<Begin Segment 9>

BN: So you would have started school in the fall of '42. So what grade was that?

SM: That was the fourth grade.

BN: What do you remember about the schooling there?

SM: Well, I thought it was very interesting. The room at the start was barren, there was nothing. Blank walls and empty rooms, it was a barrack. Because I found out the plans were to build the grammar school, but the local people demanded the government stop building the grammar school, the new schools for prisoners. And so the government stopped short of a high school, they almost finished the high school and some of the prisoners finished it up. But no grammar school, so we had to go to a grammar school which was converted from the barrack, an empty barrack, and so our first class was an empty room. And then a little bit later, the carpenters built some benches and then they built some desks. So eventually, we got the furnishings that we needed. I remember our class, grammar school class, the teacher had a problem. It turns out the government had difficulty staffing the schools with adequately skilled teachers. And there weren't enough credentialized teachers, so they hired a number of white teachers. I found out later that they hired some thirty-five teachers, white teachers from across the country to teach. And most of them went to the high school because that was the greatest demand for skilled. But my grammar school had to pick whatever was left of a group of available people to teach. And my schoolteacher, a young lady, it was obvious that she was not very well trained. Because she had a discipline problem with a bunch of us, and we were mean little kids. We were terrible, I remember that. And she would get so upset, she didn't know how to control many of us. In fact, one day she went on a strike. She refused to teach, and so she became so upset. I remember that. Strangely, it was an event that I'll never forget. But kind of demonstrates that there was lack of qualified teachers.

BN: Were all your teachers white or did you have some...

SM: My teacher was Japanese.

BN: You had a Nisei.

SM: She was a Nisei lady, young lady. But like I said, most of the white teachers were assigned to the high school.

BN: Do you remember the Nisei teacher's name?

SM: No, I sure don't. I'll be embarrassed if I remembered it.

BN: Yes, that's funny. I think kids can sense weakness in a teacher.

SM: Right, right.

BN: So I think when they see that they're getting to her, yeah, they can be mean.

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