Densho Digital Archive - Tom Ikkanda Interview (denshovh-itom-01-0006)

<Begin Segment 6>

RP: What do you remember doing for fun growing up besides building models? Did you have other hobbies or activities that kept you busy?

TI: Oh, I guess gun collecting, for one thing.

RP: Really?

TI: Yeah, I collected guns, old antique guns and stuff. And that got to be quite a habit.

RP: Did it?

TI: Yeah.

RP: You started that while you were in high school?

TI: No, after.

RP: Afterward?

TI: Yeah.

RP: So all types of antique guns? I mean, how large a collection did you have?

TI: Oh, I had quite a few. In fact, when the war started, I must have had maybe twenty different types of guns. And I got a visit from the police department right after the war started. And they said, "Let's see all your guns." Because some of them are pistols and are registered in my name. So I said, "What do you want with 'em?" And he said, "We're gonna take 'em away." I said, "Well, you can't, because I'm an American citizen, and you can't take those guns away." So he says, "Well, you're right," and so they left me alone. But a few weeks later, the law changed where even if I was an American citizen, I couldn't own 'em. But in the meantime, I had a feeling something was wrong. I let my friend down the street from me keep 'em for me. And so he kept 'em, and when they came after the law changed, they wanted to see the guns, I says, "I don't have 'em anymore." So they came and looked through the whole house, and by golly, I didn't have any. But my friend John Sprague down the street was keeping them for me. So they couldn't take 'em away from him.

RP: So this law was just directed at Japanese Americans?

TI: Only, yeah, only of Japanese descent.

RP: And you were supposed to turn in any, quote, "contraband"?

TI: Yeah. But after the war, my friend John Sprague gave 'em all back to me.

RP: You got 'em all back.

TI: Yeah, I got 'em back.

RP: After you, after you graduated Santa Monica High --

TI: No.

RP: I'm sorry, University.

TI: Yeah, Uni High.

RP: Uni High, yeah. You went to this mechanics school?

TI: Yeah, Frank Wiggins.

RP: Frank Wiggins School, was it?

TI: Yeah, down in Los Angeles.

RP: And after that, did you go into business as a mechanic, did you start your own business?

TI: Well, I worked for another garage for a couple of years, and then after that I went in business for myself at Pontius and LaGrange. No, no... yeah, LaGrange. Went into business there behind the gas station. And I ran the garage there for a while and made a few dollars. And I decided I'd like to by my own place, so I bought a piece of property on Olympic and Corinth, which I bought for $3500 dollars. And I contacted the Signal Oil and Company, and they approved the money to put the building up and put the pumps in for me. And so I was running that until, oh, December the 7th when war was, I mean, the Japanese bombed --

RP: Pearl Harbor.

TI: -- Pearl Harbor. And then I ran the garage for a few more months, and then when I found out I had to go to camp, why, I had to put it up for a rental to somebody else. So somebody else ran the garage and gas station while I was in the camp.

RP: They did?

TI: And he ran the, he ran the garage for a while, and then gas rationing started, and he couldn't make any money in the gas business. So he told me he had to give it up. Well, naturally, I couldn't pay the Signal Oil and Company a hundred dollars a month, so in the meantime, they took it away from me. So I lost everything, property and all. The property was all paid for, too.

RP: Was it?

TI: Yeah.