<Begin Segment 19>

ME: How did you pass the time in camp?

AK: We did a lot of needlework, played games, card games. And then I got a job to work in the office -- filing and things like that. And then finally, I went off to school.

ME: What about school in camp? You still had a, what, a couple of years left to go?

AK: No, I had one year. Well, I finished in camp, and so it was just a short time. Then I got my diploma in camp.

ME: What was, what was that like? What was school like in camp? Or, what was getting your diploma like in camp?

AK: It was very uneventful. And we were just given the diploma, and it wasn't any big thing. It wasn't, you know, we didn't have a commencement, so to speak. We didn't have a real big graduation party or anything like that. It was just okay; it was just a completion of a part of my education, that's it. And I don't know if it's mental or whatever, do you know I never went to my baccalaureate exercises when I got my bachelor's and neither did I go for my master's? So I've never been in a real diploma situation, a real graduation.

ME: And for as far as you've gone for education then -- never.

AK: Yeah. And I just felt like, oh well, it's not that important, I guess. And yet when Paul was graduating, I said, "Hey, I want to come down for your graduation." [Laughs]

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.