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AI: We're continuing with George Yoshida, February 18, 2002, and we just left off -- you were talking about high school --

GY: Yes.

AI: -- and why it was that perhaps the academics were, you were not into as much.

GY: Yeah. In retrospect -- of course, there was some self-pride in getting, I didn't want to get Ds or Es. I guess in those days, It was A, B, C, D. On the other hand, I feel that there was not much motivation. All right, supposing I do well in school, which means getting good grades. And these were academic courses as opposed to commercial or wood shop kind of thing or auto shop. And I took those classes only because of everyone else. All of my friends were taking these classes, and I didn't see much of a future in shorthand, certainly, or taking auto shop. But for a lot of kids in high school and through the influence of their parents, role models, they knew what they may have wanted to do. I didn't have any idea of what I wanted to become, in that we didn't have role models. As far as role models in the Japanese community, there was the M.D., Issei man, handsome, moustache. And the dentist. The other role model at the time in terms of something other than menial work was the insurance salesman. He was always dressed. He had a car. And apparently did fairly well. Other than that, I didn't even see (an Asian) mailman carrying mail, anyone in the offices, librarian, musician, in the movies, over the radio. Nowhere was there an example of role model in terms of an Asian doing something other than working in the fruit stands, working on the farms, doing domestic work. That's about it. And my father didn't say, "Okay, Joji, go to school. And I want you to get a degree and become an engineer," all the stuff that some of these parents might have done with their children. And I sort of resented that, too. Oh, God, to have to make choices like this, what am I going to do, is very difficult. It might have been easier if he said, "Okay, you be a doctor." Where as a kid, no role models. He didn't say, "Why don't you learn how to fix cars," or something like that. He didn't, anything like that. I resented that for a long time. But it's, it's better -- in the long run, it was better, I suppose because there are so many kids who have to do what their parents tell them to do and go to school and, for the rest of their lives, resenting it. So that was kind of a difficult time for me in terms of the future.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.