<Begin Segment 6>

AW: And when was it that you decided to come to America?

KS: Well, this person talked to me one day. I was going to chapel. I was Christian then, and I was going to chapel in hospital, and this person told, ask me one day would you like to go America, so I say, yes. I like very much, I said. "Well, you know, I was from Tennessee, and if you like to go there study University in Johnson City, Tennessee, there is a medical University in Johnson City," he told me. So I said, "Wow, I like very much. And I wonder if they can let us enter their nursing school." And he said, "Well, I think so." And few weeks later, he said, "I have letter from my folks. Yes, they are taking nursing student there." And so I said, "Yes, if you can help me how to get, how to go about that," and he helped me very much. And first I was going to study nursing in America, but before deciding to come here, I was reading the book how American South was, culture of American South. And that was, that was not very favorable to me because there was so much racial segregation there I read in the book, and it was pity. And I was thinking if I go there, how they treat me. What, how do they, how do they treat me anyway, and what am I going to, am I going to be the black people school or white people school or what, so it made me little about to think about it. If I have to go someplace with black people, then I have to eat with them. I don't know. It was not very pleasant for me. I could not stand for that, I thought. So another thing, after four years I studied in American university, if I can graduate and return, it's to the, return my appreciation to my supporter. And I was thinking to, you know, go or not go. Finally, I decided to come here, and I came by Northwestern airplane. I paid three hundred dollars those days. That was large money in Japan. One dollar was 360 yen those days, so I used my saving very much for that, for the trip.

[Interruption]

AW: So what was your first experience in America like?

KS: Oh, it was nice. I thought living, housing is so much nicer, living conditions just entirely different from Japan, and the people are more prosperous, and I felt very good. I thought, I can do something out here.

AW: How did your parents react to your decision to come to the United States?

KS: Oh, well, I was a grown person that time, and my father was deceased then, few years back, and it was not so difficult to persuade my mother. [Laughs] After all, I was grown person, so I just come. I wanted to use my own, after the war own, what do you call that, my own freedom and see how it's, my luck is going.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.