<Begin Segment 9>

MN: So you were in Japan from 1933 to 1936. Your father returned to Los Angeles in '34 and your uncle who was here, he was running the shofudo, confectionary store, closed the store in 1936 and went back to Japan.

AM: That's because, the reason for my uncle to go back to Japan was because when my mother decided to bring us two children back to Los Angeles, which left my grandmother by herself, and that being my mother's mother, the uncle in Los Angeles decided they better come back because I'll be left, she'll be left by herself to take care of all the houses that my grandfather had purchased. So he decided to come back, so he sold the business and came back. So when he was coming back on the steamship we were going into Los Angeles, so we crossed each other in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

MN: Now, when your family returned to Los Angeles, did you live in the same Boyle Heights house?

AM: We, when we returned to Los Angeles we lived in Boyle Heights on Evergreen Avenue, which is close to, closer to Little Tokyo than where we used to live. It was about two miles further away from Little Tokyo where we used to live, but we were closer by two miles from Evergreen.

MN: When you returned to Los Angeles how much English did you remember?

AM: You know, when I came back I hardly knew any English, so therefore I had to go to classes starting from second grade, although I was much older than second grade students over here, so I went back to First Street School and I started from second grade.

MN: But when you returned to Los Angeles it was right before summer vacation. Is that right?

AM: Oh, yeah. So I attended some of the summer school, just to learn English.

MN: At Maryknoll?

AM: Maryknoll is one of them. I went there during the summer and then I learned some English, or relearned some English, and then when September started, when school started I enrolled at First Street School again and I started from second grade although I was much older than most of the students in the rest of the class.

MN: What grade were you supposed to be in?

AM: I was about one year or two years behind.

MN: So you were maybe, you were supposed to be maybe third or fourth grade?

AM: Yeah.

MN: Well, you couldn't speak English, but what about your math skills?

AM: Well, one, that's one area that I didn't have any problem, because of math, because in Japan they were much more advanced than over here, as far as math is concerned. So it was very easy for me because I knew multiplication before rest of the students over here because I learned it while I was in Japan. So the only thing that people over here in the second grade knew was addition and subtraction, and so when I came to school over here after I came back, math was the easiest subject for me. Reading was the most difficult part.

MN: So did your math skills let you, help you to skip, skip grades to be with the same, your peers?

AM: Yes. Well, what happened was I started from B2 and then the following year I was supposed to be A2, but they skipped me the A's and we, they put me into B3. And then from B4, from there, B3, I went to B4 and then I skipped every, what is it...

MN: Semester?

AM: All the A's anyway. And then from B5 I went straight to junior high, seventh grade, so that was the hardest part for me.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.