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TI: Okay. So let's, let's move to college. And so what -- well, first let me establish, so what junior high school and high school did you attend?

NA: I went to Roosevelt Junior High School 'cause our family was still living in California Street between Lyon and Baker Street. And when I was in junior high school, went to seventh through ninth grade, and when I was in about the seventh going into eighth grade my parents bought a new house, and this was in the Avenues. We were in the outer Richmond. We were one of the first Japanese to be moving that way out into the outer Richmond area. And so, but I was already into my junior high school and my next brothers were starting junior high school too, so we remained there and so it was out of our junior high school district but still walkable or taking the bus. We continued, and then from there I went to Washington High School, which was right in the neighborhood.

TI: Okay. And earlier you talked about how you were always on the college track, that that was something that, an expectation, so did you, were you thinking of different colleges, or was there just like one college? Or how did you choose which college to attend?

NA: In those days, I mean, it's not like today. [Laughs] In those days, no, it wasn't like today, and very, I always assumed I was gonna go to San Francisco State. Which I did.

TI: And was that where most Japanese Americans went in the city, or why San Francisco State?

NA: Because I think I was thinking more of like, well, here's this teacher, maybe I'm gonna be a teacher too, back of my head. 'Cause everyone was saying that, "Oh, you'd be a good teacher." So San Francisco State seemed like a logical choice, and I thought, well, if I'm gonna go into medicine, well, if you're go into medicine at least you could get a biology background and then you got, you could go to grad school maybe.

TI: Okay, so you study the, you said biological science was your major.

NA: Major.

TI: So how, so college is kind of an exciting time. You get to choose your classes and it's a lot more freedom, so tell me how, what college was like for you. What kind of opened up for you in college?

NA: Well, certainly the first semester, or first going to college, all of a sudden you realize, you graduate from high school thinking you're on top of the world, you know everything, all your experiences are, you've almost done everything possible in life, then you go to college and you're nothing. Pretty much that was it. Like it was kind of a rude awakening where everything that you did in high school and achieved and succeeded and all your, and what was hard, I think, was also that this is a time where there are veterans coming back from Korean War, and so you were competing with people who also had -- and San Francisco State especially, 'cause it's a big commuter school -- so your classmates in the freshmen class was also these veterans who were already had, what, they must've been in their twenties, mid-twenties, already having life experiences, so it became a whole interesting... And it was also a time where then all of a sudden with the Korean War and the veterans coming in, they came back after a wonderful experience of, about being in Japan on R&R, so Japan then became a little bit different. Up 'til then we had things like "Considering we are Americans" kind of speakers' bureaus and things like that that was, had popped up.

TI: Speaker bureaus in terms of the Japanese American community?

NA: Of, actually it was multiracial. 'Cause like in, my world going even into junior high school, high school, towards the end, don't ask me how I got into -- oh, I know how I got into it, because I was selected to be one of the commencement speakers for junior high school. So we went through a, I guess a practice, and that was the first time I ever heard my voice on the tape recorder, and all I could think about was, "Where did that person come from Japan when?" And it was me, and I realized that that was me and I sounded like I was from Japan or a foreigner speaking.

TI: But I don't detect an accent.

NA: Well, I, you didn't know me in junior high school, I guess, because my T-Hs were Ds because there's no T-H sound in Japanese, and remember, my grandmother and her Japanese was really strong, and I still spoke Japanese to the Isseis I'd run into. I even was, because partly I guess I had an interest, but also to keep it up, and so when I heard this I was really kind of shocked and so I worked with my English teacher to at least get the pronunciation right, get the T-H sounds and of course the Rs and Ls. I still today, I have to really think consciously where to put my tongue. So that experience, by the time I went to high school I decided to go into speech and, I mean speech class, but the only speech classes were debate, was connected with the debating team. And so that's where I was teamed up with Carol Thompson. She just kind of Facebooked me to reconnect, but it's through her that she was saying, well, let's debate -- we had to debate, we had to find a topic, so she says, "Well let's debate about the prejudice against the Jews." And I go like, "What prejudice against the Jews?" And she says, "The prejudice against Jewish people." I said, "I don't understand," because all I saw Jewish people as white. How could white people be prejudiced against white people? I could understand if you're people of color, at least that's where I was coming from. And so that was a big, another life experience to me. When we talk about prejudice, as much as I learned when I was young how Japanese could be so prejudiced against another group of people and still figure that they are at the bottom of this, you know, unjust and all, but here's another dimension that I learned.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.