<Begin Segment 7>

JS: So can you tell us a little bit about, or can you tell us about the school you went to?

DM: School?

JS: Uh-huh. Can you describe the school?

DM: Oh, that was a bad one. I think we had to go two years in first grade, low and high first, because of our... I guess we'd speak too much Japanese or something. But as far as school goes, we didn't have that much problem. Only that during the second and third grade, the teacher was really mean. Mean teacher we had. Her name was Ms. Pryor. Pryor, you know? Yeah. I know a lot of kids got beat up by her. You know Chinese kid, (Mrs. Pryor) used that long stick and then whack. You could hear 'em crying in the back room. That's how mean that teacher was.

JS: So you went to the Walnut Grove Oriental school?

DM: That's it.

JS: What was the name of it? Bates...

DM: Oriental (School).

JS: Bates Oriental School.

DM: Oriental elementary school, I guess. (Bates was named after camp).

JS: And where was that school located?

DM: The first one was located by the... I don't know, you saw the new one? The latest one? Okay, there used to be a railroad track, and then further down from where that was, used to be the old one. The picture was taken, that's the old one. Then when I was second, third grade, I could start coming to this new one, so they must have been open about '38, I guess. See, that picture was '36, so '38 must have been the new school opened up.

JS: Do you remember the Oriental school was also built by the Japanese, the first one.

DM: I don't know about the first one. No, I don't think the Japanese built this new one.

JS: Okay, not the new one.

DM: I don't know. I don't know if the Japanese built the old one or not, I don't know that.

JS: Okay.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.