Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Hope Omachi Kawashima Interview
Narrator: Hope Omachi Kawashima
Interviewer: Kristen Luetkemeier
Location: Fresno, California
Date: September 10, 2014
Densho ID: denshovh-khope-01-0028

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KL: And Roseville High School was a good setting?

HK: Yes.

KL: You, it was nice and you achieved.

HK: I enjoyed it, because I still have friends, classmates that I went to school with that I still communicate with, send Christmas cards to. And then we have our class reunions. I go to the class reunions.

KL: Was it pretty mixed ethnically by that time?

HK: Yes, it was mainly Caucasians, all my, most of my classmates were Caucasian. There was just two or three other Japanese American students in my class, and there's a few Hispanic, but pretty, mainly Caucasian students.

KL: I think we have about five more minutes or so on this tape, and I wondered if you could just kind of walk us through some of the big high points, and we may run out of time, but some of the big high points of your adult life after graduating from high school. And then I'll have some more specific questions. But what did, what was your life like after high school?

HK: I remember studying hard because I wanted to go to college, so I became a, what do you say, California State, what is it, Scholar (of the) California Scholarship Federation, I think.

KL: I don't know.

HK: Then I received a scholarship to UC Davis, and I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to study. I was thinking to either study food science or else I was really hoping to do something in music. But then since I got the scholarship to UC Davis I decided, well, I would study food science, so I went to UC Davis. But then I found, I mentioned that all my classmates would ask me to sing for their weddings, every weekend I was singing somewhere. And so everybody said, "Why are you majoring in food science? Why aren't you studying music?" So I thought maybe I should change, so then (my) second year in college I decided to go to Sacramento State (University) because it was within commuting distance from Loomis. So since my parents were both going into Sacramento every day, I commuted with them. That way I would save on room and board, 'cause the scholarship wasn't that much to last more than a year. And I was working too, at UC Davis, to pay for my room and board. So then I switched schools and then I decided to study, music therapy is what I was interested in. I thought, well, it's a combination of music and science, 'cause I like science and I like music, so that's what I studied. But they didn't have music therapy; they had recreation therapy. So I did music and got my degree in recreation therapy and also majored in music, and then when I graduated from there I got an internship in Stockton, at the Stockton State Hospital as a recreation therapist. And then I decided to take classes at University of the Pacific. Because they had the music therapy degree there, but I couldn't afford to go to music there, because it was too expensive. They had offered me a scholarship too, but it wouldn't have been enough to finish there. So I was working full-time and going to University of Pacific to become qualified as a registered music therapist, so that's what I did for two years in Stockton and then I went to (...) Napa State Hospital to work there, because I wanted to go to San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo. So I commuted from Napa to San Anselmo to study at the seminary, 'cause they had a degree in church music. Because I was mainly interested in church music, so that's what I studied there. So a week after graduation from there, I married my husband at the seminary chapel. We got married there.

KL: Is that where you met?

HK: Yes, that's where we met.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.