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NO: But challenges as administrator is probably working with the district, but I feel strongly that this last strike was important, that I sided with the teachers, I never went on strike myself, 'cause I was a different person there. But my tax man can't believe how much money I used to spend. And I said, "It's true, I have a receipt for every single teacher, spend their own money." Every hour you teach, you spend an hour preparing, no one really realizes that, a good teacher does. Everything you do, you preview before it happens. So I believe that there were challenges, so the challenges continue. Because when I interview some of the new teachers, they come in my office and they're in jeans, and they cross their legs, and they're almost like a yoga position, I go, "Hmm, very interesting, Gretchen. Tell me about yourself." Because I'm literally a generation from the Depression, the camps, survival, we made it. And you're coming in your shorts, okay, uh-oh, there's a problem here. So I did hold the line on that, we had to wear uniforms, I asked the kids to do that, because I thought it'd erase class. There's not people above you and people below you, everybody had something to wear. And the teachers kind of knew, parents knew that I'm the one in the suit. But the first thing I did when I retired, got rid of all those suits, 'cause I didn't need 'em anymore. But you're trying to create an environment of order and also, regardless of what's happening in the outside world, this was the last bastion of democracy, because it's going to be shaken like mine was shaken, and I thought, we have to believe in this country. My girlfriend wanted me to go to China with her when Obama was inaugurated, I said, "I can't go. I have to have the whole school in the auditorium, we're going to watch this." And the kids said, "Who's this?" and I could identify all the people on the screen, and then I realized how old I was, because they did not know anybody. And I thought, oh, they're really young. Because you get your manipulatives and you put out your little numbers and group to counting, "I'm five," so you put five, and some people put six, and I used all the little beans and all the characters. I said, no wonder I'm so smart. I better be, because I've had more time on planet Earth, so I better be gentle with these little creatures, be gentle. They need to have the childhood I had, which was a wonderful childhood.

So what happened is a lot of the people at the Japanese community center, teachers, because that's kind of the job of choice for our generation, so we put together a program called Susume no Gakko, the Sparrow School. And since we had one man, I let him be the principal, because it's old school, right? He's the principal, figurehead, and basically I run the program and put everybody in their little spaces, it was a very diverse program. But we've been replaced -- and I'm going to talk about change -- by a program called Kizuna, which is about fun. We were about culture, I mentioned I picked the book, the theme of the year, whether it's about loyalty or identity or whatever it might be. But we have to let go, we have to let the new generation take their place. Because I said, "What's your theme?" and they said, "Theme?" Okay, all right, I have to trust them, that they've seen how we work. And we had to quit because we're half day, and a lot of the parents, I would run a two-layer program, we would be educating the parents, too. But this program, the Kizuna, the parents can leave, because it ends at five, they can work. But our people have to take a week off, so we have them learning how to do origami, how to make books, how to follow up at home, how to take that story and help them write something or plant that sunflower seed. So it was multigenerational. But it was the year that I had my car accident, and I'm coming in in a wheelchair and people are all like, it was time for us to let go, but we held on as long as we possibly could, and we support the new program. They have it onsite at our place, doesn't look like the old school for sure, but the kids are happy, and that's okay. I just want them to be happy and smart. [Laughs] I always want to give them that edge. And so even a lot of things I'm doing today, I tell these kids, "Use this information for your college application. This will set you apart that you have a sense of civil rights, justice, you have a sense of history. Use this to your advantage, because other people will write, I mean, they're going to write great things, too, because they read a lot, but this becomes personal.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.