Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Tad Sato Interview
Narrator: Tad Sato
Interviewer: Stephen Fugita
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: August 15, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-stad-01-0010

<Begin Segment 10>

SF: So when did you graduate high school?

TS: 1940.

SF: Okay. And then you went to work right after that?

TS: Yeah, shortly after that, in '41.

SF: Did you expect to go to college or want to go to college, or had ruled that out, or couldn't go to college, because the financial, your financial situation, or...?

TS: Well, for myself, I could say that I sort of didn't see much of a future when I was in high school because in my senior year, I must've cut thirty days or...

SF: Wow. That was sort of un-Japanese or whatever, right?

TS: Well, some of, lot of us did that about then. See, my age group among Nisei is the largest group.

SF: And why did you guys cut so many classes?

TS: I don't know. It's just that, we just -- maybe it's, somewhere in our minds we figured there's no future. I used to see the older Niseis that had even graduated college with degrees in aeronautical engineering and can't -- no job here. So they'd go to Japan. Or they'd have a degree in accounting, or this and this and that, and you see 'em working in Public Market or in the grocery store. And perhaps that had some effect. I don't know.

SF: So it's a good possibility that you and a lot of other folks, in that period anyways, could see that there was no real opportunity, and so you were kinda, what you might call alienated or kind of discouraged or [Inaudible]...

TS: Well, that could -- well, whatever it is, I don't think anybody was bitter about it or anything. It's just a fact of life. I mean, it's different like today, you're thinking today would be different. Those days, you just -- you played the game and I think for a lot of people my age, just couldn't see going on to college. It cost $25 a quarter or something. Of course, that's nothing now, but...

SF: So you didn't want to go college. So what did you do after you graduated college -- high school?

TS: High school?

SF: Yeah.

TS: I went to -- what do they call -- ? PG, post-graduate, because there's no jobs. And then, did that for roughly a year, I guess. And then, all of a sudden, I don't know why, this Eddie Sano and I decided we'd go to work on the railroads. So we... [Laughs]

SF: And your dad still owned Joe's Secondhand Store...

TS: Yeah.

SF: ...at that time, right? Did you ever think about taking over your dad's business or...?

TS: No. I had no interest in that at all. I know he -- I knew that he wasn't making, barely gettin' by, so I just didn't see any future in it.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.