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RP: Like you were sharing earlier, some of those animosities and historic prejudices. Did you experience any of that personally when you came back?

SK: No. By then, we didn't experience... well, if it was there, it wasn't on the surface, I mean, it didn't come out at us. It might have been subtle type. It wasn't the type that they would be calling you "Japs" or something like that, no. We didn't experience that. Maybe the grownups did, but we sure didn't.

RP: Did Uncle Sam eventually catch up with you?

SK: Well, Uncle Sam never did catch up with me. What I did was after I was working at McClelland's in an apprenticeship thing, I just volunteered for three years of military service. But that was a real good experience, too. They put me through electronics school, then I got to go to Germany or Europe and came back and finished my apprenticeship at McClelland Air Force base and worked there for thirty-six and a half years counting military time.

RP: What was your primary position?

SK: Well, the primary when I first started was in electronic repair, but we did all the repair work for all, what they call the landing approach systems for the aircraft, the ILS, the TCA, the Taquan, well, like the Taquan was the equipment that aircraft uses to fly from point A to Point B and they keep going, and they can get across the United States. They may have something a little bit different, but that's what they primarily used. And then the GCA was a radar pinpoint landing system, and the ILS is something they still use. But anyway, I worked twenty years on the bench, and then after that I came in the quality section and finished out my career there, in the quality section. It was a good career. I was able to retire with a good pension and didn't have to wait until I was sixty-five. [Laughs] I got to retire when I was pretty young.

RP: What was resettlement like for the rest of your sisters?

SK: You know, I think they didn't... I was kind of an outside type of person, but my sisters are real open and easygoing. They make friends right away, so when we came back, they went into the Buddhist Church area, and the basketball athletic type of thing. So they made friends right away.

RP: Sports was a way to...

SK: Right, they didn't have any problems with boys or anything else, all the sisters. It was easy for them. [Laughs]

<End Segment 30> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.