Densho Digital Archive - Susumu Iwasaki Interview (denshovh-isusumu

<Begin Segment 9>

RP: Now you, you went through grammar school with all Japanese.

SI: Oh, yeah.

RP: And now it was more mixed in junior high school?

SI: Yeah, the majority of the people in San Pedro was like, there was three ethnic group like Italians, the Slovenians, and the Japanese. And we got along pretty well with the Italian guys, not so much with the Slovenian guys. Why, I don't know. See, most, most of those people in San Pedro, too, was fishermen. And, but the fishing fleet was all in San Pedro and I would say 90 percent, 99 percent of the fishing boat was on Terminal Island was Japanese.

RP: Well, what was junior high school like?

SI: It was okay. We... there they weren't too many, too strict about speaking Japanese. And, but I tell you, that first year... you know Japanese people are brought up, like I say, different because of the fact that... don't lose from other people. So we used to study a lot and you find there was a great number of Japanese in the honor group. Each year, if you, graduation you have so many, if you get so many, not points but... but there was, a lot of Japanese kids were in the honor, honor group. So then --

RP: Were you... sorry.

SI: -- yeah, and then soon after that when the war started, of course we were probably halfway through eighth grade. So, but in camp we wrote to our school in San, in San Pedro and then they sent us books. And so we finished the eighth grade and the ninth grade in camp. So when the school really started I think we were in the ninth grade already. But we skipped most of eighth grade because, you know.

RP: Tell us about your first job that you ever had.

SI: My first job when we came out of camp, we were working in a warehouse in Wilmington. And we did that for, oh, a few months. And I don't know whether we got fired or what. Anyway, let's see, that was 1945... '46, so I must have worked there for at least six month and then I think we got either laid off or we quit or what. Anyway we, we were out of job and then, I don't know how some of these people find out there was work in Delano, like in central California. And then pruning plum trees and so we went over there and then we worked there for a few month. And then that was during the 1946. And then soon after that, job was finished and we came home. And then, 'course, there was no job. I mean, it was hard finding because I was only what, seventeen? And, so then anyway, they were recruiting people up in Oregon. So we went up there to work in the farm. So I was there from, it was during, I remember, summertime. And we did odd jobs, picking potatoes and hoeing weeds, and stuff like that. It was, it was okay. It was a job. So anyway, I turned eighteen while I was up there and my brother called me up and... he sent me a letter saying that, "Hey, your draft board called and said you gotta come in for a physical." Well, at the time I was traveling by bus. So I had no time to get down there. So I told him, I said, "Hey, call 'em up and tell 'em I'm visiting a sick aunt over there." So he did and had a referral, I mean... waited a couple month. Anyway, I came back home and then and I says... another call came in for my physical. So I went. I says, "I might as well join." So, I joined. So that's when I went in the army.