<Begin Segment 14>

DG: Yeah. There was a lot of --

BU: During the days of the, after the war started and then people moved into camp, I got permission to go down to Minidoka, but in order you had to go all the way down to Walla Walla and then back up. Anyway...

DG: Let's stay with the high school time a little bit, 'cause there were some other things that happened that directed you towards your profession at that time.

BU: Well, I liked all the biology, sciences, and math so I did very well. You know what? We had three high schools: Franklin, Garfield, and Broadway. Every one of those schools, the top ten students were all Japanese.

DG: Even at that time?

BU: Even at that time. Right now what do you think the top students are? Vietnamese. In other words, minorities have to excel in order to get somewhere.

DG: Did you feel like you needed to excel?

BU: Yeah, I needed to be top dog, top, number one. And we were.

DG: This was on your own or did your parents say anything?

BU: No. I'll tell you the funny thing about whenever I get all A's and all that, my father and mother never tell that you did well or something. The only time you hear from them is when you get a B or a C or something else, they'd let you know that that's not acceptable.

DG: What did they say?

BU: Huh?

DG: What did they say?

BU: They, they take privileges away from you. [Laughs]

DG: Like?

BU: Like going to baseball game or something because my dad is a baseball fan. So he used to take me on Fourth of July and on Labor Day, he used to take us two days, two days of baseball game.

DG: Does he close the dye works or does he leave that to your mother? [Laughs] (Narr. note: Father was operating a dry cleaning shop at the time, not a dye works.)

BU: No. We just left on, left on Friday and came back on Sunday.

DG: And you travel all over?

BU: Huh?

DG: You travel all over?

BU: Yeah, traveled Seattle to Yakima.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.