Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Akiko Okuno Interview
Narrator: Akiko Okuno
Interviewers: Kristen Luetkemeier, Alisa Lynch
Location: Saratoga, California
Date: January 31, 2013
Densho ID: denshovh-oakiko-01-0011

<Begin Segment 11>

KL: When did you move back to Gilroy?

AO: In '35.

KL: What prompted that move?

AO: They decided that we needed to be where there were better schools, more opportunities. Because by then, Toshi was in junior high school and ready to go to high school, so it would be better. Because the bus used to come and pick up the students to take them into Hollister for high school, but they felt that it's time that we move to a metropolis.

KL: How old were you in 1935?

AO: I was nine.

KL: What was your school in Gilroy?

AO: Jordan.

KL: How did it compare?

AO: Well, of course, in Cienega school, I was fifth grade, and we moved in October, so school had started already. But the fourth grade was kind of difficult for me because although I'd learned my timetables on my own, I was still struggling with my timetables, so the teacher gave me a C. And on the strength of that C, they put me in the lowest level, the fifth grade at Jordan. So what they were studying is stuff that I had already known the year before, but the teacher liked me there because I could help her.

KL: Who was the teacher?

AO: Oh, I knew her name...

KL: It'll come out later.

AO: I could picture her.

KL: What did she look like?

AO: She had brown hair, and I don't think it was in a bun in the back, but it was a... because the kids in that class were those who just wouldn't study, didn't want to study. And some of them were smarter than the C class.

KL: Were there a couple rooms of fifth grade?

AO: There were three classrooms, and this was the lowest grade.

AL: So your class was called the C class?

AO: Well, that's what we called it. There was the A class, B class, and the C class, and you were dumb if you were in the C class. So I was put in the C class. But when I moved to the sixth grade, I got stuck in Ms. DeRose's class, and that was the top group. But I was still able to keep up there, because what I had learned in Cienega got me through, plus my sister badgering me to keep my grades up.

KL: How many kids were in a class? In the C class, how many people were there in fifth grade?

AO: I don't remember. There must have been about twenty-five or so.

KL: Why do you think the other kids were in that class? Did school bore them, or did they have trouble with learning, trouble in their backgrounds?

AO: Some of them may have been... trouble with learning, I don't remember any of the kids that were in that class, because I never associated with them.

KL: Who did you associate with?

AO: People that I rode on the bus with, because I remember after school going out on the playground, and we all stood in line to go across the bars. And Adeline was, rode our bus, too, and people looked on her as the meanie. She was the bully. And I was about third back in the line when Adeline came out and went in the front of the line, and the girl in front started to let her in. And I said, "No, she was here first, you go to the back of the line." Nobody had ever stood up to Adeline before, and I didn't know her rep, so this was like my first day in school. And so she went to the back of the line. Ever since then, Adeline was so nice to me, I remember, even in high school.

KL: Was she your age?

AO: Yeah, I guess she was. Well, most everybody was a year older than I, because of having skipped the third grade. But people used to wonder because Adeline bossed everybody else around, but she never did me.

KL: The whole line was probably like, "Huh?"

AO: Yeah, but...

KL: What was the demographic at that school, at Jordan school?

AO: There were some Japanese students, because a lot of Japanese farmers in Gilroy, and their kids went to... if they lived in Old Gilroy, they went to the school out there, otherwise they all came to our school. Oh, some of them went to Wheeler, depending on where they lived, but our end of town went there.

KL: What language did you speak in school then?

AO: Oh, English. It was all English. And I made friends with all the Japanese students, but I didn't... because I remember there were factions. There were two girls, and they were sometimes friends and sometimes not. And when they're not, they're definite factions, not interchanged.

KL: What were those factions based on?

AO: I have no idea. I mean, suddenly one day Yuko's not speaking to Rosie, so you'd better not.

KL: Their names were Yuko and Rosie?

AO: Uh-huh. And then other times Yuko and Rosie were the best buddies. So I don't know what...

KL: And were the cliques constant, like if you were Yuko's friend, were you always her friend, or were you sometimes Rosie's...

AO: No. And there was one other girl and I who were together, and we could intermingle. We didn't belong to either group.

KL: Sixth grade is fun, right? [Laughs]

AL: Was Rosie also Japanese American?

AO: Uh-huh.

AL: Okay.

AO: So all the Japanese students did this. But I had buddies, I remember, Squeaky Soares was my buddy.

KL: Was Squeaky a girl?

AO: Uh-huh, we called her Squeaky because she could reach heavenly, these high notes.

KL: What did you like about her?

AO: Oh, she was just lots of fun. And so... I guess she was in my... gosh, the name just almost came, and then it went, that fifth grade class, because... or no, I guess it was in Ms. DeRose's class.

KL: That was back in Cienega, right?

AO: No, this was in...

KL: Ms. DeRose was in Gilroy?

AO: In Gilroy, in the sixth grade.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.