<Begin Segment 38>

GY: Two weeks before school opened in September of 1952, I received a call from the Berkeley Unified School District, asking me if I was still interested in teaching. And I said, "Of course, yeah." Hope I didn't sound overly eager, but nevertheless, I said yes, and I was to report to Washington School in downtown Berkeley. The teacher whom I replaced was a woman who was pregnant and somehow or other I guess she wasn't well enough to teach, and so she had to ask for a discharge rather suddenly. And all the teachers leaving the UC Berkeley system and other schools in that area probably were hired already, so they scraped the barrel and found Yoshida down there. [Laughs] And I found myself teaching a fourth/fifth grade -- or fifth/sixth grade combination. And the teacher who had this class before I did just turned to me and talked to me and said, "Now, I'll expect you to be good to my class now. Don't spoil them," or something like that. And she was rather reluctant to give her, this wonderful class to me, not ever seeing an Asian teacher before.

But it started out to be just a very wonderful career in education. And I value that experience very much. I'm glad I made the change, and I feel very successful. Very fulfilling. I grew a lot in my experience at Washington School. That was the only school I taught in -- for about eighteen years ago -- eighteen years, I should say.

AI: Well, now, when you first started, you were probably the first Japanese American schoolteacher these kids had ever seen.

GY: Yeah, yeah.

AI: How did they react to you?

GY: Okay. I was -- for the, in the district of, of the school district of Berkeley, there was one other teacher who -- Yosh Isono is the name, Sansei, who started one-half semester before I did. He started as a gym teacher in junior high school. But as far as the children are concerned, it was the first Asian teacher and Japanese teacher, to see someone up in the classroom. It was a rather unique, novel experience. On the other hand, the classroom is from a, sort of a working-class background of neighborhood children in this particular area in Berkeley, away from the university somewhat. Mostly white, upper- lower-class, lower-middle-class kind of thing. Owners of grocery stores or whatever. But there were quite a few Sansei children in there, too, yeah. So that was nice. Three or four, five, six maybe. Maybe one black student, black, but yeah. And since there were classmates who were Japanese, too, also in the classroom, the white kids were not unfamiliar with Japanese names and faces, yeah.

<End Segment 38> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.