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RP: Frank shared with us, and I want you to share with us, the experience of moving to Carbondale, Illinois. You've got to tell it the way you told it to me on the phone, Gladys, that was such a great story. But how, being the first Japanese American, maybe the first Asians in that community, how were you, what were your perspectives on that experience?

GK: Well, I'll tell you, it was very, you know, Carbondale, Illinois, is just sixty miles north of Paducah, Kentucky, and a hundred miles south of St. Louis, so it's down in that Illinois thing. And it's essentially a coal mining area with a university. The only other industrial thing was a glove factory. So when we were there, we were such a novelty that when we first moved there, we went to a neighboring town called Murphysboro, and I was going to sew some curtains, so we went to the store. And there was this woman and another person pushing a stroller. And as we came out of the store, they were looking at us and they just kept turning their head until they pushed that stroller right into this lightpost. I mean, they just they were not... that was the funniest thing. And then, that was right after we got there, and we ate at a cafeteria, and I think most of us had fried chicken. And everybody in that restaurant were just looking at us. And we finally said, "Maybe we're not supposed to pick up the chicken and eat it, maybe we're supposed to cut it with our fork and knife or whatever, you know."

But I do have to tell you, though, my, we still, I tried to carry on the Japanese custom of having the rice bowl and the chopstick and everything. Well, our son at the time had a lot of friends that they played baseball, and they used to play around in our yard, and he would -- excuse me -- bring his friends in. And before he brought 'em in, if I had the table set, he'd run in and pick up the rice bowls and the chopsticks and put 'em away. He didn't want them to see that we were eating with chopsticks and rice bowl. So that was always kind of interesting. Oh, and my mother-in-law, when we'd come out to visit them in Fort Lupton, this is... and there weren't that many Asian stores at all.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.