<Begin Segment 11>

MA: I wanted to talk with you about going back to college. And so the war broke out when you had just finished your first year, is that right?

MY: I wasn't finished. It was towards the end of the first year, I guess.

MA: Okay, so you were in the middle of your, or towards the end of your first year at Oregon State.

MY: Right.

MA: And did you always, was that always a goal during the war and in camp? Did you always know that you were going to go back to college, you always wanted to return?

MY: I had no idea of what the future looked like. I just couldn't think of it. But I'm sure in the background, back of my head, I realized that that's what I would like to do. And where that was instilled, I'm not sure.

MA: And you worked in St. Paul then for a while.

MY: And then I started looking for colleges that I could go to that would offer scholarship or fellowships, because I didn't have any money. And I wrote to most of the colleges around here, Minneapolis, and they all, colleges at that point had a quota system, they would only take so many Japanese students. So all the colleges, their quotas were already filled. So I wrote to the student, what's it called? Friends Service Committee that had a committee set up for finding places for the Japanese to go. And so they referred me to a college in Texas, that's how I got down there.

MA: I'm curious about this quota system that you mentioned.

MY: I don't know what, where it came from or what it was. I really don't even know what it was. But I kept hearing that when I was applying.

MA: So they would write back and say, and tell you that there was a quota?

MY: Yeah, that they didn't have any openings or something like that. Or they didn't have any, probably scholarship money or fellowship money available, or some excuse, anyway. But I got turned down at all of them. I can't remember which ones I wrote to, just the major ones, I think.

MA: And it was all around this area.

MY: In Minneapolis, yeah.

MA: So what college did you end up attending?

MY: Texas Wesleyan College in Fort Worth. And they had put in an application for two, two Nisei students. I guess they knew about the camp and students looking for colleges. So they had put their application into the American Service Committee that were placing students. So they asked for two, two Niseis.

MA: That's interesting. So they, and you ended up going along with another Nisei.

MY: Another, yeah.

MA: That's interesting. It seems like they had a quota, too, almost like they were asking for only two students?

MY: For two, uh-huh.

MA: It didn't seem like it was that way on the West Coast, necessarily. What do you think...

MY: I don't know what was going on on the West Coast. I don't know if they were even allowed, were they?

MA: Yeah. But even before the war...

MY: Oh, before the war.

MA: Like, I wonder if it was a wartime thing, quota?

MY: I think this was more of a wartime thing. 'Cause I guess they didn't know what to expect, and I guess I could understand that. They were putting out a goodwill gesture to invite Japanese students.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.