<Begin Segment 20>

AH: It's very interesting to hear this about your father, because Jimmie and your father, I don't believe, ever met one another, in spite of the fact that they were associated with this Rocky Shimpo newspaper and they're both very smart people, both very proud people, and probably both very arrogant people.

SH: Right.

AH: And so there is this kind of correspondence between them, and yet here you see they're both sacrificial lambs at this particular time. Now, you are a carrier of your father. Obviously you took seriously the kind of values that he had in education and learning and things. And you went on to become -- I thought it was your sister Tetsuko when I first read that "Miss Toda" was the first teacher of Japanese ancestry in the public schools of Denver, but it was you. Can you talk a little bit about how you got started in the teaching career in Denver?

SH: Well, it was during my last year in DU that I took that liberal arts course, and I took one in education. Because I always really liked the education field and studying and all, and so then I decided that... I knew there were no teachers... there were black teachers in Denver public schools, but none of Japanese ancestry. And I thought maybe it's because of the war, I don't know what. But anyway, before that, there had not been. So I decided that I would go into education and just test it. And so I went in, and it was after I was already married, and I had my degree from the university, that I decided to just take extra courses just in education. And so I went ahead and just took the courses in education, and I completed my courses. And then I applied to the Denver schools, and the Denver schools said I could come in but only as a substitute teacher. They would not give me a contract. I know for a fact that the people I graduated with at that time who finished their courses went in with a contract. But I was going to prove that I could do it. So I went in to the school, and from the very beginning I had a room down in the catacombs, we called it, because it was in the basement of this school at Wyatt, where the custodian lived in one of the rooms. And then my room was to the side. And it was cement floors and all that, and just a hallway between, and then there was this room. And they gave me a class where it was a very difficult class, and the teacher couldn't handle the children. And so they were having too much of a problem, and so they said, "Oh, substitute teacher, put her in," I guess. And so I took that class, and she was given the job of art coordinator for the building because she was very good in art. And so she got the art coordinator's job for the building, and I got the job teaching third grade. And from the beginning I just took over and loved the teaching and loved every bit of it. And the kids got in shape so well, and the principal would come by all the time to look, and he looked so happy. And I was very happy in that job. And so then the next time we were to renew, it came up for getting contracts, I got a contract. But it was just for one term, I think, that I had to go in as substitute teacher to prove myself. And that was why the paper came out, I think, that they wanted to know if a Japanese person could teach.

AH: Well, it actually had a picture in the paper, in the Denver Post, too.

SH: I remember they were taking pictures that day.

AH: And then you came to Seattle in what year?

SH: '53.

AH: And did you get a job here in the Seattle schools right away?

SH: Uh-huh. In fact, we were not going to leave Denver until... because my husband had wanted to go to graduate school, he had just finished at the University of Denver, and he wanted to go on and take a degree in international relations, something like that. So then we started to apply to anyplace where he could go into graduate school, a good graduate school, and I would get a job. And that was Seattle. And Seattle immediately gave me a job, and it was at a very poor school, Colman. And then my husband got into the University of Washington and he finished getting his degree there.

AH: And did you continue teaching after he died?

SH: I taught until '65.

AH: You did, okay. And when did he pass away?

SH: Twenty years ago.

AH: Okay, twenty years ago, okay.

SH: No, thirty years ago. Thirty years ago because Cam was born that year. So it's thirty years ago.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.