<Begin Segment 10>

RP: Now, what grammar school did you attend, Gladys?

GK: I went to Fort Lupton grade school and high school from the first grade to the twelfth grade. I graduated from Fort Lupton high school, it's my sixtieth class reunion this year.

RP: This year?

GK: I know.

RP: What do you remember about your school experiences and recollections?

GK: I think I can remember from the first grade, and I remembered all... you know, it's so funny, not too long ago, a couple years ago, I met this friend that I used to spend a lot of time with, and used to spend a lot of nights with her, and she said to me the other day, she goes, "You know what, Gladys? You made me flunk the first grade." And I go, "How? How did I make you flunk the first grade?" She says, "Because I couldn't speak English, and you didn't help me." And I said, "But Catherine, you and I have never been in the same grade, I mean, in the same, we didn't have the same teacher." And she said, "We didn't?" And I said, "I'm so glad you brought that up, because you would have gone on the rest of your life thinking I made you flunk first grade," because we did not have the same teacher. So I was glad that she brought that up, but anyway, I just, all my teachers were really, I think I can almost remember every teacher's name. And I really enjoyed, I enjoyed school. The only thing was, because Mother didn't speak English, anytime there was any kind of a program, my sister-in-law would come in her place. If there was any conference or anything, then my sister-in-law came for my mother.

But I have to tell you this about my mother. When my mother was ninety-nine, she said -- my sister and I had been taking care of her for three years, and at that time, at the end of three years, she said, "You know, I need, I should go into a nursing home." And before that, she used to say, "I don't want to go to a nursing home," and we kept saying, "Mother, we're not gonna put you in a nursing home," I said, "unless you get to that point where we can't take care of you anymore." So one day she said, "I'm ready to go in," and she was still doing well, I mean, she was walking with a walker and everything. So I said, when she was saying, "I can't go in a nursing home," I said to her one day, "Why can't you go into a nursing home?" and she goes, I said, "why can't you?" And she says, "'Cause I can't, I can't speak English," and I said, "Mother, you've been here for over eighty years. Why didn't you learn English?" And she goes, "If I'd known I was going to live this long, I would have." [Laughs] Isn't that funny? That was so funny. So you know, it's like... and when we were ready, when she wanted to go into the nursing home, she had to take some tests to see if she qualified, and she was so alert and so smart, she really didn't qualify. But the person that came to interview us felt like we needed the break, and so she said they would put her in, and that was the reason why she went in. But yeah, she didn't learn English because she didn't know she was going to live that long. [Laughs] Then she would say, "At my age I can say anything and do anything," I said, "No, Mother, you can't do that." [Laughs]

RP: So were your friends in school predominately other Japanese Americans?

GK: Yes. You know what, during the grade school years, I don't think I had Japanese friends. There weren't any other Japanese girls in my class, and I don't know when, I think it was when the outer schools, they just went up to the eighth grade and then the outer schools came in when they were freshmen, I think that's when we got more Japanese. And then I found that all those years that I've been friends with the Caucasians, from the ninth grade, then we started being with Japanese. I don't know why that happened or how that happened, but I find that Japanese did that. I don't know whether at that point, whether we felt like... I'm not sure why that happened. We just had Japanese friends.

RP: Gravitated to your own group.

GK: Uh-huh.

RP: I would like to -- oh, we were talking about sort of the bicultural upbringing that you had, and it sounds like your dad really stressed the fact that you feel, make you feel like an American, take pride in that fact.

GK: Yes, uh-huh.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.