Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Toshiko Aiboshi Interview
Narrator: Toshiko Aiboshi
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Culver City, California
Date: January 20, 2011
Densho ID: denshovh-atoshiko-01-0008

<Begin Segment 8>

RP: This is a continuation of an oral history interview with Tosh Aiboshi.

TA: Right.

RP: And Tosh, we were talking about school at Amache, in particular some of the teachers that really made a formidable impression on you.

TA: Yes, one teacher who taught shorthand at that time was very particular. She was a hard teacher. But I think that she made such, because she taught and was so particular, that later, when I went to City College after the war, in Los Angeles, and I took a shorthand class, and so I ended up being very, much more proficient in shorthand than most of the other students. I think we had an excellent experience, and as a result, when I finished the secretarial course at City College I was able to work at the California Teachers Association, which was considered a safe place to work after the war.

RP: Safe place in terms of your, your ethnicity?

TA: I don't, that was the term that was used, because after I finished that two year course there was a placement office at LACC, and they knew that I had finished a secretarial course and she, the counselor said, "Well, I'm going to send you off to go to an interview at the California Teachers Association, which I think will be a safe place for you to work," is what she said to me. And I did not understand what that meant, but I thought, well, okay. And I, so I went on the interview and then I talked to Anna Garner, for whom I was, apparently, supposed to work. And I also talked to the executive director, and then I, they said, "Well, we will let you know whether you have this job or not." I later learned that they had, that they really wanted to hire me, but they called a special meeting of the board of directors to say that they were considering hiring a Japanese person, and was there going to be any objection by any member of the board of directors to having a Japanese person on the staff, even in a clerical position, and that there was none. And so after that I got the call saying, "Would you please come to work?" And so I did not know any, all of this going on. I had no idea that there would be any prejudice, and I'm sure that that was what the person meant when she said, "This is going to be a safe place for you to work." So then I worked for the California Teachers Association and ended up in a managerial position at the end.

RP: One of the, one of the things that really caught on in camp were clubs.

TA: Yes.

RP: And you were part of a club.

TA: Yeah, Cookie Minai, Cookie, my friend, reminds me that we were members of what we called the Wee Teeners, and it was not a Girl Scout or anything, but they were girls of the same age of high school, and we thought we were the in group and very exclusive. We, even in those circumstances, we thought that we were sociable, felt we did well in school, you know. And so as I think about it, we probably were not very nice to some of the other people who were not our in group. [Laughs] But it, being in high school in this situation was probably the best age to be in a camp situation, where you have no responsibilities for taking care of a family, you are old enough to be kind of independent and very sociable.

RP: You don't have to go into the military or get a job.

TA: Yes. We were in, we were not expected to feed a family, we're not gonna be conscripted to be, choose whether we're gonna go to, answer "yes-yes," "no-no" on the questionnaire. It was a fun time for us, and so for our age, we always say, "You know, in looking back, that was not a good situation, but it sure was fun for us." And we, it's probably just a certain age group that we happen to be in that we had such a good experience. And we listened to the Hit Parade on the radio, we went to dances; it was really, we got to know each other a whole lot better without much, kind of to the chagrin of the parents, I think.

RP: Do you, it sounds like you felt pretty independent too. I mean, and your father was gone, your mom was...

TA: I think I was much more independent as a result of my father's dying at such an early age. And when he -- this is totally irrelevant to the camp experience -- but I remember that he used to leave some money in a box, and he said, "Sometimes they might be collecting money at school and you have to give money or something. I want you to take that money and do whatever is appropriate and let me know afterwards, because I won't be here, perhaps, to tell you." And so I felt financially responsible. I never, ever used that money. But I think because I walked to the library by myself, I did, studied by myself, I didn't really have people tutoring me for school, I became much more independent, and had no sisters or brothers to help or, help me or for me to be responsible for. So in that respect, I think...

RP: Did you feel academically challenged at Amache?

TA: No. [Laughs]

RP: How about by your peers?

