And it was an election where people voted for you, right? So everybody had to vote for you in your class.

AM: Yeah.

SY: And what did you do as class president?

AM: Every morning you make announcements. Other than that, I don't remember doing anything else. All I know is I think it backfired for my friends. They claimed that I knew all the girls by name, but no, it was just the opposite. They knew who I was because I was the president, and I'd have to say, "Oh, hi." [Laughs]

SY: So it didn't, didn't make you more popular, though, among the girls?

AM: No, I was girl shy because seemed like everybody else, when you take a girl out to a dance or something one time, they call you going steady, and I didn't like that. So I didn't, I didn't get involved like that until I started working. Then I found a nice, pretty girl. I thought she was my steady, but I don't know if she thought I was her steady. [Laughs]

SY: That was in camp, though?

AM: Uh-huh.

SY: I see.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 14>

SY: So you were... but now, when you graduated from high school, then at that point did somebody suggest that you go on to college? Or how did, what happened to you when you graduated?

AM: One of the advisors advised me to, that I should go to a college in the Midwest because she thought I would fit in better than going to a large university, but I didn't go. But when I came out of camp, I came out in November and then UCLA was already in session, so I helped my father do gardening for a while and then I enrolled as a pre-med student. I took, like, chemistry, German, had to take ROTC, and yeah, ROTC for some reason came easy to me, or, either that or I liked it. I don't know what. Anyway, I happened to get either top grade or one of the higher grades, and they called the other class's top person and myself in, and they told us that we had to march the boys next semester. And, "Oh no, I can't do that." [Laughs] I said, "No, no, I can't. I really can't do that." And they said, well, they're sorry, but that's tradition, so I started thinking, how am I going to get out of this one? And I got my draft notice, so I said, "Ah, there's the answer. So after the semester ended I volunteered. And they asked me if I wanted to be a paratrooper or an interpreter, so since I didn't like heights I volunteered to become an interpreter, and I shipped to Fort Lewis, Washington, for my basic training. And I don't know if it was you or who it was that asked me how I became a firing line coach, and I started thinking that, I think, I think they chose the shooters that could shoot fairly well and they got them to become, be coaches for the other soldiers. And so I had to lie beside them, and -- [coughs] excuse me -- my ears started ringing, ringing and ringing and ringing. When we got to the submachine gun it felt like somebody jabbed a knife through my ear, that's how painful it was. Anyway, by the time I finished basic, got to the Presidio of Monterey, the MIS Language School, it was still ringing, so I was commuting to sick call fairly often, and two weeks, about two weeks, my guess is that about two weeks before my class shipped over to Korea they said that for the army's sake and for my sake that I should be discharged. So I came out. I didn't, later I thought, gee, I should've begged them to keep me in school for two more weeks, then I could've called myself a graduate of MISLS, the language school. Because when I came out and I wanted to join the organization, my wife said, "What for? You didn't even graduate." Okay. [Laughs]

SY: So the whole, when you... it's interesting to me, though, that you entered the army at, the point at which you did was late, your family was still in --

AM: War was over.

SY: The war was over, and your family was still in camp?

AM: No. We left camp in November of '45, and I went to UCLA '46. I volunteered around September of '46.

SY: That's right. That's right, 'cause you said that you helped your father on the nursery for a while.

AM: Yeah.

SY: So he got his nursery back.

AM: No. He, he lost his heart for business and he started gardening.

SY: He started gardening.

AM: He was doing some gardening as well as a nursery business too, because when he'd get a traffic ticket he'd say, "Well, I guess I have to go see Captain So-and-So and have him tear this ticket up," or whatever. [Laughs]

SY: Wow.

AM: That shouldn't appear on the screen. [Laughs]

SY: You didn't name any names, though. So one, and backing up just a little, because you said that they encouraged you to go to a school right after you graduated from camp, I would imagine because you were probably a pretty good student. They, your teachers encouraged you to go to college.

AM: Yeah. I was a member of the National Honor Society. But I worked over, a little over a year in the hospital.

SY: That was right after camp.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 15>

SY: And then why, why is that you, at that point you decided not to go to college?

AM: Well, when my, I think I didn't have enough adult advice, because to me a doctor is constantly in, at the bedside or whatever and you need sharp hearing and using stethoscopes and things like that, or listening to breathing and all that. You had to be sharp, and with my ringing bothering me, that was one of -- but the other thing was when I came back I went to an ENT doctor and he said I'd go stone deaf, so he scared the heck out of me and I decided to learn a trade and then go back to school. Well, the school I went to paid too well.

SY: The trade school.

AM: I mean graduates of the trade school I went to.

SY: I see.

AM: It was a chick sexor. And we were making eight to twelve dollars an hour, and this is in '48 and early '50. Plus I said, told my dad, he wanted to buy a house and I said I'll pay the second mortgage.

SY: And did you end up doing that?

AM: What?

SY: You ended, did you end up doing that, helping your dad? With the money you made as a chick sexor. And how did you, so you just, anybody could apply to this trade school to become a chick sexor?

AM: I think so, because if you didn't meet the grade they won't let you work because there's a guarantee. And if you went beyond the guarantee, I mean lower than the guarantee, you have to pay the hatchery man, and so you have to pay more than you earn. Plus the reputation of that school that sent you out would be in trouble.

SY: So you, so people who went to school all worked, ended up getting --

AM: Yeah, well, we were, I think so. We were all offered a job. Because, depending on your grade, you were sent to different places.

SY: And where was the trade school?

AM: Pennsylvania.

SY: So you went away to Pennsylvania. And that was okay with your parents?

