<Begin Segment 16>

MA: So we're back from the break, and I wanted to talk with you about your experience in college, the University of Utah. So did you, at that point you were pretty clear that you were going to study art, is that right?

TN: Uh-huh. In fact, I received a scholarship for that.

MA: To, for art?

TN: For art.

MA: What was your specialty that you ended up gravitating towards?

TN: Well, they called it commercial art in those days, but it's known as graphic design now. But that was in 1959, I believe, that I received my BFA, and then I went back a year later and received a graduate degree. And I was told at the time that was the first, I was the first student to receive a graduate degree in commercial art.

MA: It's interesting, I was gonna say it seemed like it's a new, it would have been a new field at that point.

TN: Well, yeah. Well, it wasn't new, but I guess getting a graduate degree was new, yeah.

MA: You mentioned to me earlier that you left for a while to go, and you moved to California?

TN: Uh-huh.

MA: When, at what point did you do that?

TN: That was right after I graduated.

MA: From high school, or college?

TN: No, from college. Well, actually before I graduated I did go to college, I mean, to California as a, you know, a nineteen year old, just looking for fun, and I actually worked in an art job during that time. And I could see that I wouldn't get very far unless I did have a college degree, so I lost a year and a half or so just playing around, and then I came back to Salt Lake and finished my degree. But I the meantime, I had gotten married. So even after I graduated, I left my family here, 'cause I wanted to see what it was like working in California.

MA: Where did you go in California?

TN: To Los Angeles.

MA: What were your impressions of Los Angeles?

TN: You know, I kept saying to myself, "This, this is a great place to work, but it's no place to raise a family. And you know how traffic and smog, and I remember one year, the heat was like 108 degrees with torrid humidity, and the traffic, I mean, every day I went to work was like risking my life. So I said, "No, this is not for me," so after a year I came back and I worked a little bit for somebody else, and then started my own business, Ted Nagata Graphic Design, Inc.

MA: And what year did you start your business?

TN: 1962. And I operated that for forty-one years, and I had some good success at it, never had any problems getting work.

MA: Yeah, I was gonna ask, as a Japanese American, did you ever feel -- especially as a business owner -- like, was there ever any resistance to you or any bad experiences?

TN: Isolated cases, but by and large, I think being Japanese, people have this image that, "Oh, the Japanese people are very artistic," so it worked to my advantage in most cases. But, of course, you had to do good work or that wouldn't last long. And like I say, for forty-one years it was a good business. And my, oh, I have to say my wife put me through college, I mean, she was, she had gone to the university for a short time, and then we got married and she knew I had to keep going to school. And so she gave up her college career so she could work and let me go to school. And after I got out, then we started to have children, and she raised the family. And so I'll always be grateful to her for that.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.