<Begin Segment 17>

TI: Going back to your, your Japanese school, so your experience was different than most Niseis, when I ask about their Japanese school experience they tend not to be as organized or as disciplined experience as, as you had. This was, as you say, you mentioned probably the best Japanese school in America.

MT: People came from all over L.A., Los Angeles area, all over, the valley, everywhere, to go to that school. I knew one guy who became a judge and things. They went to everyday school here in town and Saturday they went to Compton. And it was, it was run like a Japanese school, highly disciplined, and if you misbehaved they would kick you out. Most Japanese school, they wanted the money so they would not kick you out even if you misbehaved or weren't learning, but there they would kick you out.

TI: So how did this sit with you? You, again, you have a rebellious streak in you; how did you deal with this, this type of schooling?

MT: My mother was very important and she would, you know, and schooling was very important for her, so she would impress upon us how it is and she would, she would work with us and do things like that. So it was... I did fairly well in school, too, in Japanese school because, I think because of my mother more than anything else, and I didn't necessarily love it 'cause one of the things that, my hakujin friends, my white friends, in summer they would get to play and three, two months of the three months summer vacation we had to go every day. They didn't do that at other Japanese schools. We had to go every day in the summer and we had to start from the early morning and, and we, I think we went from nine to four, I think it was, on Saturdays and every day during the summer. One of the reasons why was we had to read three textbooks: the current Japanese textbook for that grade, then the past Japanese textbook, and then the American published Japanese textbook before we went to the next grade, so we were all behind in school, but we, we did learn. And so I was, I only finished, I had just, I had gone into the fifth grade, yeah, fifth grade when the war started.

TI: But in regular school you were what?

MT: Seventh grade. I was second semester seventh grade

TI: Seventh grade, okay. So when you say behind, so you were --

MT: Couple years behind.

TI: You were a couple years behind.

MT: And so the, the important thing about that school that I appreciated it, a lot of it afterwards, but it did give us the discipline, it did do the thing. I mean, he scared you, you know? You were scared of the principal, so you had to study. And I wasn't the best student, I wasn't the worst student. I was up, I was one of the better students in that class. I was more serious than some of the other kids. There were some kids that weren't as serious; they just, they got by. They didn't excel, but they got by. But its reputation was such that after the war when people heard me speaking Japanese they said, they would think I'm from Japan. They said, "Where are you from?" And I'd tell 'em, well, I said, "I got, my Japanese education was over here," that I'm born and raised in America. They said, "Oh, where did you learn your Japanese?" I said, "Well, I went to Compton Japanese School." And they would say, "Oh, that's the reason why. Naruhodo" So had a, had a great reputation.

TI: An observation about your mother, I mean, just in terms of the importance she stressed about education. I think about how you talked about how you moved from Terminal Island to San Pedro to, to get to a better school to improve your English, and then moving again for the school for gifted kids, and then for her to kind of research and, and realize this is the best Japanese school, it's really just an observation of how important education was to your mother.

MT: Oh yeah, very much so. One of her biggest disappointments, when I quit UCLA, went to... was the biggest disappointment. She didn't say anything to me. I mean, she, she's much smarter than that. She didn't say anything to me, but I heard later from my sister how disappointed she was.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.