<Begin Segment 13>

KL: How did you get away from Manzanar? Would you tell us about leaving and where you went?

UN: That's what I said. My father said that he's gonna help me. And we put fifty dollars together, and we ate, going to Chicago, we bought, Hershey bars used to cost, you know, twenty-five cents. So we would, every time you'd get hungry, we just ate a bar, little tiny bar of Hershey's until our stomach started growling, you know. And we went that way to Chicago, it took like two and a half days. And then we went to Milwaukee, and we had bulk of that twenty-five, I mean, fifty dollars yet. And right away I went out and I got a job for buffing tires. Now, you know, that's about the worst kind of job you could have. And after six months of this, I saved enough money to go to college. And I went to college, and for the next, like, three or four months, I was spitting out rubber out of my lungs. But we all did things like that. And we lived in a hotel so cheap that in the morning, we'll see blood on the sheets, and there would be bedbugs. But we did it. You have to. You have to just do something like that to get ahead.

Off camera: What did your father do?

UN: He got a job in the tire recapping factory, and he started recapping tires.

KL: That was in Milwaukee?

UN: In Milwaukee. And later on, the owner of the tire recapping factory came down to talk to us. And Mr. Stanzel said that he was from Germany, and during World War I, that the U.S. government only allowed us to, within four blocks, that they could roam around in four blocks. They couldn't go out of that four blocks. And so he knows how we feel. And he, like Thanksgiving, he would have this great big box, in that box would be a turkey, a brick of cheese, you know, and he would give it to all the Japanese American people. And he tried to give us, he trained us, and we were able to work in this factory. And after we got our degree and whatnot, Mr. Stanzel came to Los Angeles and we threw a great big party for him to thank him. And even after we came to L.A., he would ship us great big package for Christmas, you know, smoked ham from Milwaukee, and several bricks of cheese. [Laughs]

KL: I'm so glad you stayed for this area, because that's another really just wonderful thing to know about, that friendship that you formed because of the shared experience.

UN: We had people that, like Mr. Stanzel, that really helped us.

KL: How was his name spelled, do you know?

UN: No.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.