<Begin Segment 9>

RP: So when you got back home, what was the situation like with your father? Was he able to return to his railroad work? Or did he stay retired?

KY: No, he was so close to retirement, they offered him a position but he says he would retire, he was so close. It was either he could retire or take this job. And he says, since the family had bought the farms, and he was kind of enjoying that retirement anyway, he says he would retire. Fortunately, he became friends with a lawyer during the war and the lawyer arranged for him to get his retirement. Since it was thirty-five years, he was able to get full retirement. The lawyer I think was able to arrange that somehow.

RP: So Southern Pacific wasn't going to give him a retirement originally and he had to go seek legal help?

KY: Yeah, they kind of offered retirement or that job since he had thirty-five years. They said you can retire with that.

RP: Did he ever get compensated for the, you know, for being basically fired from his job for the time that he was off until he officially retired?

KY: No, there was no compensation for that.

RP: Did he or the family pursue legal action to sort of reinstate him? You know, the fact that you never really knew why he was removed?

KY: No, I think dad was one of these, "Why agitate it?"

RP: He didn't want to force the issue.

KY: Yeah, he got his retirement.

RP: And he was happy.

KY: Yeah, he was satisfied. In fact he said he enjoyed being a farmer, a retired farmer.

RP: How about now your other brother who was removed from his job, you told me that he was very angry? What did he do with that anger?

KY: He didn't... I guess he worked for a while with my brother then he went to work at the coat factory. But when I came home he was working on the farm and that's when we decided we would buy a farm together. I had through my black market deals in Europe I was able to save a little bit of money and that made the down payment on the farm. When they started it, the redress thing, somehow he received some paperwork about his job, being fired from his job, and there was compensation like the redress for being dismissed from his job. Saito would know who he corresponded with somebody in Los Angeles and anyway he got his redress before the rest of us got any redress.

RP: Do you know how much he received?

KY: 20,000.

RP: 20,000.

KY: Yeah, he got that much but he was still ticked off because he didn't have a job. And he kind of wanted to continue as a machinist. But he couldn't get into a trade school. I don't know that he tried but he was just mad because he lost his job.

RP: Did the rest of your family receive any compensation for having to move away from your original home? You were basically relocated.

KY: Yes, well, my sister that lives in Southern California had friend that's in Los Angeles and they started talking about getting... doing something for the railroad people. And so this gal from Los Angeles started saying we need to put together information to support the redress issue. And so I went to the public library and got congressional records to prove that the railroads were considered a defense industry and therefore they kicked us off of the railroad and that's what it essentially said that in the congressional record, that the railroads were defense industry and to remove all "enemy aliens," that's what they called them. All "enemy aliens" were to be removed. And it's kind of the proof there. And so I sent these congressional records, photo copies to these people in Los Angeles and they said it was very helpful to get the law, the proof that the railroads were taken over because they said that the railroads were not taken over. It was because of the Southern Pacific, that's what everybody, the FBI or somebody was saying. But it was because of the government order.

RP: So your research helped the case.

KY: Support that. I guess, I don't know. But anyway, this gal in Los Angeles says, yeah, that was very helpful to get that information. Anybody could have got it I think but they just had to know where to look. Anyway I farmed with my brother for several years, seven years, decided one day I was going to go to school and so I did, I ended up at the University of Utah. I saw that the amount of acreage we had was not enough, may not be enough to support him and me. Maybe as single people we would but I expected to get married, I didn't know about him. But anyway I told him that since you have been running the farm being older than me, he'd been running the farm, "Why don't you continue running it?" I'm going to go to school if I need help, I'll yell help. And he says, "Okay," so I went to school and he continued farming. And that was in 1953, I started college, ten years after I graduated from high school.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.