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MN: I want to ask you a little bit about your schooling now. When you moved to Seattle what grammar school did you go to?

RN: Well, in those days on the outskirts of Japantown, or Little Tokyo or what you want to call it, there used to be two grammar schools. One was called Bailey Gatzert; it was right in the heart of the residential area of where the Japanese used to live. It was ninety-nine percent Japanese, students up to the fifth grade. Up to the fifth grade it was all Japanese, maybe one or two Chinese, one kurombo woman. Her name was Eva Whistler and she was the only kurombo living, going to school there. A few Chinese. Rest were all Japanese. Then after we finished the fifth grade we had to go to another one, something like a, similar to a junior high school, which was a little further up downtown, and that was practically all Japanese except for a few white guys. And then from there, you go there for two years, then you go to high schools. There was about four different, three different high schools where most of the Japanese all went to, see.

MN: So the junior high school that you went to, what was that called?

RN: What do you mean?

MN: From Bailey Gatzert you went to what school?

RN: They didn't call 'em junior high schools in those days. I don't know what they used to call 'em, but you go there for two years, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. Seventh and eighth grade, then you have to go to the high school. And then Japanese went to about three main high schools. I went to one called Franklin High School, which was in my district. Another was Garfield, which was another little bit better neighborhood, and there was mostly all Jews there, Jewish families. Another one was called Broadway, which was downtown. It was the oldest one in Seattle, and a lot of Japanese, depending on where you lived, went to Broadway. So between the three, and there was a fourth one that was built after I finished my high school, they built another one a little further out which was two-thirds Japanese. But these other three, I wouldn't say they were a hundred percent Japanese, they were almost, a lot of Japanese going there and mostly all white too. But at that time there was only six high schools, you know. There was only about six, well, it became seven because they built a new high school after I finished, but the old ones, there was six of 'em. They're not, they weren't big like the ones here.

MN: How did you do in school?

RN: Huh?

MN: How did you do in school?

RN: Not very, I was just a C grade. Just enough to get by.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.