Densho Digital Archive - Tommy T. Kushi Interview (denshovh-ktommy-01-0018)

<Begin Segment 18>

RP: Your timing in leaving Tule Lake was pretty fortunate because just a couple of months later, it became a segregation center.

TK: We didn't know it, we didn't hear anything about it. And then when I was in Chicago, this YMCA lady, she said, "Hey, Tom," says, "you know in your camp, you're gonna have segregation." I said, "Really?" I didn't know. So she showed me the article. She was real nice, and she showed me all these article about it. I said, "Oh, for pete's sake."

RP: "I got out of there just in time." So you go to work for this large hotel, was it the, what was it called again?

TK: Hotel Sherman.

RP: The Hotel Sherman. And you didn't last very long there.

TK: No, 'cause I was washing dishes, and there was a steward. Well, I don't know what steward does. He's in charge of something. He pulled me over and says -- he was a Japanese guy -- he says, "Hey, you don't want to wash dishes all your life." He said, "Go to this outfit. They're hiring a lot of Nisei like you guys, and they'll hire you. Go over there." So I went over there, said, "When can you start?" And I looked around, and man, there was a whole bunch of 'em. Then we found out that that summer, it was in the summertime, lot of, summertime you had all these kids from high school. Out of eight hundred in the whole plant, about four hundred were Japanese. They were hiring all the Japanese.

RP: Out of camp?

TK: Said, "If you know any Japanese, send 'em over." And they started off, started us off with five cents an hour more than anybody else. You know, I think you started out with fifty cents an hour, but they gave us fifty-five cents an hour.

RP: And what was the name of the company and what was --

TK: A.C. McClurg & Company.

RP: And what --

TK: Wholesale. Wholesale. Mostly giftware and books and stationery.

RP: So what were your specific duties at this --

TK: Well, first day, they had me receiving clerk or whatever, for the whole plant. But next day, they says, "If you want to go up to the sixth floor, they're looking for help up there." So I was filling orders and putting stock away. Then I just got going from there.

RP: You spent ten years with them?

TK: Well, I left couple of times to go visit the camp, you know. But from '43 to 1952, nine years. So I was one of the older guys.

RP: That was, it was almost like Seabrook Farms, they were hiring so many Japanese out of camp.

TK: Yeah. 'Cause Seabrook Farms, one of my relatives, he was hiring. I went to see my folks in Jerome, and one of my relatives, he was hiring people from camp.

RP: Your relative?

TK: Yeah, well, my relative's husband, actually. And my dad says, "Hey, I want to go to Seabrook Farms." Says, "Okay, I'll take you." So I went with him. We were the first group from Jerome. And I think, I don't know how many people from Jerome went. Ten guys or something. They had six guys from Amache camp there already, and we were the next group that went over there. Only thing is I didn't care for it 'cause I was making more than the foreman in Chicago. I said, "Gee." Then that place, it was weird, 'cause the union wasn't strong at all. And when it's busy, on Thursday, they said, "This week is a forty-eight hour week." That means you gotta work forty-eight hours or more to get overtime. So when it's busy, they changed their mind, they said, "This week is a fifty-two hour week, not forty hour week." So the five months I was there, only one time I get an overtime for what was it, half an hour. I says, "I don't want to... geez, I'm going to get the heck out of here." So after five months, I took off. But in the meantime, we called my mom and the rest of the family, so they were there. So I left.