<Begin Segment 9>

TI: So we talked a little bit about school, regular school. How about Japanese language school? Did you go to Japanese language school?

TU: Yeah, we got sent to Saturday mornings at the Methodist church. There was a Reverend Haratani there, and his wife, they were both Japanese language teachers. So we spent Saturday mornings there. I don't know how regularly we attended but we did attend. And... let's see. Sometimes at night we used to go to night school.

TI: For Japanese school?

TU: Yeah. Besides the Saturday. And there was a teacher named Asazawa, I forget his first name. But I remember him distinctly telling us, "The way you might learn the language is to keep a diary and write every day something in the diary. For example, if it rained, write the kanji for 'rain.' That way you'll pick up the language or pick up a word." That's the way we kept up with the Japanese language. But then Saturday, getting back to Saturday, we had more fun playing. [Laughs]

TI: And that playing, was it, in part, I'm thinking whereas in the regular school you had to catch up with English, but in Japanese school I would think you and Gene would be much more advanced than the people your age.

TU: Well, Gene was, I wasn't that good because I only had a year's education in Japan.

TI: But I would think just in terms of picking it up, because you had much more experience with Japanese in terms of speaking it and understanding it more than the other kids your age?

TU: Could be, I'm not sure. I don't know if I was that smart. [Laughs]

TI: Oh, I think you probably did well. Going back to the regular school, I'm thinking that here you were in Japan, probably brought up as Japanese, and then you go to the United States, and one of the first things they do every morning is "Pledge of Allegiance." And here you're pledging allegiance to United States, and I'm just wondering how you felt about that. It must have been a different concept for you in terms of all of a sudden pledging allegiance to a country you didn't really know that much about. Explain that.

TU: Well, I think at that time, at that age, I'm doing what the other kids are doing. If the other kids were saluting, I would salute. But later on, we didn't salute, we held arms this way across our chest.

TI: So explain that. When you first started, when you did the Pledge of Allegiance, how would you salute? Go ahead and do that.

TU: Well, there'd be a flag in the corner of the room and we would all point our hands to that and recite the "Pledge of Allegiance."

TI: So it's very different than how it's done now where the hand's over the heart. And in fact, when you did that, it reminded me a little bit of the salute that in Germany...

TU: That's right.

TI: ...that they would do.

TU: I think the presumption is it's too much like what the Germans were doing, so eventually we went this way instead of this way.

TI: Oh, interesting.

TU: I think, that's my presumption.

TI: But when you were younger, you would see --

TU: We would just go along with what the other kids were doing.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.