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Did you know Pete Seeger? Tell us about your relationship.
I just knew him, that's about all, because I got to know him, of course I heard him sing and things when he came out here, but we got to first to know him when I went to New York. It was just a brief encounter, because his wife was Japanese too, Nisei. That's how I got to know her. We met with them once in a while, and had dinner with them, things like that.
Was it hard getting the money you needed, when you came out of the camp?
It was hard getting a job, for one thing. I was recovering from pneumonia so I didn't want to get a full time job because it tired me. I went into pressing, which I did before the war. I learned that, and that was a pretty good paying job, so I took that as a part-time job.
Where were you staying?
New York. But it was kind of hard for Chiz, because in the mean time we had Patty and Chiz couldn't work. Trying to live on what I was making was kind of hard. For a few years it was hard until we got into Chicago, that was about five years. We went to Chicago, and then I got into assembly work, and then I got to know this union representative. He said "With your background, I can get you a better job." He got me in as a machinist, where I could train for becoming a machinist, so I trained as a machinist, and then in about a year, I became a full time machinist. And I started working at a machine shop. I was an assembler until then, and then I got into machinist. Then I became a steward, and I got involved in union activities after that, and then I became a chief steward of the shop. That was an experience because Japanese aren't used to yelling and scaring, demanding things, and going and we talk with them. The former chief steward said that I was chicken, he said that I didn't yell at the owner, and my union representative said "No, he's not chicken, he does things differently than you, that's all."
Did you feel like there was a lot of discrimination?
No, not against Japanese, well in a sense, yeah, because housing, we were discriminated against. So we felt it there. But in work, it was just the blacks, they were the ones that were discriminated against. That's why I got to know them a lot more, because I fought for them.
How were you discriminated against in regards to housing?
We couldn't get housing. I would see an ad in the paper and I would call, and they said "Yeah, come on out." So I would go out, and when they open the door and see my face, you could see their face drop. They say, "Oh, I'm sorry, but we just sold it," or something like that. My little daughter, she was about three or so, when we came home one time. She said "It's unfair, they don't sell the house to us."
How did you get to California?
After about eight years in Chicago, and several years we tried to get housing, couldn't get it, my wife's sister came back to California and she wrote and said "come on out here" and she said I could get machinist job out there, there's lots of them. So we decided, well maybe I'll go back on our vacation, and see, and then if there is a chance I could pull up and go out there. All of us went back on our vacation, and by that time we got Mark, when we went back he was one, not quite one and half, one and about three months, and we drove back. It was hard, because we had to camp out. We couldn't afford to stay at motels and things. We finally got back and then I looked around and there were a lot of jobs that I could get into. I said, "ok, let's see if we can get out here then. I came back by myself, and then my friend helped me pack. I worked and then packed at night, and that was too hard for me. So I went to my boss and I had already told him that I wanted to leave, and he said "Okay, two weeks" I told him, "it's kind of hard for me, can you let me off earlier." He said okay, he was a good guy. So he let me off so then I packed all day and then finally packed everything, and then had to send it out here. Then I came out and then I started looking for a house, and couldn't get a place. Discrimination again. It was the same story, and I was surprised because I thought we could get a place here. And then I couldn't get it so then I found a place in Richmond Heights, so I moved there. We were there for about two years.
What year was this now?
This was in 1963 or so. After working there for a few years, my sister-in-law, Chiz's older sister was in real estate, so she was looking around, so I said "if you find a place, let us know." For two years we waited and they didn't find anything, so we said "The kids are getting big now." We had three bedrooms, but we only had one bath. With three kids, that was hard. But I guess the grace-saver was that I worked nights. That opened up that bathroom a little bit. It wasn't so hard. Then the sister-in-law said that they have an opening going to Japan, want to go? I said okay, let's go. We decided to go, and then, when we decided, she said she found a couple places, want to look at it? So we came and looked. The first one was down below our place, way down there, and we said no, we don't like this. So we came up to the place where we're staying now. We walked in, and as soon as we walked in Chiz said, "I like this one!," because of the view. We said "Okay," and we negotiated with them. He had a place already bought up in Whiskey Town, he had retired, and he was paying on this one and that one, so he wanted to get rid of this one in a hurry. So he came down and we were able to get it by selling the other house, and using that money as a down payment. That's how we got into this house. We just barely made it. But we left to go on vacation right away because her sister was the one that is in the Lion's Club in Berkeley and she had two tickets left that they wanted to fill. That's how we got in on it. We moved everything in the house, just left it there, and went on vacation! We came back from vacation, and then cleaned up and re-packed and everything, it was a mess. But anyway, that's how we got into this house. But it was a good buy, it was hard for us at the time, but it turned out to be a good buy. Now, it's about 10 times what we paid.