AM: That was what?

SY: That was alright with your parents, for you to go?

AM: Yeah, because by then they had another toy, Brian. [Laughs] So I have to thank him for the freedom I got.

SY: What, did they discourage you from going to college in camp, when you were in camp and this, your teacher told you, recommended this Midwestern --

AM: No, by the time I entered the service and all that I was on my own. The decisions were my own, and that's where I wish I had more adult supervision, because there's many things to do in medicine besides being a bedside doctor. You could be, what do they call those doctors who look for certain germs when they, while they're operating and all that? I mean, there's hundreds of positions. But in a way it's a good thing I didn't because maybe I wouldn't have had the memory capacity. I can't remember many things. [Laughs]

SY: That, but that started, did that start when you were young, your memory?

AM: No, no. [Laughs]

SY: Yeah, I think that's fairly common. But you, so I'm, would this, so this idea of going into chick sexing, can you explain what a chick sexor does?

AM: Sure. When the chickens are hatched, within twenty-four hours, that's the best time to separate the male and the female. And the reason they do this is because the egg farmers can't afford to feed both the male and the female. They can't do that, so they just buy the hen, the pullets from the hatchery, and they raise them and cage them and sell the eggs. The male, or cockerel, they'd either drown for the minks, the mink men would come buy them to feed the minks, or the range growers would feed them for about eighteen weeks or something like that, and then they sell them to the public. So none was, went to waste. And so here's a basket of a hundred chickens -- in fact, I made a folder for you -- and there's a coffee can in the center. We pick up one, we have a label here, pullets and cockerels, or vice versa, to put on the empty boxes. We pick up two chickens, bring 'em up -- or first we squeeze them, squeeze the dropping into the coffee can, flip it over under a two hundred watt lamp, and we go through the process of feeling the rear end and looking for the signs, and then we go pullets or cockerels.

SY: So what are the signs?

AM: The signs? Basically, basically the cockerels have an eminence and the pullets don't. And I remember the first assignment I had in South Dakota, I was working away, and there was a big window there and a man was watching me, and when I had a break he said, "Come here, come here." Says, "What are you doing?" So I told him. He said, "Impossible. Impossible. You cannot do that at the speed you're doing." I said, "Have it your way. I'm doing my job." [Laughs] So it depends on your skill.

SY: So how many would you do, say, in one day?

AM: Well, it depends on the capacity of the hatchery, so some places may only have a thousand to do, some places may have twenty thousand to do. It depends. So you may be working around the clock, so it's just rhythm.

SY: So it was that quick? I mean, like in an hour, how many, how many...

AM: I would say I was maybe averaging about eight hundred an hour.

SY: Eight hundred females? Finding --

AM: No.

SY: So dividing up eight hundred chicks.

AM: And sometimes a thousand, and if it's a certain breed maybe twelve hundred, because some breeds, chickens, have a marking on the shoulders and you can just pick 'em out like this. And we'd tell the hatchery men, "You could do it yourself. Why don't you do it yourself?" He says, "No, no, no. We depend on you people." And so with that kind of an income, you're not working constantly, you know. You had a territory or, if it's a huge place we don't even need a car. You just stay there all day, all season, or some places year round. And I couldn't go back to school, I thought.

SY: Because it was so lucrative.

AM: Too good. Lucrative.

SY: How much, so were you getting paid per chick?

AM: Piece. Penny, penny apiece.

SY: So that's why, it behooved you to go faster.

AM: Yeah.

SY: I see.

AM: And then if your accuracy was poor, all the money you made goes back to the hatchery.

SY: So you were, so you were successful. You were a pretty good chick sexor, then, not just an average.

AM: Well, I like to think that, because our accuracy was very good. We, in the beginning we'd go back to school and you'd take another test, and then I have a trophy at home, it was a hundred on the pullets, ninety-eight or ninety-nine on the cockerels, whatever it is.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 16>

SY: And what kind of people became chick sexors? What were your colleagues like?

AM: Well, you kind of have to be handy with your fingers, and you have to be, what's the word? You cannot finish your duty for the day, go home and drink, because they may call you and say, "Hey, we forgot three boxes here that you have to come back and do," so you got to go back to work.

SY: So it's good to be single, not have a family at home.

AM: Some people do, and they work together. And there are, some territories require two person, some more, or some single. The problem is when you get sick like I've been sick and you're just sittin' on a chair, I don't want to work, but the chickens are coming so I got to work. [Laughs] You know, it's, you have to, that's the kind of person you have to be.

SY: And did they recruit people to become chick sexors?

AM: They have, they used to have advertisements, fancy advertisements.

SY: In the regular paper? Or where would they, where would they...

AM: Yeah, I think, yeah. In the newspaper, I think it was.

SY: How did you hear about it?

AM: Well, when I was looking for a place, a trade to learn, I was asking here and there, and one of my second cousins was a chick sexor, so I asked him to send me a catalog. And in the catalog it said chick embryology, and I said, "I have to take that someday anyway, so I'm gonna go to this school." I didn't, that's all I knew about it. I didn't know anything else. I didn't know about the high pay or whatever. And I think the kind of thing you may have heard is all these sexors are buying a new car every year. But I used to drive to Las Vegas with, I don't know how much I had, but stashed all over the inside of the car, hidden, and I wouldn't stop in Vegas. I'd just go, drive right through. [Laughs] Because I think, I think I've been cross country about thirteen times by car, and a couple times by airplane or train. I went by train first, the first one.

SY: So you had to travel from place to place.

AM: Yeah, depending on how the manager of the school, where he sends, places you.

