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BN: I'm going to jump ahead a little bit now, now that you're nearing graduation after the war, of course. And what was kind of the discussion within your family of what you were going to do now?

JK: I think ninth grade was when I kind of awoke. Because we used to take the bus to school. Gas was still a problem. And that was when I found out from the other kids that if they got an A, they got twenty-five cents. And I said, "Wow." And so ninth grade, so I brought home this report card, I got three As on it, I'm going to get seventy-five cents. But I hadn't mentioned it to my father. And so I said, "Dad, here's my report card." And he said, he looked at it a long time and I thought, "What's the matter?" And I almost wanted to say, "Look at three..." but I didn't say anything. And finally he said, "What's this B-plus doing here?" And I said, "Dad, three As, three As." [Laughs] And he said, "B-plus in English? English is very important. No B-pluses in English." And all I got from all of that was a good scolding. And from that time on, "tiger dad," I knew that I had to get good grades, and I wasn't going to get any seventy-five cents either. [Laughs] Then finally when I was a senior, well, it paid off. My dad was strict and all that, but because I did buckle down and try to please him, I got good grades. And so as a senior, I found out I got a prize for having the highest grades in the undergrad. And I thought, "Oh." [Laughs]

But the other thing that happened when I was a senior was the dean called me in one day and I thought, "What did I do?" I thought I was being a good girl. And all she said was, "You know, I think you should try for Smith College. And here are the papers. Why don't you take it home and talk to your parents?" And being a dutiful Japanese daughter, I said, "Okay." And so I took it home and I said, "Dad, the dean says we've got to look at this and fill it out." And being a dutiful father, Japanese father, he was going to listen to authority and he said, "Okay, fill it out." So we did. And this is where the serendipity comes in because I fully expected to go to the University of Hawaii. And he had already told me, "You're going to be a teacher," and I said, "No, I don't want to be a teacher," and he says, "You're going to be a teacher." So I was going to be a teacher. [Laughs] And so I'd applied to UH, and then because of the dean, we applied to Smith. But the acceptances came in on the same day, UH and Smith. And because they came in on the same day, I think my dad didn't know what to do. And so he finally called me in and he said, "You decide. And because I was in teenage rebellion at that point and wanted to get out in the world, I said, "I'm going to Smith." [Laughs] And about two years later, I found out how hard Smith was. I said, "Dad, I can save us money. If I go back to UH, it'll save you money." And he took one look at me and he said, "What you start, you finish." And I'm glad he did that, because I kind of grew up after that. I realized, okay, it's hard here, but stick it out. And actually, I have to credit a professor at Smith who I forget the name, but he started me really thinking and learning and growing. Before that, I used to memorize and regurgitate, and I wasn't into really learning. But I almost flunked his course, but I learned that, you know, he's the one that he taught us through issues. He'd say, "Was John Rockefeller a robber-baron or an industrialist?" Seven hundred fifty words. And I never encountered a teacher like that before. And finally went to him, because I was getting these horrible grades. And I said, "Help me. How do I do better?" And, "What's the right answer?" I finally asked. And he said, "There is no right answer." I said, "Really?" And that's when I realized that he was right. And then I started to think after that.

BN: So which side did you come down on? Robber-baron or...

JK: I don't remember. All I remember was every paper that I got back was full of red marks. [Laughs]

BN: That's how you learn.

JK: That's how you learn. And then not only that, he broke us up into seminar groups, and then he would talk about the issues and what we had said. And the minute you open your mouth, he'd slam you down. So it was a very, at that time, I thought he was a horrible teacher. But many years later, I realized, thanks to him, I started to really think about things.

BN: What were your years at Smith?

JK: '48 through '52.

BN: And where is Smith?

JK: In Northampton, Massachusetts, in Western Mass.

BN: And how was the socialization and adjustment to... obviously Hawaii was a very specific type of demographics, and now you're across the country in cold weather, and a very different type of society.

JK: Uh-huh. Yes, it was very different. And the first thing I realized is everyone here, I was in a scholarship house. And it was a co-op house, so we did jobs and we got something off of our room and board. But most of the girls were on scholarship, and so they were very, very smart. And that first year, I didn't dare go up to the fourth floor because that's where the seniors lived, and they were geniuses. I couldn't even understand their common language, because when we sat down to lunch, they would say, "Okay, what shall we talk about today? I know, let's talk about what century we would have liked to live in and why." And they'd go around, and I would just want to crawl away from the table. And so... I lost my train of thought. But it was interesting, there was only one of me, Japanese in that house. And because they knew that I was from Hawaii, they didn't know whether I was Hawaiian or Japanese. And so they were very kind to me, and I tried to be kind back. When they would say, "Where did you learn to speak English?" I tried to be very nice and answer them and so on. So that... but they were all very well-read. So many of them were from prep schools. And they loved to go to ballet. That part I learned, it opened up for me. What was funny was that in the phys ed, because in Hawaii we play a lot, I actually got on the all-star volleyball team, and that tickled me so much because that was the only thing I was good at, coming from Hawaii where I played a lot outside.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.