<Begin Segment 19>

DG: Let's talk about your starting or preparing for school. Had you thought about going to school from your early years?

TS: In my case, I was kind of fortunate in terms of selecting a field in which I wanted to work. I remember in the civics class my teacher in high school sponsored a mock trial in which he appointed me as one of the lawyers, as defense lawyer. I liked it and I thought I want to be a lawyer. Since I made up my mind I wanted to be a lawyer when I went to University, I registered in pre-law and for law school.

DG: Nats encouraged you?

TS: There wasn't much thinking to do about what I wanted to do.

DG: How did you think you could pay for this?

TS: I never thought about it. [Laughs] I don't know how I got through law school! I started pre and pre-law in 1934 and graduated law school in Utah in 1944.

DG: So in 1934 when you first went to school, you had to leave home.

TS: Yes.

DG: So what did you do?

TS: The first year I got a schoolboy job.

DG: Was everybody getting those kinds of jobs?

TS: No, there was a Japanese Students' Club that was paid for by community solicitations for housing for Japanese students. That house was made the central location for the activities of the Students' Club, Japanese Students' Club at University of Washington. But the first year I got a job as a house boy, school boy in (a) large, nice large home at Golden Gardens. I remember working, cleaning house and being paid something like ten dollars a month plus board and room. When I went back to school the next year, the lady (of) the house called me at the clubhouse and wanted me to go back to work. I thought as long as my dad was going to finance me that year, I decided that I didn't want to work, which was kind of selfish of me. [Laughs]

DG: But by then you were at the Students' Club?

TS: Yes, I was.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.