<Begin Segment 14>

TI: You mentioned the school. I just wanted to find out so how was it when in September when school started? What was that like for you?

JG: It must have been fine because I really learned how to read well. I have no recollection of the school at all other than that first encounter. All I can remember is that when I got to second grade and went to school in Oakland I was way ahead and so the teacher just left me alone and I had no instruction at all because I had passed that book already.

TI: So that one year in that school you were just able to learn a lot it sounds like?

JG: Yeah, I was and then when I got to Oakland schools they left me alone because I was advanced and I had no extra stimulation or they didn't do any adjustment for the fact that I had... that I was reading well.

TI: During this time when you were at the Duvenecks' did your mother and you ever visit the house? Because you still had this house in Oakland.

JG: I have no recollection of it. I have none whatsoever. I think I told you that we were very lucky in that when the wartime came and you had such a short period of time, mother's friend Eleanor Clark, her (father-in-law)... she worked with my mother and was my mother's friend, her (father-in-law) was involved at the Federal Reserve and I think he was the head of the Federal Reserve at the time. And within that short period of time he arranged to have the mortgage collected and a rental put in place so my parents kept their home.

TI: And so he arranged for renters and with the rent money the mortgage was paid so everything was taken care of.

JG: And I did some research and I found that there were laws in place, there were procedures in place that Japanese Americans could do that but whether they were able to avail themselves to the service or were aware of the services I do not know. It's because my mother was in a place of education that she was fortunate and she had friends who had connections I guess. But we were most fortunate.

TI: I'm looking at the date that you were at the Duvenecks'. And so it was, in terms of returning to the west coast for Japanese Americans very early, I mean you were... you mentioned earlier the first because at this May 1944, the area was still a military exclusion zone and technically Japanese Americans or people of Japanese ancestry were not supposed to be able to come to this area until towards, well actually the beginning of 1945. Do you recall any restrictions like travel restrictions or anything that were placed on you and your mother during this period?

JG: I was not aware any but there may have been that because my mother was not able to back to Oakland remember until September of '45 -- or May of '45 or June of '45.

TI: Yeah, so maybe that's so maybe she was allowed around the ranch and things like that but not beyond that.

JG: Into Los Altos.

TI: Yeah, so I was just curious, yeah if you had known anything.

JG: Well, that could probably explain why she didn't go back to Oakland until the summer of '45.

TI: Yeah, so that would make sense and somehow the Duvenecks arranged for this special situation, for you and your mom to be there.

JG: Well, I understood from what I had read that she was... Mrs. Duveneck was instrumental in helping people transition. So in other words, when she heard that they were trying to do this, she said, "Okay," I imagine, "we can do this. So I'll do this and we'll invite people," and the paperwork was... and my mother was very good with paperwork. She was the great letter writer.

TI: Your mother was.

JG: My mother.

TI: And so she would help other to do this transition? Is that what the letters --

JG: I'm gathering that's what she did because she wrote a lot of letters. She would also write when she saw that someone was doing a good job, she would say: thank you so much I really appreciate your effort, I am really glad that you've done blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and sign her name. So to this day if I see something that goes on like that I do the same thing and it's brought a lot of interesting letters back to me.

TI: Well, it's becoming such a lost art, the writing of letters, you know, like you say it's done so rarely.

JG: Well, now it's emails. [Laughs]

TI: Did your mother ever talk about this... maybe this idea since you were the first that you need to be perhaps on your best behavior? That in some ways if 'cause you weren't good it would make it harder for people to follow?

JG: She never said that. She never said that. Now my aunt might have said that. [Laughs] The Shiraki side have said that.

SF: Did your mom ever mention talking to the camp director or someone like that to get clearance to go back to California?

JG: We have paperwork, it's a form which was approved. So she must have but she never said anything about it. My mother was a doer.

TI: I'm just wondering, I'm almost guessing that the Duvenecks probably even before you and your mom were there probably talked to all the authorities and everything just to make sure that all this was --

JG: Oh, yes I imagine they would have done that because she worked the system. She didn't work against the system, she worked in the system. And I think that is a good thing rather than... it's difficult to work outside the system. I have done that in my life but I found it was easier working to make changes in the system.

TI: It seems that, following this thread, that you learned a lot in this time with the Duvenecks. I mean, there's a lot of influence in terms of maybe even your politics or how you do your life. Are there some other things that come to mind in terms of Mrs. Duveneck or the time at the ranch that you think back to that you now do something a certain way because of that?

JG: Since I've been doing all this work with the Duveneck museum project, I think so. Looking at her life and knowing her, I try to work positively with people, I try to make their lives better, like I have young students and I took an interest in them. The Vietnamese wave and their transition, I think they had a horrific time with the boats and escaping Vietnam and family separation where one part of the family would escape and then... so I really try to make their life at school good. And I try to work on... work with people who were more positive rather that people who... the people who could be assisted I guess rather than people... people who could welcome assistance rather than people who fought it. I used to be politically active in the sense of supporting causes by being in it. So I think that... and sometimes it was contrary to what was mainstream and I'm sure that had that Mrs. Duveneck and Mr. Duveneck really set that example but I think my parents did too. I really, I had differences of politics, but ethics, my mother and father I really think they were ethical and they did what they believed in and I think that I followed that.

TI: That's good.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.