<Begin Segment 32>

TI: Okay, so Louie, we're going to start the third segment. And where we left off was we were in Granada, you had just arrived, and so I guess the first question is, when people got to Granada, they quickly were given jobs. And I wanted to first talk about your parents and ask, what kind of jobs did your mother and father get in Granada?

LW: Well, see, what happened that time, the camp people said, "Whoever in the restaurant business like to work in the food business there," so my father got one block, and my mother got, they kind of keep it separate, I don't know why, they didn't work together.

TI: Maybe because they just needed, they didn't have enough, and so they probably spread them out?

LW: Yeah. All those people that know about the restaurant and cooking business, they're all working the cafeteria like that.

TI: And when your, say, mother and father are working in the mess hall, do you recall what kind of hours they had to work? Was it early in the morning?

LW: Yeah, well, they run breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I guess they get break in between, but he was there breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

TI: So it was long hours, hard work.

LW: Well, long hours, but I think they got enough help, and they're kind of a supervisor, see. And that's in the camp there, I used to wash dishes, so we used to wash... so we earned some money.

TI: Well, so, yeah, that's the next question. So you and your brothers, I mean, did you guys have jobs also?

LW: Yeah, everybody had some kind of job, because you got to have money for, to spend. No income unless, you got to work. So everybody was working in camp, or something to do, so you have no problem. Only thing, you don't get paid much. You know, twelve dollars a month, what can you do?

TI: And so your job was working in the mess hall washing dishes?

LW: Mess hall washing dishes, yeah.

TI: And what about your older brothers? What jobs do they have?

LW: George was... Jesus, I can't recall what he was doing. But I know he was working something. I don't recall.

TI: And how about school? Did you attend school?

LW: Yeah, I went to high school there, Amache High School there. But my two brothers was out of school already, he graduated. That year, when he got, left camp, he was a senior, the second one, James was the second one.

TI: And James was the, sort of the studious one.

LW: Yeah. So his ambitions was, he wanted to go to college, be a professional, but that went to, shot.

TI: So he was never able to go to college?

LW: No. Because after camp, then he got married too young, then he had a kid right away. So he had to be the bread and butter. So no way. Then he came to Sacramento, he applied for police, police job. But at that time, they didn't hire Asians. Asian, Japanese policeman, there's no way Japanese policeman. So they had to, kind of, you gotta have, be six feet or whatever height, and so much weight, and everything like that, so he didn't qualify. Because now, they take anything. So that was the excuse that he didn't get the job. Because he took the test, he passed it, but the other part... so they went to work for the government, post office, mailman, that's where he ended up.

TI: Okay, so that was James, and then let's talk a little bit about George, your oldest brother. So, first, what kind of things did he do in camp? Did he have a job?

LW: Well, from the camp, I went out, then he got drafted. Then after that, I lost track of him. Because from the camp, he went to Japan, occupation. I think he stayed there two years. Then when my father died, he had to come back for the service. See, he had a girlfriend, they were going pretty strong, I heard. This I heard, they were going to get married there, see. My parents was kind of opposed because he didn't want to get married to a Japanese girl over there.

TI: So George, by going to Japan, I'm assuming that he was sort of trained in the Military Intelligence Language School and then went to Japan with the occupation to help during that time?

LW: Yeah, because he could speak the language, so it's a lot easier. Funny part of it, see, he didn't drink or he didn't smoke, so the cigarette and liquor was hard to get, it's all black market, so he made money on that.

TI: Oh, so he would get his cigarettes and alcohol, and then sell it --

LW: Yeah, with that money, he's not using himself, he'd sell at the black market. So he had it pretty good. That's what I heard, he had a pretty good thing going. So if he'd have stayed there, maybe he could have made money there. [Laughs]

<End Segment 32> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.