Densho Digital Archive - Fred Korematsu Interview (denshovh-kfred-01-0008)

<Begin Segment 8>

Q: Fred, could you tell us how your conviction has affected your life?

FK: When I first came back to California after this was over, the evacuation was over, and a chance to get back into California, I worked with my brother in real estate. And I wanted to be a real estate broker like he was. Well, in the application, they stated if I had a prison record, and therefore I knew it was useless to apply for... I knew they would turn me down. Also for either any civil or state or federal job application has the same thing, so therefore I knew I couldn't get a job in those places. And also, I was going to go into a big firm like Bectal which has retirement benefits and so forth, and good profit sharing, that could help me out in retirement, so forth, but they also in their application ask you if you have any criminal record. And also any jury duty. I was called for jury duty, but they all, in their form, they asked me if I had any criminal record or prison record, and I stated "yes," and I never heard from them. So I knew it was useless for me to try to apply for a job that had any question regarding if I had a criminal record. So therefore, I could not get any job that would give me some retirement benefits. So I've been working with small companies that didn't have any retirement benefits to it. So it sort of affected me, and I know quite a few of my friends are already retired, because they worked in a company with good retirement benefits. And that sort of affected my life. I'm still working, trying to work.

[Interruption]

Q: Could you tell us when you were recognized, or how you were recognized at city hall after your arrest?

FK: Well, the officer was questioning me, and then there was a girl in the office there, back in the distance there, and she was talking to an officer there and pointing toward me, I saw her. And then that officer came over to talk to the officer that was questioning me, and then he turned around and told me that the girl in the office recognized me and knew my family. And therefore I decided to admit that I was Japanese. And they all got excited they had a Japanese, and I was eventually put into jail. I was fingerprinted and so forth, the normal procedure of a criminal. Formality, I guess, and then I was put in prison, in jail.

[Interruption]

FK: At that time that they... at the jail there, the federal jail, they were also taking how I got caught and so forth. And I just happened to mention about -- I don't know why I mentioned about the plastic surgery, but Mr. Besig said, "You didn't have to say that because it's not what we're interested in," what I did. "So you didn't have to say that," and gee, I almost bit my tongue, 'cause I wish I never did say that, because it came out.

[Interruption]

Q: Fred, could you tell us a little bit about your plastic surgery? What you were feeling, why you decided to have it done at that time?

FK: Well, at that time, when my girlfriend and I were thinking of all kinds of ways of staying there until we had a position where we can leave without being recognized and so forth, that was during, after the evacuation. And she happened to pull out the newspaper magazine section regarding plastic surgery. And she says, "What do you think of this?" And I looked it over, and, well, I didn't think it was a good idea, but she says that was one alternative, 'cause she couldn't leave at that time, too.