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Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Frank T. Sata Interview I
Narrator: Frank T. Sata
Interviewers: Brian Niiya (primary); Bryan Takeda (secondary)
Location: Pasadena, California
Date: March 28, 2022
Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-499-9

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BT: Yeah, no, I'm just trying to think if there's any other questions about Santa Anita and getting... I don't know how long exactly you were there at Santa Anita, but then after Santa Anita, you were transferred to another camp.

FS: Yeah, to Jerome, Arkansas. Yeah. What's interesting is I don't know how much parents have to do with it, but I never lost any school years. For all the moving we did, then even through camp, and then outside of camp, and then the journey after camp, I never lost any school years, you know. For all the schools I've been at, I was able to complete my schooling and get out of high school when I was still sixteen or just turning seventeen.

BT: Well, what was school like in camp?

FS: Well, in camp I don't remember a lot about schools. Again, I would place that on the ability of teachers. It obviously wasn't stimulating enough for me to take away a whole lot.

BT: Do you remember what it was like in the classroom? What were the classrooms like?

FS: Not really. [Laughs]

BT: Was it in another barrack?

FS: Yeah, yeah, of course they were in barracks.

BT: Were you in there with other same age classmates or was it a mixed class?

FS: Well, as we go out, I don't remember the schooling in Santa Anita. But I do recall going to school in Jerome and also in Gila. But the school itself, I don't have a whole lot of takeaway, other than I know I did the Pledge of Allegiance every morning very properly. And well, right before Santa Anita, right when the war started, another discovery I made later in life was the report card of my last teacher at Hobart elementary school, where she put many things as being unsatisfactory. Now, I was a perfect model student, and I never did anything that would make me unsatisfactory, but I do have a record of that report card, which I found rather astonishing.

BT: Why?

BN: Yeah, what was going on?

FS: Well, I don't know, maybe she didn't like "Japs," right?

BT: Do you know if any other Japanese American students had a similar report card?

FS: No, I don't know that people save things like me, you know. My parents always saved everything. That's kind of a bad habit, but...

BT: It's good in this case.

FS: ...things that are written I saved. I fortunately saved that.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.