Densho Digital Archive - Victor Ikeda Interview (denshovh-ivictor-01-0041)

<Begin Segment 41>

RP: What about your educational experience at Hunt High?

VI: Hunt High, it was horrible. I was a pretty cocky kid, if I say so myself, and playing in sports and being with an older group, I think you develop an attitude of, you know, little cockier than just a student. If my kids knew how I went through high school, I'd say, "Do as I tell you, not as I do." Of course, when we went to school, there were hardly any books. You go to chemistry class, I mean, you didn't have any equipment or experiment, you know, projects. Classes were big, teachers tolerated a lot of things that, you know, you won't do in public school. Before we'd go to school, you'd play cards or something, and the older people sent us to school. And one of the reasons this Block 5 tolerated us eating there was our group, some of our group was on these food delivery, so they always seemed to manage more food to give to Block 5. Well, when they come by, we'd wait for 'em, I'd wait for 'em to come by, and then I'd get in the truck with them and help deliver, 6, 7, all the way down 'til we got to school, then I'd hop off. And I remember that was my chemistry class, the first class. Of course, when I got there, I'd never be on time. So what I'd do is I'd get an apple from the delivery truck, and walk in there very cocky and give the apple to the teacher and then sit down. [Laughs] It's a wonder she tolerated that, 'cause I sure wouldn't tolerate it now. But I was kind of cocky then; school didn't mean that much because our future didn't look that promising, you know. Of course, there are people like Mr. Okamoto, that he was very studious, and he studied and all that. Spanish, I took Spanish, and I got along with the teacher, but I didn't learn very much, and she was willing to pass me. I took woodworking because that sounded like a good thing to do. I attended not too many classes, and when it got time to give my report card, he says, "Well, are you in my class?" I said, "Oh, yeah, I signed up," so he just gave me a passing grade. They weren't gonna flunk you because they didn't have really the facilities. And I've got a strange feeling that by the time we got into 1944, the War Relocation people were more than happy to get you out of school and get you out of camp, so they weren't gonna do anything to try to hold you back.

Now, I was a mid-year student, and I don't know if you realize what a mid-year student is? In Seattle, when you started high school, you either started in September or in February. So if you started in September, you went the four years and you graduated in June. If you're a mid-year student, you started in February, and if you got lot of credits, you graduated in June but that's three and a half years. If you didn't have enough credits, you graduated the next year. Well, I was a mid-year student, so when I went to camp, I was able to, I guess, accumulate enough credits so that I graduated in three and a half years. And I'm glad I did, because the grades that I had in high school in Seattle were good grades, the grades I had in Hunt were very, very poor. I would have never got to college if I had those, but combining them, was able for me to, enough to qualify for college. But as far as I was concerned, camp was... school was more of a social event than a studying event.

RP: Secondary in your life.

VI: Right, right, something we had to do. We had to go, so we went.

RP: Going to camp.

VI: Right, right. Not knowing what the future was, whether we'd ever go to college or not...

RP: Right, and so, so you did have an opportunity to go to college, but did you also want to get out of camp, too?

VI: Yeah.

RP: You were giving up your friends, your group.

VI: Since I was with the older group and I was the youngest of the group, and I think you talked to Mr. Kaseguma, he was six years older, and they accepted me. So a lot of 'em started leaving, so by the time, you know, '44 rolled around, quite a few of 'em had enlisted, or volunteered for the army or left, or went back to college, or went to work or something. So all this OT group was getting smaller and smaller, so I was willing to leave as soon as I can.