<Begin Segment 25>

RP: Kats, can you tell me a little about returning to the United States? You said you had plans to go to college.

KO: Yes.

RP: And somebody had already kind of worked that situation out for you.

KO: Yes.

RP: Tell us about that.

KO: Yes, I got home and I received word shortly after that they wanted, my core room teacher plus this Reverend Kitagawa who became Dean of the Theological School in the University of Chicago, anyway, they had set up a visit for me to Michigan State University. They felt I would fit in good. And Helen Amerman, my core room teacher, had gotten a master's there, and worked for the registrar. So I paid the, they told me which train to get on, what time to get there. Two professors met me, Dr. Olson and Dr. Hansen, and I stayed with, I think, Dr. Olson that night. They had a little dinner for me. Next day they taken on a complete campus tour. Imagine being that important that you have two professors taking you around. When I got through, I was so impressed. It was a beautiful campus. It's all farmland, walk two, three miles, beautiful, all grass. So I was thinking about going to school in Chicago. But I consented, and he said, "Good," he says, "I think you're pre-registered." [Laughs] So that's how I went to Michigan State University, and I had four wonderful years there. Interesting thing I had there was one of my co-students, you could say, was a junior, was the former governor of Hawaii, George Ariyoshi. I got to know him well in two years. But it was tough. I had a hard time in high school because of the poor education I got in camp. You know, you're competing against guys that had good high school training and I suffered more in the chemistry and the physics part, the math. Somehow I worked my way through that and managed to graduate.

RP: And what did you go on to do after that?

KO: Well, I had more or less a food science degree they called it. Food sciences. I was hired by a big frozen food and canner of vegetables in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It used to be big, it still is kind of big, fresh-like vegetables. And they hired me to work on their frozen vegetables. They have any frozen, they didn't know how to do it. So the vice president and technical man came and interviewed me and I had some background in frozen foods, so he hired me. I worked up there developing things, I set up their bacteriological laboratories and things. Worked hard, did the troubleshooting when they had spoilage, you know, when you get organisms that spoil. I worked hard, but Green Bay, Wisconsin, is not a tolerant town. I remember a black army sergeant the last year I was there trying to move into town, they wouldn't give him a place to live. You'd be shocked, the atmosphere up there. Now, there are some Japanese doctors and things, but before that, that's why the football players never stayed there the whole winter. They came in, played football and left. I found out what prejudice in a small, conservative town is.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2007 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.