<Begin Segment 25>

MA: At that point you'd been working as a lab technician for a while, both at Pinedale and at Tule Lake. Were you thinking then about pursuing medical school? Did you know that you could do that, or did you know about your options? What were you thinking about your education at that point?

KB: Okay, I still had not given up on medical school. There was a female doctor, a Japanese doctor from San Francisco, Dr. Togasaki, who had graduated from Woman's Medical College, and somehow, she wasn't that friendly, but somehow we got together on my career, and she was very helpful in getting me into medical school. She actually -- since she was a graduate of Woman's Medical -- wrote to them about me and I think she had a lot to do with getting me into that school. Also, it was an all-women's school, and they were not affected at all by the war in the way that the other medical schools were. I don't know whether you heard about what happened during World War II with the medical students. They had what was called... I'm getting the word. [Laughs] Accelerated program, and I think the fellows signed up to enter either the army or the navy, and then they were put through this accelerated training program in medicine, so that when they finish they will become an officer in either the army or the navy to help with the war casualties. So it was very difficult for a woman to get into those schools. At that time, the women were not accepted in the armed services as physicians. This gradually changed before World War II was ended, but at that time that I applied. So it was easier for a female to go into Woman's Medical College, which was completely all women. And since this Dr. Togasaki already was a graduate of that school, she encouraged me to go there, and she also wrote a letter of recommendation for me. And probably that had some influence in having me accepted. Plus, I had good grades, which always helps.

MA: So you had to apply to medical school. What did you have to do with, like, the camp bureaucracy? Did you have to do anything to...

KB: No, not to apply.

MA: Or to even leave? Did you have to do anything like sign any papers or fill out any applications with the camp?

KB: No, not that I remember. I think once everybody was in camp, my feeling was they were trying to get people out. My brothers were the first, one of the first ones to leave. We got there in September by, maybe by wintertime, I don't know, or early spring, anyway. They were crying for workers in the beet fields, the sugar beet fields and the farms around Idaho, Montana and eastern Washington, for workers, and they recruited in camp. So I know my brothers and some of their friends were, they left camp.

MA: Permanently?

KB: Fairly soon, to go to work in the, on the farms. I think in my case, I was with these three other women, and they wanted to get out of camp. And the options for them was to do housework. There was a demand for domestic work, so the four of us decided we'll go to Chicago, because there were offers, apparently a number of offers from Chicago. So we decided to get out of camp together. And this was in May, I think.

MA: Of 1943?

KB: 1943. My school would not start 'til September of '43, so I said, "Well, sure, I might as well go out with them," so I did.

MA: How did your parents feel about you leaving camp and going off to school?

KB: Well, by that time I think they were getting used to my being away from them, because I was already out of their barrack into this other barrack. [Laughs] They had no objections, they felt if I wanted to go, fine. My parents are a little bit like that, they said, "Well, yeah, if you want to do it, go ahead and do it." So we were driven by bus to Klamath Falls and we took the train from Klamath Falls to Chicago. And I still remember how we shared one compartment, four of us, and then we had partners sleeping upstairs and downstairs. [Laughs] It was quite an experience. We got close, got to know each other very closely. Because it took, I think, at least two days, maybe two and a half days to get to Chicago.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.