<Begin Segment 10>

JN: After the war you went to the University of Washington? After...

VT: Yes.

JN: And led a pretty professional life. Do you, did just your experience going to camp influence how you felt in terms of your achievement? How you...

VT: I think that one of the things, because of my age at the time and then because of the insistence by my parents that I should go to further schooling to have a better chance at a better life down the road. So, they were willing to help me get through school and, in a way, I feel that I did go to school at the right time. Probably if I didn't go to school right away, right after high school, I probably may not have ever gone beyond twelfth grade. I know that while I was in high school in Manzanar, some of my friends were talking about goin' to college. And I suppose that had something to do with the decision I made to go to school. But I think my parents had always told me that I should, shouldn't quit just after twelfth grade, that I should go to further schooling. Although my brothers, three of my brothers... well, actually two, two joined the service and made a career. My second brother was in the air force for twenty years and retired after twenty years and came back and was able to get a job at Boeing doing just about the same thing he was doing in the air force. And my third brother also joined the air force out of high school, and he spent twenty-eight years in service, and got a job working for the air force after he retired from the air force. So, both of my brothers did pretty well. They didn't go to school beyond high school. My fourth brother, he... I forgot whether he was drafted or he joined. I think he might have joined... I think he was in the air force, too. But he ended up in Korea and had a health problem, so he was sort of disabled for the rest of his life. But he received about a hundred percent, or ninety percent, anyway, disability for the rest of his life. And he's still living.

JN: Did you feel when you were going to school -- 'cause there are probably not a lot of Japanese Americans going to the university at that time...

VT: Well, the first semester there weren't too many. There were some, and I met some. Some of them were advanced students. Probably some that were, been in, going to college for three or four years but they haven't received a degree yet. The second semester I was there, a lot of the fellows came back from the service and were, started university about that time, too. So I met a lot of them, too.

JN: Did you feel you, at any time, had to prove you were a good American? Either through your achievement in school or your...

VT: No, not really. I don't feel I was... I never felt that way. The first semester I had to even take ROTC so I even had some ROTC. [Laughs]

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.