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BN: Okay, I'm going to circle and go back a little bit because we jumped ahead. But no, I'm glad you told that story. So you had started, as you mentioned, you had jumped a couple grades earlier. So when you graduated high school you were very young still. And then at that point, what was the name of the high school?

MT: Alameda High School.

BN: Alameda High School. When you got out of there, did you have a sense of what you wanted to do?

MT: No. I think I wrote in the comments that I thought it was because of my lack of education, pre-education. We had good teachers, but they didn't have, like we had a science class. I mean, it would be nothing like the science class here.

BN: You're talking about in camp?

MT: Yeah, in camp.

BN: In Amache?

MT: But anyway, so I thought it was that, but I think more so it was... I think it was the camp experience, I think, that... what's the word? I was hurt deeply, and I think that, and it never healed. I didn't realize that, it was lack of confidence. Before, I used to speak up in class, couldn't speak up in class. Grades, I used to get better than average grades, and I didn't care anymore. I think it was that, I think. So even after I got out of school, I went to a couple of schools and I didn't even last a year in college. I went down to UCLA even one time to sit in a seminar. I had friends at UCLA, they said, "Come on down here." But UCLA was tough because housing was tough. You had to commute for so long.

BN: Still is.

MT: Still is, yeah, still is. I don't know how people do it, gee, you have to have a car, motorcycle or something, or bicycle, motorbike. But anyway, so I went to, after a couple years I just kind of bounced around and I even helped my dad. My dad said, "You're not doing anything, why don't you help me?" So I said, "Okay." I helped him for about eight months, nine months, and I said, "I've got to be doing something." So I enrolled in this private school, business school in Berkeley. And it was really expensive, and I didn't want to hold my dad to it, so I thought, well, he can get me through the first half year and I can work my way through after that. But it was recommended that you wore to the school, coat and tie. Coat and tie? So I used to do that, coat and tie for a while, but I noticed that all the guys didn't all wear coat and tie. But everybody had a coat and slacks. Very business-like. And I got to know some of the people there and they accepted me. The hakujins were just, they rushed into it, the biggest fraternity there and it was nice. I ran for, made me run for office and I ran. So four elected officers in the student body, small school. The president and men's representative with men, and the vice president and the women's representative with women. So there was only four elected officers. So I was fortunate enough to get in there. My life just changed there.

And he told me, my advisor was four years, he said, "You know, Mr. Takano, I keep telling you to change your major." And this is the third year now. And he said, "I'm going to tell you right up front," I said, "to change majors, you got time." I was in merchandising, I specialized in merchandising management. "You got to get out of there." And I said, "Mr. Bedford, you're always telling me to get out. Why do you tell me to get out of that?" And he said, "I didn't have the nerve to tell you for three years, but I'm going to tell you now. They won't hire you." "What do you mean they won't hire me?" "Look around." And at that time, there was, before the pre-Macy's time and there with the white house, and it was the emporium and I. Magnin, Bruce Brothers, they had a big department. You look in there, go walk in there, see if you see an Oriental. See if you see a Black guy in there, you won't. "They won't hire you as a salesman." I said, "Are you kidding me?" He said, "No, I'm not kidding you." I said, "Well, I'm going to change it." He looked at me and he said, "If you're that stubborn, maybe you will. But," he said, "it's going to be tough."

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.