<Begin Segment 14>

TI: So eventually you graduated, you finished Washington University.

YM: Uh-huh, graduated in 1944.

TI: And what was your degree at that point?

YM: Bachelor of Science.

TI: So a B.S. in...

YM: Mechanical engineering, B.S.M.E., yeah.

TI: And I'm curious, your classmates, generally what kind of jobs would they look forward to, graduating with a mechanical engineering degree?

YM: Well, I think they were trying to find jobs in their field of study. I was looking for a job in engineering. I went to Detroit after graduation because my sister and her husband had just, they arrived in Detroit from Poston. And he got a job there, so I went there and I was on my way to the East Coast to join Alice. But then I felt I needed a job, so I took a job with the City of Detroit, the Advance Plan Division of the engineering department. And I worked there for a few months until I was drafted.

TI: Okay, so let me recap that. So you graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, you go to Detroit because your sister's there with her husband, and while you're there, you apply for a job to work for the city of Detroit. And you get a job, and then after a couple months, you're drafted into the army.

YM: Uh-huh.

TI: Okay, so after only working a couple of -- well, even in those couple of months, tell me what it was like working for the city of Detroit? What was that like?

YM: Well, it was, you know, kind of a beginner's job, so it was more or less on the drafting board working on pumping stations and things like that.

TI: And how would you say people accepted Japanese Americans in Detroit? Was that a good place to be?

YM: Well, we were accepted, except there was a problem. As I recall, we were looking for a house, and it was kind of difficult to find housing at that time. I don't know whether it was because of discrimination against Japanese or what, but anyway, we ended up in, I would say, more or less, substandard housing. Maybe that was all that was available at the time, I don't know. My brother-in-law did most of the work hunting down homes for us.

TI: Now, was Detroit booming at this point in terms of...

YM: Very much, oh, yes. Wartime, the automobile industry was turning out tanks and aircraft and things like that. Yeah, it was a lot of work.

TI: Now, at that point, were some of those war jobs closed off to you? Could you have worked in a tank factory, things like that?

YM: No, I didn't experience anything like that. I just, I don't think I applied to too many places. I remember, while in Chicago, I applied at the Chicago Pump Company, but they weren't offering me enough of a wage, so I decided I'd move on from that. But Detroit was paying a pretty decent wage, so I decided to take that job.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.