<Begin Segment 15>

LP: Do you remember any personalities of administration staff, teachers or anything like that? It sounds like you have a memory of maybe graduation, you'd be able to talk a little bit about graduation?

EY: I never really thought about that. [Laughs] Never did. Although I remember in English class, had to do something, and somehow I was gonna be a broadcaster, and I had someone make me one of those old fashioned microphones, you remember, kind of like the thing... and I had a stand made, I put it on the desk, and I still don't know what I spoke about, but I got up there, normally I'm an introvert, and I kind of tend to just stay back and observe. But that one time, I had enough guts to get up there, speak in front of the class, and I don't remember what I spoke about. But that's about all that I remember on that, of my education over there in camp.

LP: Did you do any extracurricular activities? It's interesting that you spoke, did you have, like a certain honor or anything, with grades or anything like that?

EY: Can't think of anything.

LP: Where did graduation take place?

EY: I think it was in one of the firebreaks, and I don't know whether we were on the stage or whether we were on the ground. That's interesting, I'm going to have to think about that more. I never did before. [Laughs]

LP: The same person that donated the yearbooks donated one of the graduation tassels. Her husband was forty-two, she was forty-three, so they were kind of slightly different shades, but they were yellow with, like, blue. Do you remember the robe or anything that you wore, what color that was?

EY: Yeah, it was blue and gold, that's supposed to be blue and gold. That's why the cover is supposed to be gold, yellow, right? And then the blue printing, I remember that, but I don't remember. And after I left, they built the high school, but they still don't know whether it was arson or not, but someone... so the high school was really short-lived.

KL: Yeah, I had a couple questions about school, so maybe I'll just ask them. What was your schedule in school? What was a typical school day like? Did you change classes or have different teachers, or what subjects...

EY: Yeah, we changed classes, we went to different rooms. I was taking French, 'cause I was taking French back home, so I wanted to take French, too, so that I could get my units. I don't know how I did it, but anyway, I still don't remember half of what went on. So I took French and English literature. I don't know if I took math, whether English and literature was together or whether English and literature was separate, I don't remember that either. And I wonder if we had PE, physical ed. Maybe we did have physical ed., but that's only four classes, there should be one more class. French, English, math somewhere in there, maybe.

LP: Science? Did you have a science class?

EY: Oh, yes, science. There had to be in order for a student to get full credit, I think so. And for a while the college students were teachers, and then when the administration really found out that it really needed to be serious about this, then they started hiring non-Japanese from the outside. So I remember going across some article that they paid the teachers x-amount of dollar, and we only got nineteen dollars a month, that kind of thing. And today you think how unfair it was when just because we were interned and then the college students took over the instruction part of it, then they hired someone from the outside, and so unfair, that kind of thing. I remember reading something like that. But those were the times, it happened.

[Interruption]

KL: So this is tape three, we're in an interview with Eiko Yamaichi, and I wondered if you could describe the school facility, what the classrooms were like. You said it was around Block 71, but what kind of buildings were they in?

EY: It was barracks converted into schools, so instead of just... well, wait a minute, that's not true, too. It was already sectioned off for families, so I think they left it as-is, and they assigned teachers to each room for whatever subject. So as far as I remember, the walls were bare like when we first went to camp. In fact, we didn't even have a desk for a while, we just had chairs. And the books were one of those discard kinds, and eventually I think that they were able to get a hold of more up to date subject books for all of us. I don't know that every class had those updates or not, but I think in our English class we had an update. And eventually desks but not the modern kind, it's just a table, one table, and we shared... I think some of the classes might have had individual tables. I remember one class, but not every class had that. So it might have been a budget sort of thing, so that maybe one class or one subject, I don't know, got certain equipment or not, I don't know. I don't remember microphones per se, I think teachers got up and spoke and told us what to do. They had regular blackboards, let me see now. I don't remember the science class, whether they had microscopes and stuff like that, I can't recall that.

KL: Did the teachers have desks?

EY: Maybe a table, but not a desk per se. After I left they may have had it, but at the time when we first started, there was none. It was very scarce, just enough to say that this was a classroom. Like some had tables, some we just had chairs. Like in English class, I think we had chairs facing the teacher, but in my language class I think we had one long table.

LP: Do you remember who your individual teachers were, any of their names or their backgrounds?

EY: No, can't think of that. I think it might be in the annual. They just got the picture part of it, right?

LP: Yeah. There is a faculty area of the yearbook.

EY: Yeah, Miss Righthart or Miss somebody.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.