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MM: So, when you returned to school in February 1942, you resumed your role as student body president. And I understand you had your first publication at that time. Tell us about that, the Time magazine.

RK: Oh, of course, you can imagine the daze, surprise attack, and we were all stunned, but, because in the first few days, as you can imagine, there were many rumors about what was happening and who was doing it. And among the rumors was that among the pilots shot down in the Pearl Harbor attack, there were persons wearing local high school rings, clearly indicating it was McKinley High School. McKinley High School at that time was looked upon by some people as "Tokyo High" because the population was, mainly in the surrounding areas, mainly Japanese. And Hawaii also had, by that time, earlier had started English standard schools. So we had a segregated school system in Hawaii. So those who could speak so-called "good English" went to English standard schools, which were better subsidized, if I may say so, than the regular public schools that we attended. So, in most cases, those who spoke the King's English were Caucasians or haoles, so in a sense there was segregation; although my friends, including my youngest, the youngest in my family, did go to English standard school. But McKinley High School was sometimes referred to as "Tokyo High." So the implication was that the pilots who wore these rings were McKinley High School graduates. And of course, we at McKinley High School thought this was not true. It was an ugly rumor. And at that time, in our social studies -- or in McKinley we called it core studies -- classes, class, we had a, we had an exchange teacher from Evanston Township High School in Chicago, near Chicago, Illinois. And Mr. Kirkpatrick -- what a kind soul he was -- he was an expert on Shakespeare. But any rate, Mr. Kirkpatrick said, "Students, now, this is not true, is it?" We said, "No, it's not. We should say something about it." He says, "Fine," he says, "so why don't you write letters to the editor of Time?" So a lot of us did that. Almost everyone in class wrote a letter to the editors of Time saying it was not true that these pilots wore Honolulu, McKinley High School rings, and lo and behold, Time magazine published those articles. I got the nicest letter from the editor saying, "We're sorry we did this. We're gonna print your letters, your letter, and along with that, the letters of three other classmates," appeared in Time magazine.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2004 Japanese American National Museum. All Rights Reserved.