TA: Well, yes. There was, the Japanese who had always done well at school, or told by their parents, "You have to do well. A C is not acceptable. A is okay. B, well, how come you didn't get an A?" kind of thing. And so it was very competitive, so I think at that point we knew that, "Those two guys are really smart. If you want to get an A, you've got to be smarter than them." So the competition at that level was pretty stiff, and that kept us, I think, on our toes. At least it was for me. So I think as a result, the level of the educational quality improved really because we were up against people who were also just very competitive, and so when anybody applied for college I don't think anybody was rejected.

RP: Did you have any, in attending high school there, did you have any aspirations of going to college?

TA: You know, no one ever mentioned it to me, and so I, in that respect I think I was shortchanged. But it just, it never occurred to me until much later, and I wished I had. But as a result, I had a good job, it turned out to be so, such a satisfying one.

RP: Did you have an opportunity, Tosh, to work at Amache?

TA: I was offered a position to help in the newspaper office, and I wanted very much to do it, but the Yoshimunes said, "No, we want you to concentrate on going to school and doing well there." And I was bitterly disappointed that she did not, they didn't want me to take the job, because I was sure that I could handle having a job and doing well at school. But if that was what they, what she said, I said okay, I won't work. So, and then, when we came back out of camp, because I graduated in the, we had a graduation in camp, and went to City College... I've lost my train of thought. [Laughs] I don't know what I was going to tell you.

RP: Let's switch over to another topic. Do you recall your graduation at Amache?

TA: Yes, it was kind of fun, but I don't remember exactly how we did it. I don't know if we had caps and gowns or whatever. But I remember one time when we did have a debate, and we were debating some school that was in the neighboring community, and I remember being one of the debaters. And we all, I can't even remember the topic, except it was something about conscientious objectors or something of that sort that we were debating. I cannot recall what it was, but I remember that I was one of the people who was a debater. I was also in a school play, and so we, so we...

RP: And what, do you remember what the play was about?

TA: No, but I remember that I was kind of the housecleaner in the play and I was not very good. I know that. [Laughs] So we did various things, yeah.

RP: When you say debating, you, so you didn't have any great fears about speaking in public?

TA: No, I did not.

RP: You had overcome that.

TA: Somehow I never, ever worried about speaking in public. So I don't know why that was, other than having had to have that experience, because they had what they call hanashikais at Japanese school. Hanashi means story, kai. And it's kind of a competition, and you were supposed to, everybody had to give a speech, and then I apparently spoke very loudly because they kept saying, "You have to speak, speak up." And so I did learn to do that. We also, in fourth grade I remember having to give news reports or book reports at school, so we had to speak to the class. So the circumstance of that early experience made it fairly easy for me to speak to people. A great fear for most people. [Laughs]

RP: That's, that's really good to be able to overcome that. Did you, was, were boys on your radar screen in Amache?

TA: Well actually, I, there was a, there was a boy who liked me better than I liked him. [Laughs] But there was also another boy, and he ended up being my husband. My husband Joe and I actually met in camp. We did not really live very far from each other before the war, but I did not know their family at all. And so after the war we carried on, while we wrote, came back to California at different times, and we still wrote letters. We had great correspondence going on after camp with lots of people and updating what was going on. And anyway, I was living at, in Laurel Canyon with the Yoshimunes, who had gotten jobs as domestic workers because they had no place to live. This was not at all any, in any way within their work experience, but fortunately they were able to get a job where she was the domestic helper and he was the gardener, and they had a separate room that I could just live there. And I walked down the hill to go to, go to City College on the, I think I walked down about a mile and a half or two and then took the bus, and everybody just took buses at that time. And Joe used to come and pick me up and we'd go out on Saturday night. And he was a gardener because he was living with his family and his father was getting, almost about seventy years old and unable to continue to do the gardening situation without help, and so Joe felt responsible for their family. So eventually we got married in 1951, and that was, that's about six years after we came out of camp. We were in the same block. And the people who were in our bridal party, at least three of them were in our same block in camp, so it was a close knit thing. And among the guests were a lot of people from 8-K. [Laughs]

RP: The 8-K crowd.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.