<Begin Segment 35>

AI: Well, now, I wanted to ask you a little bit about after the war, and then the GIs had come back and you were going through school, finishing school, and then getting your degree and your teaching certification and then beginning your career. During this time, what was your impression of people there in this Midwestern area, as far as how they regarded you and other Japanese Americans who were, as I understand, more were starting to come to relocate around in that area. Did they have any sense at all of what you had been through in the camps? Did they know anything about that, or did they have much of a reaction to you as far as being Japanese Americans?

RT: Well, people in the Midwest are, on the whole -- you don't want to be stereotyping it, but nevertheless, I think I thought, and I still think, people in the Midwest on the whole are very fair, and open, and accepting. I can't recall that there were very active antagonisms in the Midwest. I'm sure that... let's say that in the employment picture, I'm not sure because I didn't work except for little part-time jobs, and I never had any bad experiences with the part-time job thing.

AI: So when you started teaching in that small town, you didn't face anything, any particular problem, because you were Japanese American and here you were coming in as a teacher, to...

RT: Yeah, you know, I, come to think of it, I really didn't think of myself as being different or an oddity, but I bet I was. I mean, this is a little town and probably the first person of any color to be in that town, and, "Here she is, she's gonna teach." But I stayed in a rooming house, just really nice, nice people. And I think it was the superintendent who really was the one responsible for bringing me out there to teach, and I had a good time teaching out there. I enjoyed my work and I learned a lot, but as I say, I don't, I didn't have any major difficulties, really. And partly maybe because it was a small town, I'm used to small towns. And there possibly were people that weren't too happy with my being there, but they never, never expressed outwardly.

<End Segment 35> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.