<Begin Segment 9>

RP: Tami, we were talking about your... well, just about trying to break into service jobs. When you came back to the Bay Area, can you share with us your efforts?

TH: Yes. My sister and I applied for civil service jobs with the navy in San Francisco. We didn't hear from them for about a month, and finally they sent a man out to interview us. Now, this man said, "You must come down to the U.S. post office, local post office. In this room, we will interrogate you separately." And the interrogation was so simple and so idiotic, like, "Were you born here?" I mean, that was, everything was in the application, of course. We finally found out that we were not accepted, for what reason, I don't know.

RP: Did you have any speculation about why you wouldn't...

TH: No. No, but still I felt that, uh-huh, we were still under suspicion.

RP: Did that change a little later on in your life? Did you have opportunities to...

TH: By then, my father had gotten back into the business, to a point where my sister and I would be of help to him. And so we dropped all those other ideas of looking for a job elsewhere.

RP: While you were attending high school, maybe after you graduated, what aspirations did you have? If you could have gotten into a professional field or anything, what did you want to do?

TH: Well, you know, I really didn't get that far, because I thought my future was still, you know, as a helpmate. Thinking back on it now, I wish I had gone on to something else, but then... like a National Park ranger.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.