Densho Digital Archive - Rose Tanaka Interview (denshovh-trose

<Begin Segment 26>

AL: So after you graduated, you were part of the Nisei Student Relocation project. Could you... for someone who doesn't know what that was, could you explain how it worked?

RT: Well, I discovered this later, that... all I know is the first I knew of it was that as a result of that project, I received word the week I graduated that I had a train ticket to Denver, Colorado. That first year at the University of Denver, which I didn't think even existed at the time, I had no knowledge of it, and I didn't even know if I had a college in view. And they said I had a train ticket and my first year of college paid for. And that was through the Presbyterian church. Now, the Presbyterian church is the one that Mrs. Gannon had converted me to. But I had not stayed in touch with them, and I don't know whether that had anything to do with the... but the Presbyterian church, the Nisei Student Relocation Council was made up of various churches, colleges, I think some civil rights organizations, most prominent were the Quakers, and they were the ones who really did a lot of the work that helped our population. And they even, they realized that up to four thousand students were graduating from the ten camps who had no chance of continuing or starting their college education. And they got busy in different communities, and it turned out, how was I going to live in Denver even if I got there? Well, they said they had a place for me to live. A family was willing to take me in as mother's helper, housekeeper, and give me room and board. So I had my tuition paid... well, it was almost a full year's tuition. I tell some students that and they are surprised. I said, "Do you know to go to the University of Denver, you needed less than two hundred dollars for a year's tuition?" And the church sent $175 dollars to the office at the university, and we found that it was going to be a 185 or under 190 dollars was the total fee. It was $62.50 per quarter, is what it was. And so we scraped up enough extra money to pay for the, what remained, and then I had my room and board, so I had food, and the place I was staying was easy traveling distance by bus or walking to the university.

AL: How did you get selected for that program. I mean, was it something you applied for, did they come to you?

RT: It was sort of a mystery to me how I've always wanted to go to college, but I didn't think it was really a possibility. But I had, again, the advisers, the high school advisers.

AL: Do you remember their names?

RT: I don't know who they were, actually. Maybe it was Janet Goldberg, was an adviser. I can't even remember who the adviser was, but she may have been the person who did that kind of arrangement.

AL: I've always been curious whether it was scholarship-based, like you had to have a certain GPA in order to be part of it, or if they would take anybody who wanted to go.

RT: Well, I think our advisers knew if we wanted to go. I remember looking at brochures from different colleges and sort of daydreaming about where I would go. But it was never a possibility as far as I was concerned. And so when they said Denver University, I said, "What's that?" It's not one that I'd even thought about. I'd thought about some eastern colleges, but I was willing to accept whatever I could get.

AL: Do you think you would have gone to college had you not been in camp?

RT: Well, if I had not been in camp, the war hadn't occurred, I was thinking of going to, like, University of California because my sister was there.

AL: And you said your sister was able to go out and continue her education? She went out early?

RT: Yeah, she left early. And again, I don't know what the procedure, the mechanics were of her, but she was allowed to go down to the school of nursing in Colorado Springs.

AL: And your family, your parents left at the same time as you, didn't they?

RT: Yes. And I don't understand how it all occurred, but I guess they knew that I was seventeen, I needed to go out, and my parents also, for some reason, were included in the travel arrangements, and they were able to come to Denver, go to Denver with me, and then go on down to Ordway where my brothers, my two brothers had already settled.

AL: Okay, so they weren't in Denver, but they just traveled...

RT: No, they had gone, yeah. They came to Denver, they went and stopped over at the place, the residence where I was going to stay, it was a doctor and his wife, and had two small children, and met my benefactors, and then they went down to live with my brothers.

AL: Did the Nisei Student Relocation Council have... I mean, I know they got your room and board, but did they have mentors set up or any kind of a social network, or were you just, you show up and go to school?

RT: I was on my own. I guess they assumed that all I needed was a place to stay and a college to be enrolled in, and the rest was up to me.