<Begin Segment 16>

MA: Another thing that I was hoping you could talk about was the Japanese American Heritage School that you were involved with.

CT: Oh, yeah. We have a school called Chibi no Gakko. And that started because many years ago, a teacher in the school district that I work in got a grant for computers, so you can tell it was a long time ago, and, they built a computer lab. So she volunteered to teach a summer class to help kids learn how to use the computer. And they wrote a book, she didn't want them to write just papers and practice, she wanted a goal. So they wrote a book called Kids Explore Denver... I can't remember the exact title, but kids went out and interviewed and did reviews on summer activities or places for kids. So they went to the restaurants that are kid-friendly and then they, it was kind of like a recommendation. "Go here because they're kid-friendly." And then the following year, because she felt it was so successful and the kids really did learn to do, you know, you work the computers and stuff, they wrote a book called Kids Explore America's Hispanic Culture, or Communities. And that was successful. And then she wrote, the next group was America's African American Heritage, and then the third book was Kids Explore America's Japanese American Heritage. And when she contacted me, the first thing you think about is there's this person whose going to write about our heritage and she was not that way at all. She was very committed to making sure that it was accurate. So then, a few of us got together and we recruited Japanese American teachers so that we had a combination of Japanese American lead teachers who developed the outline for their curriculum, and then the other teachers which were a mix of Hispanic, African American, and Caucasian who worked on the other books. So we wrote the book, or the kids wrote the book. We just guided them and they published it. And then we had a big party and the book was done. A couple years later, parents started asking, "When are you gonna do that again?" Well, there was a book that was already written, so that wasn't the goal. But we realized that there was a need in the community for these younger children to learn about their Japanese American heritage. So that was kinda where the idea was born. And the lead teachers are Colorado-certified teachers and it's a combination of the educational community and the Japanese American community. So we hold it every other year, because we don't want to burn the teachers out. And we hold it for seven weeks in a row. And the kids... it's not a study about Japan, but it is a study about your heritage. But we teach the kids to begin to do research and reading on developing their family history.

MA: So it's a Japanese American heritage.

CT: The focus is really mostly on... we do talk about who came. We read a book, in fact, it's Allen Say's Grandfather's Journey, which is really illustrated well. And we read, use that as the base, and for the younger kids we read the book. And even with the older kids, we can talk about it. And then their homework is to go home and find out, "Well, who came to this country first in your family?" And if it's a bi-racial family, we say, "Go back as far as you can and get that information." And then, so they do the research, but then we go through the internment years and then we go through fighting for your country, and then cover the MIS, the 442, the 100th Battalion, and then also the resistance. Because we have some children whose grandfathers were resisters, but that was also defending their country in their own way. And then we move on into studying folk tales and things like that. But the kids go through four groups, which is really kind of neat. They have the research and writing. Then they do an art project which is based upon our heritage. And then they have cooking, which is based upon our heritage. And then, games, dance, songs, which is based on our heritage. So that one, the kids learn to play go and hana. And then learn some Japanese songs and of course everybody has to learn tanko bushi. But their favorite, most favorite is cooking, because they do the cooking. And each group, our classes are made up of about, we only take thirty-six kids every other year. And we've gone over a little bit, but we try to keep the student-teacher ratio small. And so, in cooking, they actually make, whether it's udon or sukiyaki or something, so that at the end of every session, and they ask, "What was your favorite?" Everybody always says cooking. [Laughs] But they enjoy the games and things, too.

MA: And I imagine they talk a lot with their family. It sparks a lot of dialogue in the family.

CT: And that's exactly what the reading-research part of it is, is to interview, and we let the parents know ahead of time, "You may have to make some long-distance phone calls." But we would like the children to talk to the oldest person in the family who can provide that information. So that's another one. And we're going into our, I think it's our seventh session, and we meet every other year, so that's fourteen years. So we're not an old, old group, but certainly there's a lot of children that have come through over that period of fourteen years, that have learned something about their family heritage. And they get a notebook at the end, so the notebook has all their research, the recipes, the description of the art projects, and then the instructions for the music, games, songs, and things like that.

MA: That sounds like so much fun. [Laughs]

CT: It is fun. Every year we're happy when it's over, because the teachers have to commit about nine months of their time and it's all volunteer.

MA: Right, so it's in addition to their jobs at school.

CT: Exactly. So we start planning, well, maybe six months in advance. But we get together in August or September and plan, and then the school starts in January. But we have to fit that in between soccer and basketball, so we do it in the wintertime and it's seven weeks in a row. So that's a big commitment. But everybody is committed who's connected to it, so that's really neat.

MA: Yeah, such a wonderful, sounds like such a wonderful experience.

CT: Yeah, and I think most Japanese American communities have some type of heritage school. I think in every, especially the larger communities. And so that's, I think that's really neat.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.