Civil Rights
How were you involved in the civil rights movement?
That's another story. We got involved in this business, and then the civil rights movement came along. Between the two of them, we got really involved in civil rights, started going out talking and things like that. In the civil rights movement, we started to talk with the Japanese Americans more, and we got a lot of people involved, and there was one gal especially, she passed away recently but Socks, we called her, and she went around and she got people to sign letters to congressmen and things like that. Fred Korematsu case came up, and I got involved in that.
Did you know him?
We got to know him well. Katherine too, we still see Katherine once in a while. Fred's gone but we got involved in that, and we got involved in the one up north. We got involved in more of the Japanese American community after that, both of us. That's how we got in that, so now we go out and we speak, and we try to convince people that this shouldn't happen again, and we're trying to get the education committee in the state to get this in the textbooks, but they won't put it in yet. They just mention that it was done, but we want them to really get into it, to show that this was a violation of civil rights. That's the point that we want to get across. That's all we try to do when we go out to talk. That's the main point that we do. Some people among the Nisei go out and talk, but they only talk about their own suffering, they don’t bring out the civil rights question. We try to convince these people to talk about these other things too.
Are any of your children involved in civil rights?
Oh yeah they're all involved in one-way or another. Patty incidentally when she was going to Cal was in the student's movement there. In fact cops flew her down the stairs on one occasion. Because she participated in it one time when she was participating in a demonstration she was picked up and sent her to jail. She was out at the, what's the jail out here near Pleasanton, anyway they put her in there and they didn't know where to put her because she's small, tiny, and what kind of a job to give her. She asked for gardening but they put her in laundry, they thought she was Chinese, so they put her in laundry. So she did laundry work. We used to go out and visit her everyday because we wanted to make sure that she was treated right. So we would go up there and I would ask in front of the caretakers. Did they treat you right you know. She was treated all right even the people inside treated her well. She's small I guess that's why. Anyways, she's involved in it. The others are not involved that much. Their ideas are the same, but they are not involved in the work. Of course the youngest daughter is in public broadcasting so I guess you could say that she got involved there a little bit.
Do you think your daughter was involved with civil rights because of your influence?
Oh yeah sure. She got more involved than a lot of kids do. She used to go on marches with us, and I'd carry her on my shoulders and take her into the marches. When I got tired I would let her walk a little, after she walked she would grab my legs and say, "I'm tired". So I pick her up and put her on my shoulders, and walk again. We would take her to conferences, and she would sit by the stage. We would give her some paper and some crayons and she would do coloring and things like that while we were at the conference. She was a good child, she never cried or anything and she went to all of these affairs with us. Went to square dance and she would square dance with us on the side of us. She would be dancing along on the side and people would smile at her. So she got more involved than the others even from when she was a child.
Could you tell us any stories about your early interest of being a progressive?
Well my earliest year would be about twenty or twenty one because after I came back to America and started to go to Cal. It's only when I started to go to Cal really that I my eyes were opened up. See when I started, as I said I met Young Democrats. Oh another thing that came to my mind. I met this little Nisei girl passing pamphlets at (Sailors Gate) that interested me because this was a Nisei, she looked (Nisei) I thought she was Japanese. She was a Nisei, I went up and looked at her thing, and she was talking about rights of Negros to vote in the South, and that we should petition the government to allow them voting. Yeah I started talking to her and I found out that she was a Communist and she was a Nisei. That interested me because a Nisei to become a Communist that's real far left. I talked to her and that was another eye opener. Things like that didn't occur to me because it's nothing that I continued on. Anyways things like that happened too. That was my eye opener really around that period. I must have been about twenty-two or so I guess already. Yeah about twenty-two, but I caught on fast though.
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