Densho Digital Archive
Raechel Donahue and Garrett Lindemann Collection
Title: Donald Yamamoto Interview
Narrator: Donald Yamamoto
Interviewer: Raechel Donahue
Location: San Jose, California
Date: December 15, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-ydonald-01-0007

<Begin Segment 7>

RD: So why do you think it's important for the Yonsei to know about what happened?

DY: Why? Well, it's kind of the old cliche, not to happen again.

RD: That's true. Well, do you remember when you were going to school, probably when your kids were going to school, I just talked to Dave, it wasn't in our schoolbooks.

DY: No, it wasn't. No, I was just sort of upset, I guess, when I went back to school. Because here it was already November or December, and several months had passed, and I wasn't about to go back and make up the work, so I just showed up at school as I was supposed to until February when the new semester started then I started doing a little more studying.

RD: Oh, so you just kind of hung out, so you had to work harder, didn't you?

DY: Pardon?

RD: You had to work harder to catch up, then.

DY: If I was gonna catch up, but I guess it didn't matter. When you just started the next semester, they just cover what you learned in those classes, so they don't go back to what you learned previously.

RD: So you came back here, where do you live now?

DY: Pardon?

RD: Where do you live now?

DY: I live here in San Jose.

RD: Why did you come back?

DY: Why did I come back? My parents came back.

RD: Oh, but you stayed all this time.

DY: Yeah. And I finished up high school here, and then I started college and I dropped out and eventually went in the service and came back and started college again.

RD: When did you go to the service, what year?

DY: I joined the air force in November 1950, November 1950.

RD: And you didn't feel that that was sort of ironic?

DY: No, not really. I started the second year in school and college and I found out I wasn't doing any studying. As a matter of fact, I was probably flunking all my courses so I thought I would get out and see if I can do something else.

RD: See the world.

DY: No, I didn't see the world. [Laughs]

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2010 Raechel Donahue and Garrett Lindemann and Densho. All Rights Reserved.