<Begin Segment 23>

LH: So from that time, how did you personally survive? You're coming back and you go to school.

MN: Yeah.

LH: How did you handle that?

MN: Well, my mother thought that camp schools was inferior so she put me back a grade, and I thought that was okay until I found that she didn't put any of my sisters back a grade. [Laughs]

LH: Just you.

MN: Yeah. I think she didn't have too much confidence in my intellectual abilities.

LH: What grade did you enter?

MN: Third grade, I think. And I was really so embarrassed that I was older than my peers. I don't know why that was a big deal, and I went to the fourth grade. I skipped either the fourth or fifth grade. I kept telling my teachers that I think I'm too old to be in this grade level so they let me skip one grade, and I was so relieved that now I was with my own peers. [Laughs]

LH: Now, let me ask you did any of the other kids ask you where'd you come from?

MN: There was two other kids in my classroom that were Japanese Americans, and I get the feeling that the teachers were pretty well briefed on the situation, and I think they were very, very careful trying very hard to make sure that we felt comfortable. I thought they did a good job for those days. I remember, though, one of the things that, a poem that I memorized in the third grade. Did I tell you this poem? It's: "The little Indian, Sioux or Crow, little frosty Eskimo, little Turk or Japanee, oh, don't you wish that you were me? You have seen the scarlet trees and the lions overseas, you have eaten ostrich eggs, and turned the turtles off their legs. But such a life is very fine, but not so nice as mine. You must often as you trot, a wearied not to be abroad, you have curious things to eat while I am fed on proper meat. You must dwell beyond the foam while I am safe and live at home. Little Indian, Sioux or Crow, little frosty Eskimo, little Turk or Japanee, oh, don't you wish that you were me?" You know who that's written by? Robert Louis Stevenson. And I memorized it in the third grade, and I remember trying to get enough courage to go tell the teacher something is wrong with this poem. And I remember being very anxious and scared about that, and I remember walking up to her, at that point my mind goes blank. I don't know what I said. I have no idea what I said, but I remember her response to me was, "Oh, that's okay, Masako dear. You're an American now." [Laughs] Yeah.

LH: Interesting.

MN: Yeah. And so I remember that incident. I remember that poem and later on in my school years, I use that poem as trying look back and trying to teach, and we really use that as a lesson trying to teach little kids. Will you listen to this poem? Can you try to understand why some people might object to this poem? And try get some sensitivity going on, and yeah...

LH: So at the time you sensed that something was wrong, but it was hard for you to articulate what exactly what it was?

MN: I don't know if I articulated. I don't know what I said. I just know that I was uncomfortable with it, and I don't know what I said to the teacher.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.