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RP: So, Maryknoll school was essentially like a public school with some religious education with it?

MI: Well, it was, yeah, if you didn't want to have the religious education... you didn't have to be Catholics to go there. There were... anybody could go but basically it was Japanese and Korean and a few Chinese. And then there was children of mixed marriages, okay. And it was not a free school. It was tuition.

RP: And the tuition was pretty high? I mean...

MI: Well, compared to today it was cheap. I think it was like three dollars a month. And I thought, you know, considering it's eight hundred dollars for some of the... well gee, my goodness, you can't even afford that anymore. But, no, it was a very well-rounded education. Because some of the leaders in the Japanese community and Little Tokyo, attorneys, judges, you name it, got their education from Maryknoll. It's very interesting how the list goes down. So I guess we really got a good education at Maryknoll.

RP: And the teachers at Maryknoll, were they the nuns?

MI: Oh, yeah.

RP: And who do you remember? Who sticks out in your mind?

MI: Sister Burkman. See, they all had different personalities. Sister Burkman was a tough one, and then she would give you that dirty look, you know, when her class is acting up like that. And so Sister Burkman would be the one that... Sister Denise was a sweet, pretty nun, and always jovial. Sister Jude was serious, a disciplinarian... who was it? Sister Suzanna was Japanese, from Japan. And oh, by the way, they also taught Japanese classes one hour a day.

RP: After school?

MI: During school.

RP: Oh, during school.

MI: And then after you graduated from Maryknoll, if you wanted to continue your Japanese language school, you could come after school and go for an hour or so. Yeah. And so there's Sister Benedict, was there. Who else was there? But there was one thing that they taught us and that was discipline and respect. When anybody came into the classroom, if it was other than a student, we all dropped everything and stood up. And you don't do that anymore today. And then when the person says, "Now you may sit down," then we all sat down. And we, our classes were like, there was nothing like a small class. We had forty in a class and the sisters were able to handle that. Today the teachers are complaining about forty in the class. They want like twenty-five. But how is it that we were able to do it with forty in those days? Question mark. Yeah. So I really think that Maryknoll for me was a very happy time. Very.

RP: Did you meet any of the priests, Father Lavery or Father Stone?

MI: Oh, yeah, Father Lavery married us. Father Lavery was... I consider him a saint, very much of a saint. By example he was good. He really, really fought for the Japanese. Not necessarily in Maryknoll, everybody. And so some of the material I gave you, it tells you some of the histories of what he did, or... so, you know, you'll find out about him. Father Steinbeck was very religious, very academic. And he wanted to, I think basically go back to Japan and do missionary work there. Father Clement was gregarious. He was a fun priest. Who else was there? That's it. Oh, and then a couple of our classmates, we used to call them Watson, and he became a Maryknoll priest. And I said, "Gee, do I call you Father whatever or do I call you Watson?" I said, "I'm used to calling you Watson." And he used to go to dances and everything. And we had George Minamiki who became a Jesuit priest. That's pretty awesome. And Bryce Nishimura, he was at Manzanar.

RP: He was a, I think wasn't he the first Nisei priest?

MI: Yeah, here. No, he wasn't a first Nisei priest. Maybe from the camps he might have been. I think he was in my brother's class. Or he and my brother were in same group. Yeah, and I think he's in Japan now. So it's interesting.

RP: A unique community.

MI: Yeah, and then two of the women who taught catechism became nuns. And they were assigned to Japan. So there was a lot of richness in Maryknoll.

RP: How long, how far did you go with Japanese language at Maryknoll? Did you continue it after you had graduated?

MI: I did. But I kind of quit after that. The homework assignments at Sacred Heart was awesome. Took me probably the whole night just doing homework every single night. And then we had to read a book a day, a book a week and then give a book report. So I got a good education as far as that's concerned, you know.

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