Densho Digital Archive - Isao Kikuchi Interview (denshovh-kisao-01-0008)

<Begin Segment 8>

RP: So you graduated...

IK: Roosevelt High.

RP: Roosevelt High, and then you went, did you go directly into art school?

IK: No, I went to --

RP: Or you first went to the university?

IK: Yeah.

RP: Where did you go?

IK: Los Angeles City College. They had just turned into a college, I think, and after that, I've forgotten how long I stayed there. At least, it had to be at least one, one semester, to take a test. Then after that was Los Angeles Art Center, and that was just about a couple of months, I believe, and then the war started, if I'm not mistaken. 'Cause I remember throwing one student in the lake when he made some dirty remark about, the war had just been declared and he said something about the "Japs," and that word I found was a bad word and no way you're gonna do that, so I threw him in the lake. West Lake Park at the time, that's where the Art Center was.

RP: This was just right after December 7th?

IK: Yes, yes.

RP: War was declared the next day.

IK: Well, I didn't even know the war had started 'cause the three of us went up hunting in the local mountains and I think back, it was kinda funny 'cause we had three shotguns and they were laying on the backseat of the, on the shelf of the backseat, just showed as clear as daylight, coming home with, on San Fernando Road, which was very, very heavy in traffic, and people were just staring at us, because we had three shotguns laying up there in clear sight. So when we thought about that later we started laughing, thinking we were gonna start a war here, but... and we, I still, none of us knew that it was a war on 'cause we were in the cars and had been hunting. And so next morning I went to start for school, I had to get some gas, and the owner said, "Boy, I'm sorry about that." I didn't know what he was talking about, that we had declared war. And I said, "Hey, this guy's got something wrong with him." So that day at school is when this guy called me a "Jap," and I didn't know what that was for, but that's, that doesn't go. So I tossed him. And that's about the only really incident I had. With all the other people it was just fine, just, "We're sorry." So they accepted me as an American.