SY: So you constantly got placed by the school people, so you got to, so whereabouts did you go?

AM: I went to South Dakota first, then I think I went to Illinois, Pennsylvania, Amish country, New York, Virginia, New Jersey. The last place I went to was Ohio. That's when I got sick. Yeah.

SY: So you ended up buying a car and then traveling to all these places?

AM: Yeah, when I graduated the head of the school bought me a car. I mean, I had to pay for it, but he had enough confidence in me to help me buy a car. And I went to, I went to South Dakota with that.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 17>

SY: So how, what was the reaction -- this was semi close to the war, it was soon after the war -- do you remember any positive, negative reaction to you being Japanese?

AM: No. The only one that comes to mind is either when I was going back to school for the next season and I stopped to eat, and somebody came up to me and said, "Hey, we got a bet in the back." Says, "Are you Chinese or Japanese?" And that wasn't discrimination, but in a way it was. I never... no, I stopped to eat, had to go to the bathroom -- and this was in the South -- and I was, it said, I think it said "white" and "colored," and I was headed for the "colored." And there was a black man sitting there saying [points]. [Laughs] No, no, when I was in the service, with my uniform on, I was in Seattle, Washington, in a theater, and I had to go to the bathroom, went to the bathroom, and a man came to a stall a few feet away and he said, "Jap." And I was young then and tough, you might say, I felt like jumping him. But I remembered what the sergeant or whoever that gave us a pass said, that don't touch a civilian or you're in real trouble, so I let him go. But that's the only outright one I remember.

SY: During that whole period from camp to getting out of camp, how did that affect you? Do you remember during that period if you were, if you...

AM: Well, people who lived near 395 -- and I did --

SY: Which is right near Manzanar.

AM: In the morning when you open your door, if there are traffic they're going north and south like this, so every morning I'm reminded of where I am. Why can't I be in one of those cars going north or south?

SY: This is at Manzanar? Manzanar is, the 395 is the road that goes right past Manzanar.

AM: Uh-huh. And I very much disliked the fact that we had to carry cards that said we were "enemy aliens," 4-C. To this day, I never got over that, being called an alien. And I don't know if it was the "yes" and "no" or what it was about, but my father and I, I remember we were arguing about something for a couple of weeks and by the time it ended I don't know what I was, a "yes" or a "no." But I remember him saying, "Well, you, you do what you want to do. Only if you're not with us, you're on your own." Waah. [Laughs]

SY: That, but you don't remember who was on what side?

AM: No. I'm sure I was not a "no-no" 'cause I didn't even know, I'd never been to Japan. I didn't know what changed his mind, but... when we were, when I was at MIS going to school, I had to report to the administration. On the way there I was saying, "I wonder what this is about. Maybe they caught up with me about "no-no" or "yes-yes" or whatever." All they wanted to do was, they had given me, I can't even think of the number, a GI's number, service number, as a draftee. They had to change it to a volunteer number.

SY: But you were worried that --

AM: The numbers are different. I found out recently that the volunteers, they have a one in front of the number, and the draftees had a three.

SY: But you, and you, so you would've, would you have joined the army out of camp? Would you have, when that draft notice, or when the "loyalty questionnaire" or the...

AM: You know, I was so wrapped up in working at the hospital I didn't even know that we were, we could go out of camp. I can't remember that. And I don't know, I know that several of my classmates, they had to go in right away, and in fact, some of them probably left from camp. I saw four, four names of my classmates who went to Washington for the Congressional Medal of Honor.

SY: They were in the 442, then.

AM: My, the best man at my wedding, he was younger than me, he was very smart, and he had received some kind of offer in the service. They had some kind of a test or program. And I noticed he had a one beside his name on the list, so he volunteered.

SY: But if you didn't volunteer there was still the chance that you would get drafted in camp.

AM: Yeah, because they, there were some.

SY: But you were never called.

AM: No, not until '46.

SY: So you probably answered "yes-yes" but still didn't get called.

AM: That, I don't know if that has any, because that was a... whoever started that, they had to modify that.

SY: Modify the loyalty --

AM: The questions. That was a bad, that was a bad mistake.

SY: I think, didn't they give it to the young men? Wasn't there a draft questionnaire and then a loyalty questionnaire, there were two different ones, that you remember?

AM: No.

SY: Because your parents, they filled out the same?

AM: Well, I got the impression that, depending on how you answered, you can go out or not.

SY: I see.

AM: Because some people left very early to go to work that they found outside or school.

SY: Yeah. I think, well, I'm not sure about that, but I know that the people who went to Tule Lake were the ones who did not, who...

AM: Yeah, that was a bad problem too because if you're, if you were young you had to go with your parents.

SY: Right. But your parents, what did, so did your, I'm still not clear, your parents argued with you, or your father argued with you that he did not want to sign "yes-yes"?

AM: Yeah, I remember him saying, "After all they did to me and took my..." You know, we were, he was just getting successful in the nursery business and they, all this happened to him, and you still feel whatever. And I probably argued against that, I don't know.

SY: So he was angry about the --

AM: He was very angry. But like I said, I don't know at what point he changed his mind, or what he had, what he had answered. Because I've read where people would write "yes-yes" and their parents would go to the office and say, "Change that to 'no-no,'" kind of thing like that. I, even if they, somebody would give me a million dollars, I couldn't tell you what I did. [Laughs]

SY: Your brother, did he ever, your brother, was he, how old was he during --

AM: He was a baby.

SY: So he wasn't even...

AM: No.

SY: He probably remembers... but he has done some research about your family? Has he, has he looked into the history? No? Okay. 'Cause I know you can look up your family's records.

