Densho Digital Archive
Japanese American Museum of San Jose Collection
Title: Dave Tatsuno Interview
Narrator: Dave Tatsuno
Interviewer: Aggie Idemoto
Location: San Jose, California
Date: January 20, 2005
Densho ID: denshovh-tdave-01-0006

<Begin Segment 6>

AI: Dave, you mentioned elementary school in San Francisco, and Lowell High School. Beyond that, your education included...

DT: Well, then I went to Hamilton Junior High School, then Lowell High School, and yet I went to Cal. And I was at Cal for four years.

AI: And which campus was that?

DT: Oh, the Berkeley.

AI: Berkeley.

DT: And the thing of it is, after I finished Lowell High School in December of '31, I couldn't continue to go to Cal University directly because of the Depression. Oh, it was quiet. Our store, some day you would sell fifteen dollars, you know? It was really bad. And so I stayed out one year and worked at the store, helped with the store. And then finally in January of '33, I went to Cal. January of '33, and I commuted on the ferryboat four years. There was no bridge. They had just started the bridge construction January of '33 when I started the ferryboat excursions, and then they finished the bridge and opened it to traffic in 1936, November. I finished December '36. So I saw the whole Bay Bridge go up in four years, from the ferryboat.

AI: How long was that trip each day that you went to school?

DT: Pardon me?

AI: How long did it take you to get to school?

DT: Oh, it took twenty minutes.

AI: Okay.

DT: Twenty minutes.

AI: And your major?

DT: Oh, and then I majored, naturally -- you know, I wanted to go into diplomatic service and all that, and then some people said I should become a minister, because I was very active in the church work. But, you know, we had a store to run, so my major was business administration. But, you know, I minored in public speaking. I took four years of public speaking, and had some great -- in fact, I used to get "A's" in public speaking, and so, and at Topaz, I taught high school seniors, five classes, public speaking. And some of the classes were small classes, but some of 'em were thirty, thirty students. And that was kind of experience, and I still wonder how I got the material to teach with. Because there, but somehow I managed it, and I had the five classes.

AI: So you were a teacher, too, like your mom. And how did you do in school?

DT: Well, I guess in school I did all right. I was not a scholarship type of a person, but I didn't do too bad. Oh, incidentally, at Cal -- remember now, I was commuting for four years on the ferry, I was helping at the store, and I was active in conferences -- and I came out of Cal with straight "B's." And that isn't bad, because Cal is not as easy, but, so I was an honor student at Cal. Four years, straight "B."

AI: Good for you; that's great. And while you were in school -- not only at Cal, but throughout your education -- was there some parental pressure to do well in school?

DT: Not, not really. Well, I mean, the average Issei parents would more or less encourage the children. But in my case, as I said, I grew up like an orphan, and so I had my own initiative to... so the parents didn't have to tell me to study and all that.

AI: So you were a self-starter.

DT: Yeah, oh, yeah.

AI: Okay. We talked a little bit earlier about the fact that you grew up speaking strictly Japanese, and then became bilingual, spoke English also.

DT: Yeah.

AI: Would you describe your language development as you went on through the grades?

DT: Well, I still remember, I was in the first grade, or was it... yeah. Teacher was a very cranky teacher, Ms. Hill. And I remember I couldn't speak any English at that time, when I got into the class. But as you went to class, you know, children adapt, and then you start to speak English, and so you finally mastered the language, but you had to do it the hard way, you see.

AI: Well, you, you obviously have done a lot of public speaking. Do you also speak in Japanese when you do the public speaking?

DT: Not really. My Japanese is -- except for the short period I stayed in Japan, was mostly Japanese language school, and you didn't speak the language like Nihongo that well, so I didn't speak much in Japanese. It was all in English.

AI: Okay.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2004 Densho and The Japanese American Museum of San Jose. All Rights Reserved.