<Begin Segment 5>

KL: And she studied PE, and she student-taught, but you were telling me about how she was never able to get credentialed.

JO: No. She didn't really student teach. You know, when you're in college, they send you to, before you finish, they send you for classroom experience, and she did that at Audubon junior high school. I think it was (Foshay). It's right there on Exposition. But they would not hire her for student teaching, so she couldn't get the credential for student teaching. And when she went to Manzanar, superintendent Genevieve Carter offered her a position of teaching PE and giving her a temporary credential. No, what did they call it then? It was not a temporary, it was...

KL: Provisional?

JO: Provisional or something, to be able to teach. And then if she taught for a certain number of, certain months I guess, they would give her the credential, the credit for student teaching. But she was teaching by herself, PE classes.

KL: Was she still in school when you were born?

JO: No, no, she was finished. I was born three years later. She had as one of her students Mary Kageyama Nomura.

KL: Oh.

JO: And also my aunt Irene was one of her students.

KL: What does Mary remember about her classes? Have you talked about that?

JO: She says she enjoyed her classes because she liked drawing, and my mother would assign them drawing different parts of the body, the organs and stuff, and she was good at drawing, and so she got an A. She's very artistic, you know, Mary is.

KL: So she was teaching them anatomy to some extent.

JO: Yeah. Well, she taught health, PE and health. But her health exams were really hard. In fact, my aunt did not do very well with the exams, and so she got a B instead of an A. Mary got the A.

KL: Did your mom talk with you at all about her pregnancy with you or where you were born?

JO: No, she didn't talk about the pregnancy so much, but I was born at Good Samaritan Hospital. I don't know if she might have had a difficult time, she didn't really say.

KL: But Good Samaritan Hospital.

JO: Uh-huh.

KL: And then do you remember your sister being born or coming home from... was she born in the hospital, too?

JO: Yeah, she was born at Queen of Angels Hospital. And I remember when... well, you know, they kept us... I was at my, I stayed with my grandparents while she was born, for a little bit. I was not too happy because I was the only child for a long time and I got all this attention. So used to look at pictures of me when I was young with my sister, I was not smiling but my sister was happy. [Laughs]

KL: She's three years younger than you, is that right?

JO: Three and a half years younger.

KL: Okay.

JO: So there I was, very unhappy. And this intruder coming in and getting my space.

KL: Do you have memories from before her birth?

JO: Not really too much, other than I remember my aunt, I used go to play at my grandmother's house with my aunts. And Irene would play with me.

KL: Yeah, it's good being the first and only grandchild or niece and nephew or whatever.

JO: And they all thought I was a plaything, so it was always fun. I think things changed after she came. But I don't think it changed all that much, it's just my perception at that time, apparently. I was still able to do more than she was, that's for sure.

KL: But she was a pretty happy kid?

JO: Yeah, she was always happy, and she was always, she was always very aggressive, so she would fight with me later on, anyway, hit me, twist my nose.

KL: It was a sad day, having a younger brother, the day that he was bigger than me was kind of a sad day. [Laughs]

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.