AM: Even that?

SY: Records, you can get copies.

AM: "Yes-yes" and "no-no" thing?

SY: "Loyalty questionnaire," yeah.

AM: I didn't know that.

SY: You have to ask your brother. Maybe he's done that. But yeah, that's interesting because your father really was... and your mother, do you remember her reaction?

AM: No.

SY: So you all ended up, though, leaving camp at the same, at the same time?

AM: No, my father, my father left in October to retrieve his truck and made trips helping people move back. And then we moved back in November.

SY: I see. And do you remember where you lived when you moved back to Los Angeles?

AM: Remember what?

SY: Where you lived.

AM: We may have gone, we did go back to the Japanese school, hostel, and then we, I don't know how long we stayed there. We went to some place in Ocean Park, and then we bought a home in Sawtelle.

SY: So there was still that community to return to? People that you knew went, came back to Los Angeles and resettled in that area. And then was it hard getting into UCLA?

AM: No. I didn't understand that. I mean, we never, I never, I never doubted it, I guess. [Laughs] Except I flunked my Subject A.

SY: But you still got to go there for a year. And then once you, so we're skipping ahead now because after you did the -- how long did you do the chick sexing?

AM: Seven or eight years, I think.

SY: Seven or eight years. And the money that you made, you helped your dad and then saved? Did you save money?

AM: Not much. 'Cause my wife said, "You're the poorest chick sexor I've ever known," or something like that. [Laughs]

<End Segment 17> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 18>

SY: So in the meantime you got married, during that time that you were...

AM: We got married in '53, so I went to work one more season, one or two more seasons after that.

SY: And how did you meet your wife?

AM: She left for Santa Monica early, January or February of '45 --

SY: From camp?

AM: Camp. Because one of her teachers had a daughter who had two young kids in Santa Monica, and they needed a schoolgirl, so she got that job.

SY: Did, you didn't know her during this period?

AM: No.

SY: So then she moved, so she, you knew her from Santa Monica prewar?

AM: No.

SY: No? But she lived in Santa Monica when you returned?

AM: No, some, some, I heard her telling somebody that some lady thought that the young people should socialize, and they had an evening of socializing or something and then we took it from there.

SY: So were you, were you very social when you got out of camp? Did you, did you know a lot of other Japanese kids?

AM: Well, the, I knew some of the people that were there before. I mean, they came back. But no, I was too busy going to school, joining the service and going sexing. I wasn't a very good socializer, I guess.

SY: But once you became a chick sexor, then your wife would travel with you?

AM: No.

SY: She stayed.

AM: She was a schoolteacher, and she went to Santa Monica City College and then transferred to UCLA, and then taught for about thirty, thirty-two years, thirty-two or thirty-three years. No...

SY: So she raised your, did you have children during that time?

AM: Two.

SY: So stayed home --

AM: A boy and a girl.

SY: And so she stayed home with the children too, while you were...

AM: For, yeah, she stayed home for a while.

SY: And you were still traveling, doing the chick sexing during that time?

AM: No, we didn't have any children then.

SY: So it was after.

AM: 'Cause I only went to work one or two years after we got married. She told me, I don't know when it was, to go back to school, "Why don't you go back to school?" And I was too macho. "What? Me have a wife support me?" [Laughs] I should have.

SY: So was she the reason you decided to retire from chick sexing?

AM: Maybe one of the reasons, but it was, it's kind of lonesome. There's some season before we got married, I'm headed toward Arizona way to go back East and I felt like turning around and coming back 'cause it's a long trip.

SY: Driving. [Sirens sound] You can hear this noise. What I found interesting was that there were Japanese Americans who worked as chick sexors? Was that, did you know that at the time, that there were...

AM: Yeah.

SY: So that was a common profession, or a fairly common profession?

AM: That, I didn't know. I was very, kind of innocent about that. All I know is I used my GI Bill to go to school, chick sexing school, and it wasn't enough, but we had some part time jobs.

SY: Do you know if, you don't know, then, if there were people your age who left camp to go to chick sexing school, or if that happened after camp?

AM: No. It happened after camp, but I didn't know anybody.

SY: You didn't know others. But it was a kind of a common profession for Japanese Americans. Did you know that at time? No. Did you find that out at some point?

AM: Maybe, because I didn't know where they came from. In fact, there was a branch school in L.A. and they had asked me to be an assistant instructor there, so I did that for a while. In a way, I've been a teacher on my own in different, different things depending on what I'm doing.

SY: So they somehow single you out to lead.

AM: I lived in L.A. and the founder of the school, the brother of a founder of the school, I don't remember if he lived in California or not, but yeah, he used to ask me to take over some hatcheries in California. And I was coming to L.A. to teach, but I didn't ask him, "Where are you from?" or, you know.

SY: So was the training difficult, to learn how to do this? Was that a...

AM: Well, you can't be clumsy because then you'd injure the chick and the chick could die. You had to be gentle and you had to have good eyesight. Your personality had to be, meet a certain requirement, I guess.

SY: You have to be quick, I would imagine. You have to have a certain quickness. So the training was kind of on the job -- I mean, not on the job, but was it practical training only, how to, how to...

AM: Yeah, it was, you'd do that morning and, I mean twice a day you go to class, and I don't remember how long school was, six months or less. I really don't remember.

SY: But you actually practiced on chickens, on chicks?

AM: Yes. And my class, my classmates that we boarded at the same place were mainly ex-GIs, vets.

SY: I see. So it was a good profession for vets. For Japanese American, was, were your, the guy that you boarded with, he was, he was JA?

