Densho Digital Archive - Shig Kaseguma Interview (denshovh-kshig-01-0025)

<Begin Segment 25>

RP: So you returned eventually from military life to Seattle?

SK: Yeah, I was discharged in Seattle, well, in Tacoma, Fort Lewis. Because I wanted to see if I could get back to school. Then I asked them to transfer, I mean, ship me back to Wisconsin to see my folks. So that's how I went back to there. Because school didn't start 'til June, well, September. And I went back to there and I met my future wife again. I corresponded with her, she lived in Portland, she was in Portland. I called her and I said, "But I can't see you, because I got to go to... they won't let me go to Portland." She says, "Can I come?" And oh, I said, "Don't do that. You have to take a train and all that. Forget it." She says, "God, you made me mad when you said to forget it." Well, I guess so, after all those years.

RP: And she was in Minidoka, too?

SK: Yeah. That's where I met her.

RP: You met her originally?

SK: Yeah, she was from Portland

RP: You met her the first time you were in camp, or when you came back for six months?

SK: Yeah, the first time I came back, we didn't meet. That's why she was ticked off about, because I told her don't bother coming, because I'm gonna be shipped out tomorrow. So she thought the least you could have said well, can I come in, see you. But, so from there, then I came back -- I went to see my sister in Chicago, and then I came back to Seattle. I went back to school again.

RP: Completed your education?

SK: The irony of going to school, my job was, first job I got, was the Japanese, it's called the Japanese Overseas Agency. (...) It became the consul. But they couldn't call it the consul because they weren't in the position to say they were a consul, because it was after the war and surrender and all that. But there was a Japanese, instead of calling it a consul, it was the Overseas Agency. And they were trying to encourage people to invest or do business with Japan. And that was my first job, to work for that company. I worked for the Japanese people.

RP: In what capacity?

SK: As a secretary like. The English part, I would take care of, if some English firm wanted to do business with Japan, they would contact me, and I would tell them who to see or what to do, or how to do it. And I did that for about a year and a half, two years. And my uncle -- not my, my godfather, was at, started a furniture store. He used to do that before the war. He used to be a carpet cleaner, then he became a furniture store. He wanted me to take over when he got old, to take over the store. So he wanted me to, they were family friends, so he wanted me to go work for him. And I didn't want to go, because I knew... the furniture, I don't know nothing about furniture business. Why would I want to be a furniture dealer in a retail place? But he insisted I go, because that was my duty to go, because we're friends, family friends. I said okay. So that started my journey as a furniture man. I did it for thirty-four years, until I retired. So that was my basic life, right there. But, when I was with the Overseas Agency, I was still there when we became a consul. So they sent a regular Consul General, a consul there, and it was long enough there that it became a Consul General, which is a major consul. Seattle became a major consul. So I said, "Well, maybe I did my job." [Laughs] So he said, "Well, I hate to see you leave, but it seems like you have to leave." I said, "Yeah, that's true." I have to leave, so I left. In a sense, I thought, oh well.