(Kiyo’s story, 1924-1929)

When the lease on the family’s store expired around 1924, Jichan’s partners returned to Japan. Jichan and his younger brother next went into a wholesale business on Sacramento St. with a non-Japanese employee who turned out to be dishonest; they lost the store and Jichan was left with debts that would take years to pay off. The family survived by organizing neighborhood ladies to do piecework, creating items such as crocheted window-shade pulls. Jichan would go around selling them to retail stores like Weinstock’s, along with incense and some of the other inventory from his store. Those were lean years.

So Kiyo’s adolescent years were quite different from her earlier life; but even then, there was a lot a girl could do. Although raised Buddhist, she and her younger sister Tomi (my mom), like many Nisei, became active in the YWCA, and would sometimes sell donuts from the People’s Bakery to raise money for it. With the proceeds, the Y sent girls to 10-day conferences at Asilomar, like a summer camp, where they would meet girls from other parts of the state. They enjoyed theatrics and putting pine cones in each others’ beds.

Kiyo on far right with friends at Asilomar in the 1920s

After graduating from Commerce High School in 1929, Kiyo could have gotten into the University of California, but chose instead to attend business college in the city. Part of the reason behind her decision was financial; but there were also not that many Nisei women going to university in 1929. (There were 86 Nisei women enrolled in 39 California colleges in 1929; eleven or twelve were in the 1929 graduating class at UC Berkeley.1) She didn’t have a peer group who were all headed for college, and there were not many who had blazed the trail before her who could allay her doubts about whether she would thrive or fail.

Graduation, 1929

After eight months of business college, she took a job working for a store on Grant Avenue, where one of her tasks was to pot little cactus plants that were popular with tourists. Her fingers were constantly pricked by the spines. Her boss would pay her, but ask her if she could hold the checks until his cash flow was steadier. Then the store went out of business, so Kiyo was never paid.

Kiyo’s Story, part 4: Grant Avenue

1 Takahashi, Joyce N. Japanese American Alumnae of the University of California, Berkeley: Lives and Legacy. 2013. <http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/roho/ucb/text/takahashi_joyce_lives_and_legacy.pdf> Accessed on 05/10/2018.
This post was originally published on July 1, 2018.

Images © R. A. Sasaki. All rights reserved.