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VY: At Bailey Gatzert, were your teachers also Japanese American?

MM: No, they were white. They were all white, and that's where I first learned my violin. And really it's just interesting that luck plays so much a role in what happens to you. Because there are all kinds of really... I mean, within the instrumental music teachers -- I can speak to that since I was one -- you have those who can teach and those who can't, and those in between. Well, I had one of the best teachers ever in instrumental music, and he... my mom thought he was next to God, honestly, and he was, practically. Because he started me correctly on the violin. I mean, because you can be taught... you just don't get a good teacher and you sound terrible and everything. But anyway, so I took private lessons the very first summer after that classroom session. And he thought I should have lessons from this teacher at the U, so I had to go audition for him. Well, he came to pick me and my mother up because we didn't drive. So he came to pick us up so I could go audition for this teacher at the U. And so I took lessons from him from when I was ten, I think, or eleven, something like that, all the way through college, he was a professor at the university. And I don't know, nowadays, you would not think of letting your nine or ten year old take a bus all the way one hour, one way, and all the way back, and walk through campus. And in the dark, because I always had to take my lesson after school. But in the winter it'd be dark by the time I came home. And I remember the bus driver, I always had the same bus driver. He said, "I got to hear you play sometime." [Laughs] So anyway.

VY: Yeah, I love hearing about how music just basically is part of your life throughout your whole life.

MM: Oh, yeah, it is.

VY: And I know in a little while, Caitlin's going to kind of talk to you more about your whole education experience. Before we go there, I wanted to back up a little bit and talk about when you left camp, just to clarify, at that time, you didn't speak any English, is that correct?

MM: Correct.

VY: So at home, or in camp, when you were very young, your parents only spoke Japanese.

MM: I believe so. Well, to me, anyway.

VY: Okay. And then tell us about, I don't recall if we actually talked about this on camera, so please tell us about when you got out of camp and you needed to get into kindergarten. Did you say you had to take a test?

MM: Yes, I had to. Well, I don't remember what it all entailed, I just remember my dad taking me there. We walked over to whatever school it was, or I think it was school, I don't know. And I had to answer questions or something, I don't know, and I could only answer in Japanese, and my dad had to translate. So when I was older, I was amazed that they just took him at his word that he was telling the truth, because I knew he wanted me to be in kindergarten. Because I think they do start teaching at a younger age in Japan, so I don't know if he thought that that was something you should do or whether they wanted me to have a place to be so they wouldn't have to worry about me when they were working, because they were both working, my mom and dad.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2024 Densho. All Rights Reserved.