Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Akiko Kurose Interview I
Narrator: Akiko Kurose
Interviewer: Matt Emery
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: July 17, 1997
Densho ID: denshovh-kakiko-01-0024

<Begin Segment 24>

ME: So how long have you been taking college classes?

AK: Ever since we got married. And the, I took off two years after my last cancer. It was just... I was going through chemo and I was real tired, so I stopped taking classes. But now after this batch, bout of cancer, I've gone back to school, and I'm taking classes all along. So there was that interim of two or three years when I didn't take classes, but I've always taken evening classes. It's not -- some of the classes haven't been real academic; take doll-making classes and I take craft classes. But I'm always taking classes, but mainly education classes and science classes.

ME: So were you then taking classes at the same time your kids were in college?

AK: Yes. Paul helped me in my physics, the trigonometry. [Laughs] And in those days, when we were taking statistics and trigonometry, we were not allowed to use the calculators. And that was difficult especially in statistics, so you make one error and, calculation error and your whole thing is skewed. But, so I was always calling up, "Paul I can't do this." [Laughs] And my husband, too, he was good in math. When the kids were small, I'd rely on him for my math. And when the kids got older, then Paul was a whiz in math so it was, I asked him. And he was more patient and Junks would say, "You don't understand this?" And I'd say. "No." Like, you know, things would come to him like this, like making estimates and things, and I could never do that. But, look at a room and make an estimate and know much tile to buy, or how much paint to buy, whatever -- I could never do that. And that's why I'm teaching first grade. [Laughs]

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.