<Begin Segment 11>

TI: So let's kind of start moving on, back with your life. So after you graduated from high school, what did you want to do?

MS: Well, I wasn't really sure, so I didn't go for the first year, but I went to Seattle and lived with my sister and my brother-in-law, and then drove for a Japanese lady who was from Japan. And I can't think of the, she was going around teaching people using paper and clay and making scenes, little scenes, and I used to drive her. And that's when I had some friends that on Sunday or so forth, we'd go this little hangout. It's coffee and tea and that kind of thing, not tea, but ice cream, confectionery place. And gee, I don't remember going to church either. [Laughs] But I did that for a year. And then, after that, I went to the university that fall.

TI: Well, so in that year when you first came to Seattle, what were your impressions of living in Seattle after growing up...

MS: And driving.

TI: And driving in the big city?

MS: Well, it was all right. I got kind of used to it and was able to drive around. And I don't remember too much, but I do remember it was driving and then living with Amy and Jim.

TI: What were your impressions of the Japanese community in Seattle versus what you grew up with in Wapato?

MS: You know, I didn't have that much free time. So what few people I knew, I would get together with them. But outside of that, I would spend time with Amy and Jim, and then I was busy working. So Seattle did not make that much of an impression.

TI: So you said after a year, then you decided to go to the University of Washington?

MS: Yes.

TI: What made you decide to go to the U?

MS: Well, everybody else was going. You know, that was kind of interesting. Nowadays, I think kids are much more sophisticated and they decide and so forth. But when you're growing up in that period, it was sort of the thing to do, and so you went. And that's why I was there when the war broke out.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.