<End Segment 18> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 19>

SY: So once you came back, or once you decided not to become a chick sexor anymore, what did you do?

AM: I saw an ad in the L.A. Times that said technical illustrator, upside down. What is it? So I went to check it out, and I liked it. But I didn't know what, if I could do it or not. Then I remembered that I had some samples from Lincoln Junior High School from my drafting class, and I managed to find it and I looked at it, I said I could do it. I could do this. And so I went to school for one semester, went back to sexing chickens, came back and there was a neighborhood Catalog and Advertising that did aerospace work that was hiring. So I wanted to know how much more schooling I needed before I could get a job, and they asked me to come back, come to work on Monday.

SY: That's, so you had how much training in this?

AM: Hardly... [laughs] But they liked my portfolio.

SY: And your portfolio was from junior high school, plus you took a course.

AM: No. No, I didn't have any technical illustration from junior high school. That was just a drafting. But you could tell by the neatness of the work I have kept for drafting, technical illustration in the field I went to is a scale drawing, disassembly sequence, and... well, let me put it this way. When a real commercial artist does the work, it's real nice. Me, not being a real commercial artist but a very beginning illustrator, my work is more kind of flat. But it had to be in proper disassembly sequence so that when the people out in the field have to take an equipment apart, it has to be accurate or it won't work. And that's where I came in. I could read the blueprint properly and if somebody drew it with an improper sequence I could spot it. And so I started going like this. I started checking the art of the people who were in the field way ahead of me.

SY: So it's a sort of a visual, it's an ability that's kind of an innate ability to --

AM: I guess.

SY: -- see things in their proper perspective?

AM: And proper sequence.

SY: Sequence. So did you actually have to draw, I mean, take something and then draw it out? Is that the...

AM: Well we, you start, well, there's two ways. If you're out in the field, like I went to Mobile, Alabama, to take a motor apart, we had to draw our own blueprint so that we could come back and draw it in disassembly sequence. So you have to be able to spot it. That's where a checker came in, comes in. And before that drawing reaches a certain point I have to show them that these things are not in the proper sequence, so that's where I lucked out and had the ability to do that. It just, I guess there's some things, some jobs that I happened to fit it. Not to say, not to brag or anything, but that's, that's where I found out I fit.

SY: Amazing.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 20>

SY: I want to keep on this topic of this technical drawing because it was something that you had no experience in, but you managed for how many years to...

AM: I spent about fifteen years in aerospace.

SY: And you worked for whom?

AM: I worked for, started off with Catalog and Advertising, the place that was right by where I lived, and then I went to work and Cannon and Sullivan, another shop, and P.W. Voorhees. And P.W., well, I started, Catalog and Advertising, I started jumping up because they wanted me as a checker, then at P.W. Voorhees I met this lady who became a supervisor. She went to Litton Systems and she proselytized, is that the word?

SY: Proselytized.

AM: So I got invited to go to Litton.

SY: She wanted you to come with her.

AM: And then I blossomed more over there, and I started going out into the field and bid on a job and bring it back and show the people on the board, I mean, what we want, when we want it. Usually it was yesterday. [Laughs]

SY: So all of these companies, then, did these drawings for the aerospace industry, and that was their main focus, was doing this technical drawing?

AM: Well, they had some other things that they would do, writing technical books and things, but the field I was in was in the engineering field with disassembly sequence. We'd support the writers who'd write about it, and we'd make sure that it's in a pleasing disassembly proper sequence.

SY: Amazing. And were all your colleagues, the people who worked with you, did they have engineering training? Or what was their background?

AM: They must have gone to some school. They never told me what school they went to.

SY: But you had no engineering background.

AM: No. The only engineering background I had was going to school, night school, while I was at Litton.

SY: So you did pick up things by going to school while you were working.

AM: Yeah. That's what I did in the beginning, yes. But when I went to school while at Litton, it was an engineering class. And that's when I went to school without my supervisor knowing about it.

SY: And why was that?

AM: Well, my buddies were going to a school and they invited me to go to school, but I had to get my supervisor's approval and she turned me down. So I reported back and said, "Sorry, I can't go." But they told me to try the department head, and department head said, "Sure. Just bypass her and come straight to me." So without her knowledge, I went to school about four and a half years. Then she finds out one day, and she said to me, "Arnold, you have to write a job description because if you get sick we don't know how to, what you're doing to get the job and doing everything that you do." And so I swallowed it hook, line and sinker. I didn't even think that this a trick or anything, and within a short period, I was the first to go. And aerospace crunch came, I was the first to go. I couldn't find a job, and I'd go pick up my check as I was looking for work, and the department head said, "Don't worry. Just take your time, find a good job, and I'll keep you on the payroll until you get a job." That's really amazing.

SY: So he was more, he helped you out while your supervisor fired you, pretty much.

AM: Yeah. I think she was worried about her job. That's my thinking.

SY: You think she was upset that you were taking this class too?

AM: She was what?

SY: Upset that you were going to school.

AM: Yeah, against her wishes. But it wasn't her money. [Laughs]

<End Segment 20> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 21>

SY: So your, now, you had achieved a pretty high position by this point, in aerospace.

AM: Yeah.

SY: So you were making good money, you were experienced, right, at this point? So could you have gone to, could you have gone to any other...

AM: I tried, but they told me that, "We have that position open, but when the aerospace got back on its feet you will report back, so we can't hire."

SY: I don't understand. So when, if aerospace was...

AM: Gets back on its feet, that I would leave, like --

SY: I see. They thought you would leave. That was their feeling.

