<Begin Segment 25>

DG: So you were applying as pre-med.

RI: Yes, uh-huh. I was still undergraduate. I think they were all undergraduate. I think some, I think some did post-graduate work, I mean... but yeah, I was, I had a year-and-a-half. I didn't quite finish two years at the UW, so apparently I was there for two years, but I went through summer so that I think I was there a year-and-a-half including, the summer session became one semester or one quarter or...

DG: So were you excited or scared or...

RI: To go?

DG: Yeah.

RI: Well, I suppose I was excited to get out of camp and go to school again. It was sort of a worrisome thing about where I'm staying, having to live with another family and all that. But they were so nice to me that can't help but be relaxed. And I guess I was a pretty good boarder or worker or, you know, I was very dependable. They had two young girls, something like three and six or so. You know, I was good to them and they took me wherever they went. So, I really had no experience being a schoolgirl but it's just --

DG: You stayed there how long?

RI: Year-and-a-half.

AI: Well, you also had brought in some of your old papers from your application process and here's a letter from... it's on the stationery of the National Student Relocation Council, which was the group you mentioned that was helping --

RI: Uh-huh.

AI: -- Nisei get out of camp and go to college. And it's dated January 5, 1943. And I wonder if you would just --

RI: '43?

AI: Uh-huh. Oh, that must be a typo. Because --

RI: '42.

AI: -- it should have been '42.

RI: '42.

AI: They must have made a mistake on that.

DG: No, '43. It's '43.

AI: Oh, oh no it is, right. January 1943. Because you were in Minidoka --

DG: Fall of --

AI: In the fall of '42.

DG: -- '42.

AI: And you were in Minidoka during Christmas of that year.

RI: Oh, okay. '43.

AI: And then the following January...

RI: Yes, yeah, you're right. Yeah, it is '43.

AI: I wonder if you would read a little bit of that letter. It's kind of interesting.

RI: Oh. "Dear Ruby. Get ready for Texas, for here you come. Should we send you a western horse so you'll be in practice before you arrive? We have just sent your documents to Washington requesting your educational leave to be granted as soon as the report from the FBI is received and you have been reviewed by the War Department. This last requirement is now necessary for all students who have spent any time in Japan" -- I went there as a little, as a three-year-old, I think -- "We hope very much that your permit will arrive around the fifteenth but we have no way of knowing. Perhaps if you find it is urgent enough you might have someone at your project wire Washington asking for immediate clearance through the FBI and the War Department. You will be interested to meet the students who are going to Texas with you and we are particularly pleased that you will be one of them for you have had such bad luck and waiting for the University of Colorado all last fall. Gradually all the students accepted there are getting to other colleges, the University of Nebraska, Washington University, University of Idaho, etc. Good luck now to you, Ruby, and let us know when you do get to Texas." See, this letter tells more about what happened than what I could remember. But I didn't know that FBI cleared me just because I'd been to Japan as a little child, when my mother took three of us to Japan.

AI: And --

RI: But, see, I did apply to University of Colorado. [Laughs]

DG: Right. [Laughs]

RI: And apparently University of Colorado wasn't taking any students.

AI: Apparently not. Apparently they had --

RI: Yeah.

AI: -- or there were many students who had applied there.

RI: Uh-huh. Probably lots of people in Colorado --

DG: Well, I think from Minidoka, that's one of the closest places. That's why.

RI: It could be, huh?

DG: Yeah.

RI: Idaho to Colorado, not too far. And a way --

DG: Although Toru went to, Toru went to Salt Lake.

RI: Yeah, a lot of people went to Salt Lake, relocated to Salt Lake. Colorado was just below that. But, you know, it's just like in the Texas report, lot of the, what do you call them? Regents or Board of Directors, they probably were afraid to take the Japanese students. You know, they really thought maybe we would revolt or do something, so we were only interested in trying to continue, but Texas was very good to us, and they followed up by being very good to us. So should be very grateful.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.