<Begin Segment 16>

AH: I'm going to leave you with one last question, because we're going to have a break and then Thursday we're going to take you on through the events, and that's a natural place to stop. The question is this: Let's suppose there had not been a Pearl Harbor. You had this intention that you were going to get employed and everything else like that. How did you see your future rolling out before you? What did you see for yourself? You're going to graduate as an engineering major from Washington, you're then what? Where's the life after that for Jim Akutsu?

JA: Okay, at that time, I didn't know the war was coming on, so I had no idea. So, my idea was, so if I graduate from civil engineering I will probably work at an area where I most likely want to be. And one of the things was Skagit, up there, City Light, and I'd get involved in whatever outside thing. So at that point, that's about all I was thinking, is not beyond too much into the future. But when the war came on, it just, boom, it came on suddenly.

AH: What did you think about in terms of marriage? Who did you -- I don't mean the person.

JA: I used to take out Caucasian girls, more than I did Japanese.

AH: In college?

JA: In high school. And that's where I was very close with them.

AH: How exceptional were you in that regard?

JA: Very accepted.

AH: No, I don't mean accepted, how exceptional? I mean, were there other, lots of other Japanese Americans? Now the out-marriage among Japanese Americans is about 60 percent.

JA: That's right. But at that time, I didn't -- never even thought of marriage or anything -- going out together, going skating or movie or something, that was about it. Beyond that, no.

AH: So marriage hadn't entered your mind too much by the time of evacuation.

JA: No, no.

AH: You had some thoughts about how you would use your education and everything. And you were involved in a lot of different activities, things that now people would... if you were around now, you'd have been in the Sierra Club and be off on different things and maybe even being in an environmental activist groups, who knows?

JA: Well, maybe, maybe. Because I contribute toward those environmental groups like the park and the animal groups, I donate to them. But outdoor is something I like. My parents liked it, both, outdoor life.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.