AM: Like, Toyota was one of the places I went to. They had advertised for a position, and so I kept looking.

SY: So these were non-aerospace jobs that you looked, looked...

AM: No, basically I was looking at aerospace jobs.

SY: But you were at a high enough position that they didn't want to hire you? Is that kind of...

AM: Well, I figured that they could hire two or three persons in my place.

SY: For the same amount of money. That's tough. And how old were you now, when you were looking for jobs?

AM: When I, in the aerospace?

SY: Uh-huh. When you...

AM: 1970 is when I lost my job, so I was forty-four. So when I got to the, in my search... see, my neighbor across the street, I always saw him tinkering around his home, so I went to him and said, "What do you do, anyway, for a living?" And he said he was a Times delivery, home delivery supervisor, and he said I could get a job for seven, put seven thousand down and I can get the same job, kind of job he has. So he said, "I'll give you a, put a good word in for you." So I was tempted to, but I wasn't sure he was giving me the honest truth, so I wanted to check it out. And I thought my insurance agent might have a client like that, but in the back of my mind I'd say, "Oh, he might offer me a job again." 'Cause he had offered me a job when I first got married.

SY: The insurance, your insurance person.

AM: So sure enough, he did offer me a job. And...

SY: You, were you close to him? I mean, why would he offer you a job? What...

AM: Well, they are, they'll hire anybody, if you pass the so called test. But because, I find out when I became a, like an assistant, office man, the insurance agent, in the first six months they'll approach their friends, relatives, instead of learning the approach speech and all that they would say, "Hey, Sharon, I'm coming over for dinner tonight. Can I come over?" And after dinner I say, "Sharon, how about buying a ten thousand or twenty-five thousand dollar policy from me?" You can't say that to strangers. You can't do that to strangers. But I don't know, it's like my Professor McIntyre part in high school, I knew that I could learn something real quickly, the parts, my part, so I knew my insurance speech right away. And so when I went to my friends and they said, "I don't know, you're too late. I've already bought all the insurance I want," so I had to approach new people, and I managed to by saying what the manager told me to say. And anyway, I got the job.

SY: [Laughs] So because, really, you had no sales experience at all, ever, and all that you learned was from this handbook or whatever they give you when they...

AM: Yeah.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 22>

SY: And what, like, what was your approach that made you successful you think?

AM: Well, I don't know. When I approach the younger people who are working, I might say something like, let's see if I can remember it, say, "How many automobiles do you think you might buy in your lifetime?" They might say, "Oh, five, ten." Says, "How would you like to be, if I gave you a good idea to be your own banker to finance those cars, would you be interested in listening to what I have to say?" Some of 'em will say, "Sure." So I'd set the time to see them, and then I'd show them how on a cash value policy you could borrow for four and a half percent or whatever and pay it back at your leisure, instead of paying six, seven, eight percent at the bank or the auto dealer. And some of 'em will say, "Hey, I like that idea." That was one approach.

SY: And you would, and so it was all things that you could deliver on. It was never anything that you were making promises that you couldn't...

AM: Yeah, and it's all up here [points to head]. So they told me that if you could sell life insurance you could sell anything in the world, because most things, it's a product, you see the product. You want it, you don't want it. But life insurance, you can't see it. I mean, it's on a piece of paper.

SY: So who did you go to?

AM: I went to my, the insurance man that sold me my second policy after I got married.

SY: Right, but then who were your clients? Who were those clients that you sold to? Who, they, if many of your friends had already bought their life insurance --

AM: They were strangers.

SY: So you were given a list and then you'd have to call them?

AM: No, I had to find my own list. This is where it was so taxing on you, because I was used to getting a paycheck, rain or shine I'd get a paycheck, but now I was on my own. If I didn't produce, no pay.

SY: So you were eager to, I mean, was this, was this stressful for you? Did you like this better than the other kind of work?

AM: In some respects, yes, 'cause I knew that it was harder for somebody to fire me. In other respects, in one respect, I didn't like it, to find a prospect to talk you. And when I kind of ninety-nine percent retired, I realized that that's what I hated. I like talking to people, showing them why this is good for them, but getting to that point -- you should've seen the first case. I couldn't find the address. I went around and around the block, couldn't find, and I let out a, what do you call it, sigh of relief when I went home, I mean to the next call or went home, 'cause I couldn't find that place. [Laughs] But my wife said, I remember when I first got the job she said, "What? You? You sell life insurance? Who're you trying to kid, Arnold?" [Laughs] I didn't get much encouragement.

SY: So was it, were you fairly successful from the beginning, or did it take you a while to...

AM: No. I qualified for almost every first level, what do they call it? We have, they award us, the company awards us with, they take us to nice golf courses for free, everything's free, once you step out of the door everything paid for until you come back. Gosh, I can't even think of that. I've only been in the business since '70, but I've forgotten so much. [Laughs] So today there are much nicer ways to approach, find a prospect to talk to, and nowadays we get a name, like, say your niece had a baby or something, right away I'll pull a pencil out and, "What's her name? What's her address?" And then I go knocking on the door.

SY: Wow. You actually would knock on the door of someone who you hadn't spoken to?

AM: If I had the phone I might try to make an appointment. But it's so easy to drop the phone, so we go knocking on the door. [Laughs]

SY: And were these people that gave you these references, were they people that you knew? No.

AM: We'd find out from a person we knew.

SY: Somebody that they knew. And were these people mainly Japanese Americans?

AM: I would say so.

SY: So you, so you really hit on that particular population. And was it in your, the west side area particularly?

AM: No, all over L.A. County.

SY: And you worked specifically for one insurance company.

