<Begin Segment 29>

AI: I'm sorry, but about when was it that you, that you joined with the Model Cities program?

EH: Well, I worked in CAMP Head Start from '6-, almost from '66 to '70, '70, '71. I took two years off, and about '72 I joined the Model Cities class, group, because Dorothy Hollingsworth had called me, and wanting me to help find licensable locations to expand daycare. And because I knew the licensing, having had to cope with it at CAMP, I did that. And I tromped all over the city looking at space, and once in a while call a licensing person and say, "Could you join me, look at this, what do you think?" And eventually, I found five or six more buildings. But we had a welfare subcommittee that met every month, community something, and in the middle of that meeting, a Chinese delegation marched in, and, and saying, "We feel like we're entitled to this money. This is our community also." And we were dumbfounded. I can't remember where... I think the chairman probably was Charles Johnson, who became a judge and was a lawyer at that point, was chairman of this community, and I, I don't know what steps he taught, but the next morning, I was at work and I, I said, that "Asian invasion" irks me, because they would not come to the planning sessions three or four years ago when everybody had to work night after night. And where were they then?

One of the funny things was Jackie... it was the first time a Chinese student body, Jackie Kei, was student body president at Garfield when Ralph was there. I think Jackie was in that class of 1960 when, Ralph's advisorship class. And she was leading the herd, and, and I really took an offense, and I don't think I could get to Jackie to discuss this with her; I wish I could. She took off shortly after that to earn a Ph.D. in Harvard, and she's still teaching. In fact, I think she ended up going to Southeast Asia to teach English, initially, and then came back to New York and got into Harvard. And she's still there, but I just never will remember that, "Asian invasion." Because that's the way Asians were in those early years. They did -- though I knew, I know three or four people who eventually got into poverty programs, and became Head Start nurses and things like that. There're a couple of well-known... Constance Ikami? Anyway, she was, I heard her at national conventions a lot.

But it wasn't a mass... and yet, the early childhood really has its benefits, and, and its pleasure in getting to know -- Aki was a great one in that field. She, she joined the Head Start staff. She ultimately... I know, I don't know whether she quit, she went to Western for a while. And, oh, I know, she also was qualifying, I think, whether Junks was ill, or they had a, there was a year when she was giving birth and two or three were in the hospital, and so she could qualify with her low-income, if she had a, also accepted another kid in. She was always doing that, the kids would bring somebody home who needed a home, and, and she would accommodate them. One of Aki's philosophies, which I really valued... and she, she developed kind of a peace curriculum as well as a science curriculum. She got a National Science Foundation award for demonstrating that even primary kids could learn. Her kids knew the solar system, they knew all the, the countries in the world. She had a globe patterned her floor, her linoleum, and the kids could identify all the countries. But she had a philosophy that said, "Kids that don't feel good about themselves can't learn." And I heard that also from Ryder Child Center. We, I used to, we used to have to get daycare directors that were contracting with the city, the city would have monthly meetings for daycare directors, and for some reason, somebody got Ryder Child Center. And I had to say to Ryder, "Why is it that you don't come south of the canal?" And, and they had the same principle that if a child doesn't feel good about himself, and I said, "You're not saying this, but if Ryder isn't coming south of the canal, makes me wonder how you're treating blacks, if you ever got blacks. And is it because some form of discrimination, or your hesitancy in getting black population involved?"

AI: What was their response?

EH: Something like, "Well, we never thought of that." [Laughs] You know? And in those days, there were a lot of people who -- you know, that's why, that's why mandatory bussing had to take place, because, on top of that, that was hard on the children and hard on staff -- I mean, hard on parents. But on the other hand, it took something to shake an, make an awakening in the school system to say, Candy was in summer school on, in third grade. I brought her from Central Area to Bryant, just north of Laurelhurst, kind of next to Ravenna where we ended up. And Candy was complaining that, "No matter how much I raise my hand, the teacher never calls on me, won't call on me." And she was taking Spanish, I think. So I finally parked the car and went in to see the teacher at the... you leave your kids in the car in those days, and I went in and said, "Candy tells me that you just do not call, raise your, call on her when she raises her hand." And her reply to me was, "I didn't think she really wanted to answer." And I, I said, "That's an odd answer for a teacher to give when, when a teacher's..." And yet I thought, "Well, maybe that's the typical rationale or kind of getting out of situations, and that's the way you're coping with, with problems. And no wonder we have to have mandatory." But I, my feeling was, okay, we need to do a lot more training of teachers off in the north end.

In fact, Aki was told, at one point when she, I think, was switching from Head Start to primary years, a ruling came up that minority teachers could not teach in minority neighborhoods. And Aki had to go to Laurelhurst, and really got put through the grind there. But there were all kinds of -- I had a parent who said to me, when, in parent board hearings way after I retired, that her, her youngster was in Garfield, and I think the mother had, was working on a Ph.D. And the girl refused to go back, I think, to Laurelhurst, because the teacher would say in the class, "Even So-and-so knows that answer." And, and the girl was bright enough to know that that was an implication that somebody of her color didn't expect, wasn't expected to know the answer. But the teacher's rationale is, "Even So-and-so knows that answer." And, and she was bright enough to refuse to, to listen to that anymore, and the, and the mother had to come to the appeal board to ask for a transfer. And I voted for, for the transfer. Other people didn't feel that that was serious enough, but, but that's the way the world was.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.