<Begin Segment 26>

RP: And did you go, did you find work pretty soon after you came back?

KN: Yeah. I took a state test. After I came back to California I went to work for Department of Motor Vehicles.

RP: You got your old job back?

KN: Not exactly. And after that I worked for a driver's license department until I quit. I mean, at least I had a job.

RP: How long did you work for them?

KN: I don't know, a few years. I think all together about five years I worked for motor vehicles and then driver's license bureau I think.

RP: Was there any effort made to... you were laid off from your job before, just after the war started.

KN: No, I quit. 'Cause I knew we were gonna go to camp so I didn't get fired, I just quit.

RP: You quit. Okay. 'Cause some, some state employees were fired.

KN: Oh yeah.

RP: And later on...

KN: Were laid off. They were laid off 'cause you know --

RP: Right.

KN: -- we have to go to camp.

RP: I think there was an effort later on to receive some type of compensation for that.

KN: I don't know.

RP: For that... you never got any compensation.

KN: They never, they never gave us anything.

RP: Uh-huh.

KN: 'Cause we just voluntarily quit and went into camp.

RP: Okay. All right. And how, how has the Florin community changed over, since the time that you were there growing up? And what is it like now? Are there still farmers out there? Any Japanese Americans?

KN: I don't know. After we went into camp they got, the place just got lost I guess. There was no Japanese in Florin. And we all had to go to camp so I don't know. Maybe the hakujin took over that, I don't know, 'cause we weren't here then.

Off Camera: I think a remarkable number of people did come back. But of course the makeup of the town would never be the same. But a lot of people came back to the areas where they grew up but they all didn't come back at the same time. But they were still, they're still a lot of people who came back to restart their lives. But not, it would never be the same. Because it was probably twenty-five-hundred people, five hundred families. It would never be that again, but there were probably two-thirds of the community were Japanese American. But it would never be that again. But a surprising number of people did come back to Florin, and restart their lives. Because I grew up with their families. They all managed to come back. They all have camp experiences but they did come back to the area.

RP: Okay.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.