<Begin Segment 11>

RP: So, where did you leave for college? Did you catch the train from Delta? When you, when you left to go to college in Indiana?

MK: I lived in the dormitory.

RP: Oh I...

MK: No, I'm sorry.

RP: How did you travel to Indiana?

MK: Oh, by train. I don't know who paid my train fare, I really don't know. But we had to take one train to Chicago and then we took a train from Chicago to Scottsburg, Indiana and the president's two daughters drove all the way over there -- it was like an hour's drive -- to pick us up. And that first year, because my sister was not there, there was always somebody who was kind enough to say, "Come spend the vacation with me." And I would go to people's homes, like Christmas and spring break and things like that. And then by the time June rolled around my sister was there so then I went to Chicago whenever we had vacation. But you know, it was... some people, I say some people, we had just a handful of men there because it was during wartime. And like our graduating class only had thirty-two people and maybe half a dozen male students. But it was a small enough place that we would call a cab and we would go into the Madison, town of Madison that was right next door. And we would go to the movies, maybe eat out, things like that. But the campus itself was really nice. And there were lots of places we could hike down to the Ohio River. Sundays we had dinner at noon and then we packed sandwiches and things for our supper. And we would just go hiking. And they kept up the campus really nice. And it isn't like we had to just sit in the dorm 'cause there was no place to go. And then we would go visit the, well, we went to the Presbyterian church in Hanover. So, and I was in the choir for a little while, not very long. But I had to work in the kitchen and I worked on serving the tables and things like that.

RP: And you spent four years...

MK: I spent four years there.

RP: ... at, at the college?

MK: Yeah.

RP: And what did you gain from that experience?

MK: Well, I majored in science. Maybe I should have majored in something else. But because coming back to San Francisco, they couldn't help me look for a job. And the best he could do for me was just to give me the names and addresses of the big companies and things like that. And I tried out for civil service and what have you and I really... teaching might have been a better field to go into. Because I think I could have gotten a teaching job easier. But...

RP: Biology was what you majored in there?

MK: I majored in biology, yeah. I liked it.

RP: And so this was the first time that you were...

MK: You know, yeah, but you know I got a B.A. so that doesn't really qualify you for much unless you excelled say like in math or something like this. Then you can always get a job that way. But because I know that there was a friend who, she went to college for two years and then she went to teach in a grammar school in Indiana. And I thought, gee, you only need two years to teach in a grammar school? And I thought, oh, I think maybe, maybe I majored the wrong way. But you know when you got a bachelor of arts you have all of these requirement courses you have to take and it doesn't really train you for anything. But so be it.

RP: That was the, that was the first time you were on your own, too.

MK: Yeah.

RP: How did that feel?

MK: The first year was hard. And after that it was all right. But you figured though... see, there was no family structure in camp. Because my mother and father worked in the mess hall, we didn't see them all day long. We just went to school and did our activities and the only time we're together... we didn't eat together. We didn't do anything together. And I think that destroyed the family structure for us, for a lot of the Japanese families. Because then as we finished high school we all went our separate ways. A lot of the fellows were drafted and what have you and then we scattered all over the U.S. because we're lucky enough to get the grants for college. So I had friends who were in school here and there and every place and we tried to keep in touch with each other but it gets hard after a while. But I still have some of those friends yet. Yeah.

RP: You had one occasion where you had to go back to Topaz.

MK: My father had a ruptured appendix. And we were kind of angry about that because he went in and it was not ruptured and one doctor said he can wait until morning. One doctor said no, he should be operated on right now. Well, the other doctor was the chief surgeon so they waited until morning and it ruptured. But a very good friend of my sister's was also a nurse at the hospital, and she took very good care of him. 'Cause you know, a ruptured appendix, everything spreads all over the place. And so he had to take it easy for six months. And by that time he was already in his... gee, that was about my second year of college, so it was either '44 or '45 so you figure he was in his sixties when it happened. I think what helped him was that he had never been sick in his life, and he was able to pull through it. Plus, all the good care he got from our friend. 'Cause some people die from it. It just bursts and spreads all over. But we're a hardy race to begin with.

RP: So you, you came back to San Francisco in...

MK: I came back after college.

RP: After college and your...

MK: I spent oh, most of that summer, because my father was convalescing and my sister couldn't leave her nursing job in Chicago. So, and she was worried that maybe he might over do it and try to go back to work too soon and all that kind of stuff. But I, you had the roof over your head. You got the three meals a day anyway, whether you were working or not. And it's just that eight dollars, that salary wasn't there.

RP: So you were there almost the whole summer?

MK: Most of the summer.

RP: What did you do...

MK: I went back to school.

RP: What did you do with your time?

MK: Oh no, I just sat around and ...

RP: Watched.

MK: ...made sure he didn't do anything.

RP: Okay.

MK: And then tried to do whatever, help my mother. Because we had no washing machines. It was all hand washing. And then you had to iron in those days. Keep your own place clean. If the dust came up you just had to sit it out and then clean up after the dust and things like that. Yeah.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.