<Begin Segment 7>

RP: Where did you... what schools do you recall attending when you were growing up?

JN: Well, I went... grammar school I went to Center School which is in Azusa and it's kind of a suburb school, it's a small school, very small school. It had three teachers, one teacher taught the first, second, and third grade, one teacher taught the fourth, fifth and sixth grade and the principal taught the seventh and eighth grade. So that's how big that school was and we had, you know, real small classes even then. Even like when I went to first grade, there was second and third... first, second and third graders in the same classroom and the teacher taught all three. [Laughs] So that was just an amazing school and I liked to always remember everybody in the family graduated from that Center School except me. I graduated in camp. So that's another reason why I call myself the oddball of the family. [Laughs]

RP: Do you remember the racial makeup of the school?

JN: It was basically Caucasian, they had a few... we're probably the only other Japanese family, maybe one or two other Japanese families and they had a few Hispanics but mainly it was all white. So it was basically a white community.

RP: Azusa.

JN: Yeah.

RP: Were there other Japanese American farmers?

JN: Yeah, but they were not in the Azusa area, they were out in West Covina and other cities around that area.

RP: So you grew up predominantly with Caucasians then?

JN: Yeah.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.