<Begin Segment 9>

AH: And what was Denver University like at that time? That was not your choice, that was your parents' choice, right?

SH: [Laughs] It was the cheapest way to go. I could stay at home and go to school.

AH: And tell me about that school.

SH: It was a very nice campus, and I remember it was very peaceful, it was a beautiful place. The only problem was that my father had these specific ideas about what we should do in going to school. And so he had decided that I should go into pre-med. So I had to take all the courses for pre-med, and so then that meant that I had to go into... and at the University of Denver they had a set course. And from the beginning, from the time you were a freshman, then you could only take certain things, and they were one science, one math, and biology and all this kind of thing. And because I had in high school done well, I had taken a test, and I was able to opt out of first-year English. And so I remember opting out of English, but still they had quite a set course for us. So I did it to please my father, but it was not what I wanted.

AH: Did you get your degree in that?

SH: I got my degree in it, but not very happily.

AH: Why?

SH: Because it was not, I was not that interested in it, and it was in my senior year that I was allowed to take electives, and I started to take liberal arts courses. And I thought, "This is what I really enjoy, the liberal arts courses." And so I had taken an education class at that time, too, knowing that we weren't allowed to teach, but I thought I'd just like to know about that. And so I took one, and then that was how I got into that field.

AH: Now Tetsuko was three years older than you. Did she go to school, college?

SH: She went to college, too, but I don't know how serious she was. I was the one in the family who always was the one who tried the hardest and really believed what my father said. If he said, "Work hard," I worked hard. My sister was more happy-go-lucky, and she would work a certain amount, but then she would go off and fool around and do things. And she was not that interested in studying. She took courses, but she was smart enough, she just didn't work very hard at it.

AH: What was her major, do you remember?

SH: I don't even remember what her major was, but I know she did it. And I was the one who won the awards and everything else; she never did anything.

AH: So she wasn't a role model for you in that sense?

SH: No, no. In fact, I often wonder why, even in the time I was in, I think it was in elementary school, my father, the Buddhist church, in the church we have certain celebrations, and then they had to have representatives from different... like one from the schoolchildren who would have to give a speech, and they would always, my teacher would tell me I had to do it. And then my father wrote a speech that I had to memorize in Japanese. I didn't know anything about what it said, but I had to memorize it and get up there and give it. That was several times. And then when I was about, I'd say about ten years old, nine or ten, my parents told me, I saw the reverend from Fort Lupton and his wife at our house, and they said... evidently they had told my father that they needed somebody that could come and take care of their children because they were both, the reverend and his wife were teaching Japanese school during the summertime in Fort Lupton. And here I was about ten or eleven. And for two years, they sent me away to live with the family, and I lived with the Reverend's family for two years.

AH: What were the two years?

SH: Just during the summer, two months during the summer.

AH: Oh, just during two summers.

SH: Two summers, yes. But I kind of felt lonely for my family, you know, coming from a big family. And I couldn't understand why I was the one who had to go.

AH: Let me ask you to talk a little bit about the Fort Lupton Japanese American community, because that figures a lot in the wartime story. What was that community like in comparison to, say, what you knew in Denver?

SH: Well, it was a farming community, and people were all friendly. I only know them in that they would come over once in a while to bring vegetables to the reverend's family. And then the school, the kids, the students I didn't get to talk with because I was there in their home taking care of the young children. In fact, I think there was only one, each time there were, I think there was only one because the older one went to school, and then the younger one was home and was maybe preschool age. And so I didn't get to go to the school to meet the kids except that I kind of felt a longing to go over there when I'd see them right across the way there. They were in school during the day and I was just taking care of the child and maybe running errands for the wives there.

AH: Did you get to go to the Buddhist church there in Fort Lupton? Because I think they did have a temple at that time.

SH: I think we only visited once or twice when we would have our special, like on the day of the Buddha's birth, then we would go and we had to do plays from our Denver church, we would go over there and we would present a play, and I would be in the play or in a dance or singing or something. So we went there maybe a few times, I can't remember really knowing much about it.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.