<Begin Segment 7>

RM: So let's, I guess, return to the U.S.

MS: Am I rambling?

RM: No, this is so wonderful. I'm absolutely entranced by what you're saying. You're transporting me to an era...

MS: I haven't entranced anybody for a long time.

RM: [Laughs] Well, today's your lucky day.

MS: I guess so.

RM: Let's go back to the West Coast of the U.S. and talk about when somebody came from Manzanar to recruit you. How did that come about?

MS: Well, he was just there to recruit. And a girlfriend and I were looking for jobs, for teaching jobs. We had, the week before as I remember we had gone to San Diego and interviewed around. I wish I could remember his name, but anyway...

RM: It was Melvin Strong.

MS: No, no, that wasn't it, because that name doesn't ring a bell. It was a tall, tall lanky guy, very nice. He was married, and I think he had a child or two. And he wrote me a letter once when he was in the service. He went in as an officer, and I remember receiving a letter once from him, but I never... you know, it was wartime and things were going on, and I can't remember. But he was so nice, and his wife, too, although I don't remember much about her. But I have thought about him through the years, because I used to ride -- you'd think I'd remember his name -- but I used to ride back and forth. But, see, early on he was called into the service maybe after six months or so.

RM: Oh, wow.

MS: Six months or a year or so.

RM: And could you tell me a couple of dates, when did you graduate with your teaching credential?

MS: Well, I received my teaching credential in June of '42, the same time as I got my master's, and my master's was in Latin.

RM: And I have a few more questions about your recruitment, but first I wanted to ask about if you remember the Japanese Americans being removed from this...

MS: Yes, because they were taken, the ones from around this area, a lot of them were taken to Santa Anita, and we knew that. We knew the racetrack, Santa Anita, even though I lived in Hollywood, Santa Anita was that distance away. We knew the racetrack, and it didn't seem right that they... it did not seem right that they were given no time whatsoever to dispose of every... it was terrible. And anybody that I knew felt it was terrible, but a war was going on, there were more important things to worry about, like rationing.

RM: Do you remember seeing evidence of families leaving the Hollywood area at that time?

MS: No, I don't. Because I don't know of too many families living in the Hollywood area. I think most of them were in agriculture, you know, maybe a few families around. There weren't a lot that encountered them, but I don't know of any segment of Hollywood that was Japanese, I think they were just kind of scattered.

RM: Well, so then let's return to, this guy comes down and interviews you. Can you tell me what that conversation was like? Had you heard of Manzanar before?

MS: No.

RM: So what did he say to you?

MS: I don't remember. I was just looking for a job. And then I thought, well, I know the Japanese, I like them, I've been to Japan, I'm a teacher. And they were setting up a new school, and they set up a good school system. It wasn't one of these token things just to say, oh, we have a school, and let the kids go there and whatever. It was college preparatory, they were teaching Latin. They don't teach Latin in, if it isn't college preparatory. So I was looking for a job, and it was a good job, I knew... and I felt it was challenging, because I did know the Japanese, I had been to Japan. And so when they offered me the job, I thought, "That's great." The only thing is I'd never been away from home. I was an only child, never been away from home.

RM: Yeah. What was that like?

MS: Well, I don't know. I can't remember it being all that traumatic, it wasn't all that far, 350 miles or whatever. Of course, you couldn't get home every weekend, but that didn't matter.

RM: What about... you said you were looking for different jobs. Do you remember how the wages at Manzanar compared to other teaching jobs at the time?

MS: I don't.

RM: Okay. I've always wondered if they were higher or lower.

MS: I don't know. I don't know, we were talking about wages at the table the other night, like during the war. My first job when I was still in high school working at Woolworth's was twenty-five cents an hour. Okay, that was in 1937, '36 and '37. And I think my salary at Manzanar -- I could be wrong, though -- I think it was around two thousand a year.

RM: I think that's right. I have a paper with it on, in here in this folder.

MS: And that was quite adequate because at Manzanar you got your meals.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.