AM: Yeah.

SY: At first.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<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 &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 24>

SY: But eventually, did you... you told me the story about the JACL, and were you involved in JACL that whole time that you were working in insurance? You had joined the JACL? Or how did you become involved?

AM: I was helping people with JACL medical change over to the other new plan that they had, so in that process I thought I could prospect for life insurance policies. But nobody wanted life insurance policies. [Laughs]

SY: But how did you get involved in the JACL in the first place?

AM: I had a friend in West L.A., George Kanegai, who was, between his wife and him, they were president, the leaders for a number of years, and he asked, he knew that I had just entered the insurance business, so he asked me if I will help. And I did.

SY: Help, help exactly doing what again?

AM: To change the insurance policies, to help them sign up for the new JACL policy.

SY: So did you actually recruit the insurance company, or did you recruit people in JACL to sign up? What was your job?

AM: I helped sign up people who had the prior medical policy, and they were, most of them were JACL members. But no compensation.

SY: You did it for nothing?

AM: Just stamps and telephone calls.

SY: And it became quite big, right?

AM: Yeah.

SY: And you just did it because you thought you could get life insurance customers.

AM: No. We grew big because I gave them super service.

SY: That's nice.

AM: I became, not to brag, but kind of a reputation that "he will help you."

SY: So everyone who called, who was in JACL, wanted medical insurance, would go to you.

AM: Not everybody, but...

SY: A good portion.

AM: We became, yeah. And then the agents who were out for money, they would sell them the money policy and then they would tell them to call me for medical. [Laughs]

SY: Wow. And when did that start? When did you start doing that?

AM: It was, must have been about '70, in the early '70s.

SY: So fairly early on in your insurance career.

AM: [Nods] Because, unknowingly that it was gonna turn out that way, I said, "Hot diggity dog, here's prospective clients out there." But I find out differently, very different.

SY: That's, why was it, do you think, that they wouldn't, they didn't, weren't interested in life insurance? [Laughs]

AM: I don't know.

SY: Because there's a big, it was a pretty big customer base, right?

AM: Yeah.

SY: Wow. So all those years you helped them you didn't, you didn't make money off it.

AM: Maybe I had about five, five cases.

SY: Which is not --

AM: But I helped it to a very large base of medical clients.

SY: That's great.

AM: But when, I forgot when this happened, but Blue Shield wanted agents who have so many clients of their own, so I said, well, how about all these hundreds of people that I signed up for the JACL? They wouldn't say "hoot." I got no credit for that. So I dumped Blue Shield from my potential companies. [Laughs]

SY: That'll show 'em. [Laughs]

<End Segment 24> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 25>

SY: And to change the subject, because I know that right now you're involved in getting this community marker in Venice, so can you talk a little bit about that, what that, what's involved in that?

AM: This Phyllis Hayashibara, a teacher at Venice High School, a student, one of her students brought in, maybe it was the Argonaut, but on the front page there was a picture of that corner that we lined up for in 1942 to go to Manzanar. And right away she knew what it was about, and so she started a committee going and she spread some word that she's looking for certain pieces of paper, like the California Civilian... some paper that they were putting on, putting on the telephone poles and posting things. And a friend of mine called me up and said, "So-and-So is looking for information," so I told him, "Okay, I'll call her and see if she wants to talk to me." And it turned out that I didn't have that piece of paper, but when she found out how old I was when I lined up there she begged me, she didn't beg me, she asked me to come to the meeting. And so I did, and most of them were non-Asian. Most of them were, many of them were people who didn't know such a thing had happened in their back door, and a very conscientious group of members. And I've been going to their meeting about, I don't know if it's over a year or not, but they're very knowledgeable people in the area that we need the knowledge, or how to do certain things that's required for this marker. Not the technical things, because we're looking, we're approaching the technical people now to put up that marker. It's gonna be known as a memorial because we graduated from a marker to a memorial, a larger piece of display. We had a, there was one original meeting quite a few months before October 29th of last year, and I had asked Bruce Kaji if he would be on the panel. It was so embarrassing because there were less than ten people attending. I felt so bad. So when we had this October 29th thing set up, fundraiser, I was on pins and needles because I didn't know how many people to expect, but we had a sellout and we managed to raise ten thousand dollars. And so now we're at the stage where we have a architect helping us, giving us ideas, and now we need an engineer to measure that precisely, where, what size, and we got Councilman Rosendahl to help us.

SY: So this, so the city, Los Angeles, City of Los Angeles owns that property?

AM: No. That corner is an interesting corner because, naturally, the carwash place is owned by, I understand, Mrs. Scherrer or something like that, and her son. She owns that carwash, but the sidewalk and the roadway around it, I think it might be owned, I go to sleep, asleep a lot of time at the meetings, but I think the state, it's a state owned area, but the city has a lot to say too. But we have to dig down, depending on the size on the top of the sidewalk, we have to go so many feet underneath to stabilize the object, the monument. And we, the National Park Service has a, they...

SY: Fund? Is it part of the fund?

AM: Yeah.

SY: The money that --

AM: So we applied for that.

SY: So you've gotten the permission to use that space for this monument.

AM: For the, for the, yeah. They doubled the, whatever we raise, they will double it.

SY: But you've gotten the permission to use the space?

AM: Yeah.

SY: So now it's just a matter of paying, or of building the actual monument. And it's gone from just a marker to something more.

AM: Uh-huh. We, when we, we put in a lot of work to come up with the marker, but when we asked the architect for advice and help he suggested a memorial. And we voted and decided we want a marker, I mean a memorial.

