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-01-0013

<Begin Segment 13>

KL: So we're back after a break of a couple hours, it's now the evening of January 31st. And when we left off with you, Aki, we were talking about you were kind of in middle school age, your family had moved back to Gilroy. And a note I jotted down was I wondered if your dad had continued his connection with judo culture or judo practice?

AO: Not really. He didn't do it, but he was very interested in seeing...

KL: Was there a scene in Gilroy, a judo scene?

AO: Well, sometimes the children did some sumo type things, and there were kendo classes, and he encouraged that.

KL: Did he participate in kendo?

AO: No, he didn't do any of those things anymore, but he had an interest in them.

KL: Where were those matches?

AO: I don't know if it was matches, there were some young men who were taking kendo lessons, and so he kept up with that. I was not at all interested, so I didn't even pay much attention.

KL: Where did you start in high school?

AO: At Gilroy High School. I went, well, until the war broke out. I was a junior in high school when the war broke out.

KL: And was it very different from middle school?

AO: No, not really, because we fed right into it. Some classes were... well, we had choices of various things in high school that we didn't have in junior high.

KL: Was it pretty, kind of pre-professional, or did you have a focus in high school, or was it very general studies?

AO: It was kind of general studies toward college. The courses that I took, that my parents encouraged us to take, was pre-college so we could get into UC Berkeley.

KL: Was Berkeley kind of a desirable one?

AO: I think that was a possibility. Of course, San Jose State was closer, but Berkeley had a little more prestige.

KL: What did you want to study?

AO: Medical, in the medical field. I didn't know what, but in later years, I sometimes wish I'd gone into pre-med.

KL: Where did that interest come from?

AO: Well, I worked as a med-tech.

KL: I mean when you were a teenager?

AO: When I was a teenager? Not so much medical as... what was I thinking I wanted to... oh, math. And so I was thinking in terms of a math career. I didn't know much about what choices there might be, and I'm glad I didn't, because I've done some bookkeeping and stuff, and it's deadly. [Laughs]

KL: Yeah, I'd never make it past those multiplication tables you said you struggled with.

AO: That I overcame, but no, I'm much better off in the medical field.

KL: Did you ever, did you work while you were in high school, did you have a job in Gilroy?

AO: No, other than... we'd catch the bus in the morning, go to school, and our bus, our route was we had to wait for the second time the bus came around, so we had about a half hour, forty-five minutes at school waiting, so you tried to do your homework or stuff. And then we'd get home and get a bite to eat and get out in the fields and help my parents.

KL: Oh, that reminds me of something. I took a picture of some celery seeds earlier today at the museum in San Jose. I'll have to show them to you later. Do you remember the establishment of the Gilroy Yamato Hot Springs? I was reading about that place a little bit before we talked with you.

AO: Oh. It was the Gilroy Hot Springs for many years before, I had never been there, but then after the war, that became... what did they call it? When the returning Gilroy returnees who didn't have a place to go to went to the hot springs, and my mother and sisters were taken care of there.

KL: Oh, okay. There was a man that I read about, Kazuburo Sakata?

AO: Sakata. He was the one that started the hot springs.

KL: Did you know him?

AO: No, I did not.

KL: Do you remember that place at all from before the war?

AO: I had never been there. I had heard about it, and people talked about the Gilroy Hot Springs, but I had never been. And then after the war, it became the hostel for the returning Gilroy people. And that's where my mother and sisters were, so that's the first time I'd been.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.