<Begin Segment 30>

SY: So say if camp didn't happen, do you think your life would be different?

CI: Oh, of course. It really would be different. I think we'd still be in a little cocoon, being very traditional, traditional Japanese. I think camp broadened us, a lot of us.

SY: But what about your ambition to be a nurse? Was that something that...

CI: No, that was always there.

SY: Always there.

CI: Always there.

SY: So whether you went --

CI: I didn't have to choose a profession because I'm one of the few lucky people, I think. I knew I wanted to be a nurse. I was very fortunate.

SY: Really? When did that come to you that you wanted to be a nurse? Was it during camp?

CI: Oh, no. It was from the time I was little, young.

SY: Did you have any...

CI: No, I didn't. [Laughs] Role model, you're thinking, right?

SY: Well, that, no, I was just thinking, in camp, there were opportunities to work in the hospital but you were too young, probably.

CI: No, but I worked in the hospital in camp.

SY: Oh, you did?

CI: That was my first job that I ever had.

SY: Oh. We missed that, or did I miss that? You actually worked... so that's when you know.

CI: I know, but that was only about a couple of months, I think. And this one girl that lived in our block, Mi-chan, she was a nurse's aide so they assigned me to her. And I thought, "Oh, okay," I thought I could sit and talk with her. And she said, "Okay, now, let's get going." She had me washing the cribs...

SY: So it was hard work.

CI: It was hard work. She was a good role model. [Laughs] Nursing isn't sitting there talking about this and that.

SY: I mean, that, so you found that to be true all through your career.

CI: All through, yes.

SY: A lot of hard work.

CI: But camp, I mean, it was the first time I experienced anything like, I saw a first baby being born and I saw that. And I was only, how old was I? Sixteen. That was quite an experience.

SY: So you were never, you never got uncomfortable being in an operating room, then?

CI: Well, all I know... I'll tell you something. I thought, "I can't stand..." I didn't think I could stand in the operating room to see the scalpel going like that, so I used to always look away during surgery. Until one time I was so busy that he opened up the... he did the, and I didn't have a chance to look away. So there were, you know, I had to learn how to...

SY: Stomach it.

CI: Yeah. And another thing... well, to this day I still have problems with eye surgery. That's very sensitive to me. So I told my instructor, because at County you have different services you go to. You rotate through, and I had spent two weeks on ear, nose and throat, and my next service was two weeks on eye. So I told my instructor, I said, "I think I have to resign from the program." And she said, "What?" And I said, "I can't stand anything to do with eyes." And so she said, "Oh, well, why don't you try? Go to the operating room and try it and if you really can't stand it, you can go back and spend two weeks more on ENT. So I said, "Oh, that's very nice." So I did. I went to eye surgery. For two weeks, I never watched surgery. [Laughs] I made all these little... in eye surgery you make little pledgets and you have, it looks like a dental sponge. And so you roll it between your fingers and then the points come out, and that's what they used to get rid of the blood, these little pointed pledgets. So that's what I did for two weeks, I made little, hundreds of little pledgets and put it on the tray. [Laughs] And he'd say, "Oh, look Miss Ozawa, look at this. Isn't that interesting?" I said, "Yes, it is. Very interesting." So very seldom... once in a while I would get caught and I had to watch something. Anyway, there are things that... and a lot of my friends tell me, "Oh, I can't stand this, I can't stand that." But you can stand the majority of it. But that's me and eyes.

SY: But that would...

CI: So I never had to, you know, I choose not to work with an oculist or ophthalmologist.

SY: Yeah, that's good. You still have choices, huh?

CI: Yeah.

<End Segment 30> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.