SY: So who are the, so you say the people are mainly non-Japanese who are working on this. And is it just, their interest is really just to preserve the history of, of the Japanese American --

AM: Well, not only that, but they were shocked, really, that, because these people are of such an age that these mandatory subjects in school wasn't there yet, and they didn't know that this had happened. And so they were really upset about what had happened.

SY: And are there other Japanese Americans on this, in this group besides Phyllis and yourself?

AM: Yes. Mae Kageyama Kakehashi and Yosh Tomita -- he was about seven years old when he lined up -- and a few others. Some people came only once or twice.

SY: So, and your, are you one of the few that was actually there in 1942?

AM: Yeah. Well, in the committee, yes.

SY: On the committee, yeah.

AM: Many of them are gone.

SY: So it started a while ago, this committee, before you joined.

AM: Well, some people are quiet Americans. I'm bashful and all that, but I speak out a little bit more than the real quiet ones. I mean, they, my friends, they like to talk among themselves, but when it comes to getting up to talk, that's another story.

SY: And so you're kind of, you have a job of being a little bit of a spokesperson?

AM: Yeah. Well, some of the experiences that I voice, the committee members liked it and they've even taken my quotes and polished it up and... [laughs]

SY: So can you remember what you've said that they've liked, or what you, what...

AM: They liked that part about my dog that I couldn't bring with me. And they liked that part where, when I used to pass by there I'd always point it out to my passengers that this is where we left for camp, and that I would get a gut-wrenching feeling. They like to put the word "visceral" in the, and that's what they published in the newspaper and my wife said, "You can't even pronounce that word." [Laughs]

SY: But I, but you speak, you've gone out speaking on behalf of the marker? Have you done that?

AM: Yeah. I've basically written it out and I read from it because I can't do that anymore.

SY: You can't...

AM: I can't remember my speech.

SY: I see. It's sort of lines like you were when you were acting, then.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 26>

SY: -- this community marker kind of, I mean, the reason that you became involved in this organization, does it, what kind of feelings do you have about camp that led you to really want this marker to be put up?

AM: Well, that's, that's kind of hard for me to put into a few words, but I think it's a terrible thing that happened to us. And although I made a lot of lifetime friends, we meet almost every, since 1994 we've almost met every year, a reunion.

SY: Manzanar Reunion Committee?

AM: Uh-huh.

SY: Is that the big Manzanar reunion?

AM: Some people don't understand what we have to talk about, but there's a, something that keeps us together. And I guess even though it's not a pleasant thought, I would never want to forget about that place. But even though I didn't have the piece of paper that Phyllis wanted, when I met these people and heard them voice their feelings about the black mark on U.S. history, how they felt about it, it just, I felt that I could help them and if they have a question, if I have an answer I'll be happy to tell them about it.

SY: So the feelings that you have about camp, are they things that come up now, or did you feel the same way when you were going through it?

AM: I had some of the feelings there, but a lot of is, like you say, thinking back.

SY: Because in some ways you had a, you had good things happen to you in camp. You were in the music, play, theater, and a lot of people your age, who were your age in camp, kind of say that it was a time of making a lot of friends. Was that feeling something that you had when you were in camp?

AM: Well, when some people talk about it's the best time of their life, it depends on the age of that person. I guess I can't blame them if they, if they were of such an age that all they had to do was play and study a little bit, or like the older people who no longer have to work hard to feed themselves. It may have been easier for them. But just the thought of taking you, a citizen, into a place like that, I think that was a horrible thing to do. And I'm thankful that many key people did what they did, found what they did to bring these things out, the generation that followed us, to get redress and things like that. I mean, that twenty thousand dollars is a drop in a bucket for, they should've awarded us much more. In fact, what's his name, my classmate, William Hohri, according to his calculation we should've gotten about, something like two hundred twenty thousand dollars apiece. But I think that encouraged the government to hurry up and give us twenty thousand instead of having to give us ten times that. So we owe a lot to these people, and we probably, if it was left to us maybe we would never have gotten to what they did for us.

SY: You mean left to the Nisei?

AM: Yeah, the Sanseis, Yonsei.

SY: So your relationship with the people that you knew in Manzanar, it's still, you still have an ongoing relationship with many of those people?

AM: Yeah. In fact, more often than that, some of the people who worked in the hospital, especially the medical stenos, social workers, mostly ladies, they get together every, about quarterly. And some of the, I worked in surgery and next was minor surgery, x-ray, and Kiyoshi, who was my big brother in camp, was an x-ray technician. He comes to that meeting still too.

SY: That's great. So how would you, have you ever thought about it, what your life would be like had you not gone to camp?

AM: I've wondered. I probably would have been able to get into the medical field, but then I'm not so sure about being a doctor now. [Laughs] Too much work. Like my son, he was going to an accelerated medical course and he said, "Who wants to study this hard?" And he dropped out of that subject.

SY: So what do your, are your children, do you, do they ask you about camp? Do they know very much?

AM: Hardly. I think my grandkids ask me more than they do.

SY: And you tell them, I hope.

AM: [Nods] I got to go to my older grandson's class and speak a little bit about camp. My wife said, "Ten minutes, that's the maximum. Can't hold their attention." [Laughs] I found out it was different.

SY: How long did you speak?

AM: I think it was about an hour.

SY: And they were how old?

AM: I'm guessing he must've been in about, I don't know, fifth or sixth grade. Wasn't too old.

SY: That's amazing. Well, I'm so glad you've shared with us, and you have a lot to share. That just goes to show. So thanks, Arnold. I really enjoyed this.

AM: You're... well, thank you for saying that.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.