<Begin Segment 26>

LH: Well, speaking of school...

FK: Yeah.

LH: Okay, so you settled back here in your house, and eventually have to start going to school...

FK: Right.

LH: And you're about how old, you're six or so?

FK: I was six. I went into first grade. (When) I had gotten (bad), I went to kindergarten while I was in Minidoka. So when we came back (I) went to first grade, and that was an experience too.

LH: Can I just ask you, if we could just go back to that Minidoka experience? Because you had told me, you related a story to me that I'd liked before about your kindergarten in Minidoka. Just to contrast between kindergarten in Minidoka and what you experienced on Bainbridge. Can you tell me about that in Minidoka?

FK: I don't remember that much about kindergarten in Minidoka, other than my mother saved my report card. And, and I saw my report card and I noticed I had a "U" in citizenship which was...

LH: What does a "U" mean?

FK: A "U" means unsatisfactory. And the comment, at the bottom of the report card, was this is a very aggressive kid. [Laughs] So, I don't know whether I was terrorizing the rest of the kids in kindergarten or what, but I got a "U" in that and, and I got "U" in something else. I think it was being attentive or something. But also, the teacher's comment at the bottom of the page said something about Kazu, that was what I was called at that time, Kazu had leadership qualities. And I go, "Oh!" [Laughs] I might have been not very civil, but... [Laughs]

LH: Even at that young age. [Laughs]

FK: I must have had some sort of assertiveness. [Laughs]

LH: She recognized your abilities.

FK: I suppose so. It was nice of her to put a nice comment along with the other one. I thought I was terrorizing the rest of the kids probably. [Laughs]

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.