<Begin Segment 19>

RP: Mas, with all the jobs that you had at Manzanar and the judo and everything else, you still found time to go to school.

MN: In camp?

RP: Yeah. You went to school in camp.

MN: Yeah.

RP: You started high school?

MN: Yeah, yeah.

RP: And what, what grade did you start?

MN: I think it was... see, they eliminated junior high school. From grammar school they jumped into high school, see. So there was no, I don't know if it was ninth, ninth grade was considered high school. Anyway, for half year we didn't have school so I was behind one semester or something like that. So I went to school.

RP: And what kind of student were you like?

MN: Well, I'd call it normal but a little mischievous. Because we have... funny, we had teacher, we had an English, old English teacher and we didn't know this. We start saying anything and we say in Japanese. Bad things about her. And we found out that she understand every bit of it. And when I heard she was in Japan for so many years, and she learned all this Japanese. So everything we say in Japanese she hears it, she'll answer in Japanese right back at you. I said, my god, it just floored us. Then another teacher that, she was about twenty-two, twenty-three years old, doctor, found out she was from France. And she was teaching art, art and craft. And the classroom, they don't have no regular chair like this with desk. All they had was regular picnic table with a bench on each side. And our bench work was all that. So anything that she had to teach us. she'll get on one side and she'd bend over and all I, we noticed that she wore loose clothes. Real loose, not real tight. So everybody gets on the other side of the bench and elevate them and look right down her blouse. [Laughs] And that, that was a real kick. That's why everybody liked to take that class. She was a real young, young teacher but she was a lot of fun. Teaching us art and craft. Then we had another teacher, I think she taught history or something. We never saw her wear a blouse. It's always sweater. And she used to wear a real tight sweater. And I guess she liked to really show off. So everybody used to see her and go gaga over her. Then we had another teacher. She was, she was a science teacher or something. Anyway, another male teacher that was there, he was blind. Something Green, his name.

RP: Greenley.

MN: Yeah. He was blind. He was a teacher. And I think this lady teacher that he used to take him, guide him and everything. I think her name was Smith. So she used to teach science or something. And that's, we knew that she used to show him around from class to class.

RP: Did you, did you have a music teacher by the name of Louie Frizzell?

MN: Frizzell, right. Yeah. We weren't too old, not old enough to join any chorus. So, but he, I knew he was a teacher, music teacher. And, in fact, I saw a couple a movies. He made movies. I found out he was in New York and he... I saw two movies on him. Yeah, he was a great guy I think. Yeah. Everybody, all the older, older people that, student, they really liked him. Lou Frizzell.

RP: In talking about teachers, you told me that you thought the state of California had a hard time recruiting teachers for Manzanar?

MN: Oh, yeah. Yeah. At the time, that's why I think there was no school right away. It was, they had to recruit teachers. And there was a rumor goin' around I heard that teachers are informed that you don't want to teach in that place. It's a concentration or internment camp and nothing but Japanese. So a lot of 'em shied away. So the government had to go Midwest, southern states. So they could be recruited like husband and wife team. And one teach one and one teach other. We had a lot of those teachers.

RP: From different parts of the country.

MN: Right. But, funny thing, I had a southern teacher there. I couldn't understand the southern. I always had to ask for a second to explain it. Maybe the southern people could comprehend but us guys, we couldn't comprehend her. We have to ask for second time.

Off Camera: So it was worse than the Kagoshima accent?

MN: Oh yeah.

RP: I was gonna say, the Wakayama accent too.

MN: Yeah, Wakayama.

RP: The Terminal Island group.

MN: Yeah, Terminal Island group.

RP: You had some tough linguistic challenges there.

MN: Yeah, oh yeah.

RP: Wow. Were there occasions where, especially in history or civics class, where they tried to teach you about the government and democracy and those kind of things and some kids remember the irony of, of trying to teach about democracy in a camp like Manzanar. Was there, was there sarcasm? Was there on part of some of the kids?

MN: Yeah, well a lot of 'em they didn't, they didn't care about that.

RP: They lost their...

MN: Interest. Yeah. A lot of 'em like that. They care less because what was happening I guess. And they don't want to... that's the way I felt too a little bit.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.