<Begin Segment 7>

KL: Where did you go to school in Los Angeles?

UN: I went to Sawtelle grammar school, it's called Nora Sterry grammar school now. And I went to junior high school, Emerson junior high school. Then the war came, and I was just starting Uni High when the war came, and I had all my high school in camp.

KL: Did you go to Japanese school in Sawtelle?

UN: Oh, yes.

KL: Was your mom your teacher there ever?

UN: Yes. And she couldn't afford a babysitter, so she put us in Japanese school, and the Japanese school was like babysitting. [Laughs] And when I went into, I went to Japanese school when I was so young that a lot of the students I was competing against were already in high school when I was in grammar school. I enjoy beating them in studies. And they would take my brother and I behind the school and beat us up because we were competing against them. And later on, I'm bigger than most Japanese. My brother was even taller than I was, and when we grew up, we got even with all the kids that used to beat us up. [Laughs]

KL: Do you want to say any more about what form that took, or no?

UN: Because I became a senior research associate in Unical. And by the time I got my chemistry degree, I would never fight. We just don't do that. We try to excel by using our brain.

KL: How many teachers were in that Sawtelle Japanese school, or how many students?

UN: I would say probably about 150 at the time, or more. And they had four or five teachers.

KL: What were your classes like there?

UN: It's just like American school. They had reading, writing, and you had examination. And what was even different was that the top student, at the end of the year, school year, had to get up before all the parents. They had a, they would invite all the parents, and the top student in every class would give a speech. It seemed foolish, but we all competed to be the top student. And then we would have three of four pages of Japanese to memorize, and we would get up before all the family and give this speech.

KL: What would the speeches be?

UN: Something that the teacher would write. So they tried to show their, show off their student, so that it was a very complicated speech, but you gave it. And it's amazing, in the Japanese community that you should, in American school, if you know you have to do something like that, they would all say, "I'm not going to be the top student," you know. "Let such and such do that." But in Japanese school, we all competed to be the top student. And so I didn't want to shame my mother, so I studied, and I gave these speeches in Japanese. [Laughs]

Off camera: Were those speeches that you made, were they typically about American themes or were they about more traditional Japanese history themes? Or what kinds of things did they talk about?

UN: It's usually about building character, being a good student, typically. [Laughs] But you know, you do that in Japanese school, it carries on in American school. You want to be the top. And I think it helped. And when we become a chemist working for our company, you want to be the best, you try to be the best. I went to school... most people, once they get a job, they quit going to school. But I went to night school so I could do a better job, and I tried to be the top one. So there you have it. [Laughs]

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.