Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Marion Tsutakawa Kanemoto Interview
Narrator: Marion Tsutakawa Kanemoto
Interviewer: Alice Ito
Location: SeaTac, Washington and Seattle, Washington
Date: August 3 & 4, 2003
Densho ID: denshovh-kmarion-01-0041

<Begin Segment 41>

AI: Well, in the meantime then, what was happening at school? Because, here, now again, you're very, still very obviously American...

MK: Right.

AI: And, so what changed for you as you were in school?

MK: So when they recognized that there was some... well, when they came around, buzzing around the jogakko, which was large --

AI: You mean the American soldiers?

MK: Girls -- yeah, the American soldiers on the jeep. They came, they're just supposed to be, I guess, (...) overseeing everything in general. Well, the principal was so afraid. Of course, after all, he's been saying all these negative things to... and he knew that I spoke English. So he would send a messenger to "get Tsutakawa." And I would go down and.. I knew I wasn't in trouble. And I happily went down to the office and reported to the principal and, well, the GI would start talking, well, that was no problem, greet a friend. So this was role acting, I had to be careful not to be too happy, and, but then we chit-chatted. I mean, it wasn't even the guarding or anything, it wasn't even business. And then I did a no-no once when I was ready for a Chinese history test on Thursday, I remember Thursday at one o'clock. And I feared that I would definitely flunk, and I told him to come by about Thursday at one o'clock, because I knew that I would be called out. (...) And then sure enough they showed up and so I got excused from my test. And then when, in preparation for the graduation I didn't know what I was gonna do because these occupation people weren't exactly saying, well, that they can hire me (for) a job, but however I was pulled out -- I mean, on the weekends I did some interpreting for some of the officers.

But then, well, I had to more formally plan my future, so there were no colleges around, but my mother suggested maybe I can apply for Doshisha University (in Kyoto), it's a women's college. And that's what I did. And we had some glitches, but nevertheless I got accepted and I kinda feel bad because I entered, took up a space of somebody who really wanted to go. There was no other major that I would have been comfortable in but they offered home economics or English. And so, of course, I thought, well English. [Laughs] And that's how I was accepted into English.

AI: Well...

MK: And then I know that they, the jogakko fixed up my grades to make it acceptable, so I think out of the 150 there were only about four that went on to college, and I was one of them. And I know my grades came out pretty good, I mean, better than it should've been. [Laughs] But they were very proud of us because, any school that's promoting kids to the college level...

AI: That was prestigious for the high school?

MK: Well, right, right. And so, I guess, in a sense I helped the, the jogakko toward the end, when the occupation came.

<End Segment 41> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.