Densho Digital Archive - Victor Ikeda Interview (denshovh-ivictor-01-0010)

<Begin Segment 10>

RP: What elementary school did you attend, Victor?

VI: Bailey Gatzert.

RP: Bailey Gatzert.

VI: And our class was eighty-five percent -- maybe that's low -- of Japanese ancestry.

RP: Really, eighty-five percent?

VI: 'Cause that's right off of Japantown. And it was a very disciplined grammar school, we had a teacher called Ms. Mahon, and she had a collie dog with her all the time. Anybody that went to Bailey Gatzert school remembers that. And we'd have to march from class to class, and they'd have a triangle, and they'd have this, you know, the stick that they keep on ringing the triangle, the beat, so that we all marched to different classes. [Laughs] And then Bailey Gatzert was on a hill from Twelfth Avenue going down toward the Eighth Avenue.

[Interruption]

VI: Yeah, trays, we have these metal trays that we used to use in the lunchroom, and then the school would keep all the old metal trays so that anytime it snowed, it was a nice hill that... the principal and the teachers would let us go on the hill and slide down the hill on these trays. And I remember that distinctly, because it doesn't snow that much in Seattle, so it was really a treat when it snowed, to slide down the hills. But like I said, it was a very disciplined school.

RP: Were your teachers Caucasians or Japanese?

VI: Caucasians. And one of the things that we noticed quite a bit is when we went to school, most of the teachers were single, so that they didn't have this dual responsibility of the school and taking care of the family. So they spent lots and lots of energy and time with the kids in school.

RP: You got some more personalized sort of focus.

VI: Right. And one of things that I always remember is anybody that came from Bailey Gatzert had very good penmanship, 'cause we sat there doing the O's and ups and downs. Now, I watch our kids, and the young kids, they didn't know how to hold a pencil, you know, or scribble or write, they print. But that was one of the things that we learned. Probably the things that are a negative is that you get so structured that it doesn't give you time to really think or innovate in a situation like that when you're young, or above a school that lets you, is not as strict and lets you...

RP: Lets you do some critical thinking.

VI: Right, express yourself.

RP: Express yourself. And then you went to high school in Seattle as well? Which high school?

VI: We went to Broadway High School, and that was about thirty percent Oriental, mostly Japanese.

RP: And what was the rest of the...

VI: They were Caucasians. There weren't too many African Americans or blacks, families. We knew most of the families that were black in, 'cause they lived within our community. Very good athletes, you know.