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Title: Elaine Ishikawa Hayes Interview III
Narrator: Elaine Ishikawa Hayes
Interviewer: Alice Ito
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: June 24, 2004
Densho ID: denshovh-helaine-03-0011

<Begin Segment 11>

AI: Well, I also wanted to just check the time. Approximately when was it that Ralph was transferred to Garfield? Was that...

EH: '58.

AI: -- in the late -- '58?

EH: He teaches at Garfield from '58 to about '63.

AI: And you had mentioned that, that a number of black kids, African American kids, have a feeling that they really are not understood or, and in some cases, not respected by white teachers. Was this something that you heard from your own kids? Did they ever say anything, or give you an indication?

EH: No, I think, I think my kids really recognized a cross-section. Madrona had a good crop of potential kids that, high academic. I mean, Candy, from the time she was in third, second or third grade, was aware of who the brightest kids were, and kind of in a good, good-natured way, they would keep track of who was, who was bright and who was... Guy Kurose was in the class. [Laughs] He was bright, but he was always getting into trouble, and she would say... and she had a teacher, a third-grade teacher once, who did, would not let the kids, would deprive the kids of excursions because of one or two kids. Not that Guy was one of those kids, but the kids were quick to label who was (going to) create this kind of a problem. But that class of hers was really amazing. Bright, bright kids. And I think there was a good camaraderie, even among the kids. Larry talks about, he doesn't now, but I remember in high school, college, he was always reminiscing about the kids that were, what, what they're doing. Cleveland Tyson I guess is his name. He's on Channel, on Channel 9's staff, and he's been there for decades. He was in that fifth grade class of Larry's at Madrona. Ruthann Kurose was in, in his class. So the school itself drew, I think, a good population, and it was, it really developed a good nucleus of permanent friends.

I think Candy had a rough time after we got back from Berkeley. There was, I don't know whether it's the age, because she was just beginning high school, that I think she felt some ostracism or discrimination. That she found a lot of her old friends from Central Area, Asian friends, weren't speaking to her. But as she got into Roosevelt and she fumed about a -- but she was also a very counterculture "loudmouth." [Laughs] An activist, but she went on to become junior class president and had developed new -- she really wanted to back to Central Area. I had a CAMP meeting at the house, and she came up to Walt Hundley and said, "Mr. Hundley, I have to get back to CD." Walt Hundley said, "Candy, I'm sorry, but you're the wrong color." We had moved to the Roosevelt area, to Ravenna, and that was, Ralph took his sabbatical leave in '65-'66, and Candy had come to Eckstein in her eighth or ninth grade. Anyway, but junior high school age, your friends are so valuable, that's the most important thing in your life at that time.

But that era of Garfield, Ralph becomes class, class advisor for the class of '60, and I went to that class's reunions until, even after he died. He died in '99 and I guess I went to the '60, '60 class reunion and had to say something. I think maybe I went to sixty-two, but we always went to, Garfield became the apple of his eye, kind of. And a wide cross-section. One of the things he did -- well, he, when this principal called him about class assignments, he said, "You want to teach economics or Far East history?" And Ralph took Far East history because that's what he got pounded with at the university. When he decided to do his master's degree on India, they made him take five areas of concentration instead of the usual three for master's degree. And he had to learn every government in Asia; Korea, Japan, China, Philippines, India. So he really knew the Asian field. But generally speaking, as a poli-sci guy, he really had to know governments all over the world. He could give you a European history lesson just... of course, he loves history. But he needed to know what the invasions and the overseeing, European overseeing Africa, and all the territories that European governments had.

And, but, he took Far East history, and for Garfield, that was perfect, because you had a big cross-section of Asians and Jewish kids. It was, at that time, Broadmoor was there and the Lakefront was there, and the International District, he had the Moriguchis, Tomio's younger sisters, couple of 'em. Kiharas were a big family in the Buddhist church and a lot of the black kids, there's a letter in there from a black kid who grows up in Yesler Terrace, poor, but she comes over to ask, pick Ralph's brain about going to, going on to get a Ph.D. in anthropology in Chapel Hill. She'd gotten her MSW and was the sole support of a daughter, but she ends up going to Chapel Hill, the first black to get a Ph.D. out of Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

But any number of -- I should have included another letter that he also, we also went into, having come back from Berkeley, the kids were, two oldest ones were freshman and eighth grade, I guess. Ralph took a job in what was called Upward Bound, I think it's a Kennedy project, where, with the philosophy that a country this rich has no business declining college education for kids just because they don't have enough money. The government should do this, and they set up a program called Upward Bound, meaning they recruit low-income, low, low-income kids in their junior year, after their junior year, put them in a university setting, and they live in dorms, they supply the tuition, the books, even a small allowance, travel money, and that started in '66. Well, Roger Sale, very popular English prof. on campus was the first director. See, you had people like Roger Sale, who was, also was a Madrona resident, very eager to do whatever, to make some changes, and they'll try things. So Roger was director of this program, they recruited, ultimately there was about eighty, eighty students, it seems to me. They recruit about twenty new students every year, maybe thirty, and, but they have to travel all over the place, because some of these, these are parents, families that are so poor, the parents have never been to college, never, have never seen a college, they don't really understand the college system. So you have to go out to the homes and explain what college means, and what it's going to require. And parents have to sign off on allowing their kids to do this.

They pick 'em up in their junior year, and then they also have to go to school to recruit, find out where the promising kids are. And they get 'em signed up and they're given bus tickets to come into town, and in Seattle, half of the high schools denied that they had poverty kids, and so they won't participate. But Lincoln, Franklin, Sealth, West Seattle, I think Roosevelt, Hale -- maybe Hale wasn't even existing then -- Ballard did. Anyway, and then, and then Tacoma, Renton... and Ralph and Roger went out to the Indian reservations, because they were, the government says in Washington state, those are primary grounds, 'cause we have enough reservations. So they'd go around and recruit these people, these kids, and put 'em in dormitories. The director takes on a two-year stint there as an assistant director who's kind of being groomed to be the next director. And that went on for seven years that Ralph was there. And the same bunch of teachers, most of them profs, will carry on their same -- Roger always taught English, and Ralph always taught history, somebody, Al Davis or somebody took science, somebody taught math, and there were mandatory study hours, there were mandatory, there were tutors, a recreation leader, transportation head.

But up and at 'em at seven o'clock in morning, be down there for breakfast by quarter to eight, and if they're not there, Ralph would be wanting to go bounding up the stairs with a pitcher of ice water, "You're (going to) get up, or not?" [Laughs] And so you have, you have to be tough and be able to cope with it, but their, the kids' assignments were also tough; they had to study. And if they acted out, Ralph would be one to send 'em home.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.