<Begin Segment 4>

RP: Tell us what you did for fun as a kid growing up in Los Angeles.

IK: I just played like any other kid, played Cowboys and Indians and stuff like that. Later in life we -- because I almost kicked the bucket on asthma or something like that -- my father urged me to go into sports, I guess to build up my body 'cause I was skinny little kid for a long, long time. So over my period of time my father played, played golf with him a little bit, played... he got me started in tennis, and he took me to the Olympics when I was a kid. 1932 Olympics, I believe, and I admired the Japanese swimmers, when they just cleaned up the Olympics at that time, so I copied the stroke that I saw on the top of the water and luckily I was picked up by a coach at the, or the director at the swimming pool, which... he saw that I had a nice stroke from copying the Japanese and he taught me the rest of it, and I became on the swimming team of the local, local swimming pool, I guess, in Highland Park. And I guess that was the most, one of the important roles of my life, in the young life anyway, because I competed in the, with the team. And I guess the famous one that came out of that team was Sammy Lee, the diver of those years, and I became a lifeguard, city lifeguard because of all of that.

RP: Where did you, where did you take a job as a lifeguard?

IK: In the Los Angeles pools. They, they had a number of regular swimming pools, of course, and another fellow, another Japanese fellow, two of 'em, we all took the test at the same time and all passed it, all got positions at some pool or another. I ended up in East L.A. as a lifeguard.

RP: At the Evergreen Pool?

IK: Yes. I think it's gone now, but it was, it was nice place to work.

RP: So you worked there just during the summers?

IK: Yes, and that happened just before the war, so I didn't last very long, didn't have a long period of employment.

RP: And that was your first job?

IK: Yes, my first real job. I've gone playing around in farms once in a while and... that didn't, well, hard work didn't appeal to me at all, and that's what turned me away from hard work.

RP: What was it about swimming that excited you?

IK: Well, the racing of course was exciting. Maybe do something, maybe try for something. And it paid, paid very good money as I find out later that family members were making about the same amount of money that I made, which was surprising as a kid that didn't know any better.

RP: And where would you compete in some of your...

IK: Well, there were leagues around the city and there was another important league, or something, something about Southern California, somethin'... but all of, it was covering the competitors of open swim meet. It was quite important for me and I don't even know what, what it represented really. All I knew was something about Southern California. And I hit my head in the swimming pool and -- doing the backstroke -- and so I didn't do very well in that. Strange pool and I couldn't find the end of the pool. I just ran into it, went straight down.

RP: Did your pursuit of swimming also have sort of a social component to it?

IK: Not that I knew of, with... it may have. I was just interested in the swimming.

RP: Where did you develop your social relationships growing up?

IK: Well, we finally moved from Highland Park to East L.A., which was a very important of my life in that East L.A. with the all people from Latinos and the Jews and the Germans and the Russians, it was a mixture of all cultures and I found how people were real people there, where in Highland Park it was just a place. And East L.A. was a very human place, and I think I grew up there. Where... they had a reputation I find out much later, that it was a rough area, but they were very, they were people, from my account anyway. And I got to know, have some, become acquainted with some very, very good friends that had heart, and it was very important.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.