Densho Digital Archive - Misako Shigekawa Interview (denshovh-smisako-01-0008)

<Begin Segment 8>

RP: Did you want to go to college or was it your parents' desire?

MS: I was intending to, I always want, been planning to go. I worked on, and I got, made a scholarship when I finished high school, so I didn't have any trouble being accepted. I could've gone to UCLA or Cal, but it costs so much to travel, so at... the thing was SC, the tuition was high. The state university was cheaper to go, but UCLA didn't have pharmacy at time. I'd have to go to Berkeley, so I decided to go to SC. It was difficult, that's why I had to work to make money to go. See, state, those I think it's only fifty dollars a semester or something to go to state college. But then I had to pay, I think I had to pay, I don't know, about two, three... anyway, it was quite a bit. Well, I think the whole thing was about a couple thousand, for four years. Now it's, you can't even make one year on that, go to school.

RP: How many Japanese Americans were attending Southern California University at the time you were?

MS: Well, in pharmacy I know there were about a hundred fifty in the class and there were only eight girls. And, and funny part, eight of us graduate, but a lot of the boys quit. They couldn't take it. [Laughs] And they used to kid us. Us girls, we all graduated, but so by the time we graduated I think it was about a little over a hundred. They couldn't take, they thought pharmacy's a cinch. I think a lot of the fellows thought that, but a lot of them dropped out, I know. They couldn't make it, but us girls worked hard and we all graduated. None of the girls dropped out.

RP: So you had not only to deal with the fact of your Japanese, your Japanese ethnicity, you also had to deal with the fact you were a woman, too.

MS: Yeah, we had to fight.

RP: And did, were there other Japanese American girls in your pharmacy class?

MS: Yes. There were two, three. I think there were a couple and, and lot, I think there must've been four or five in the whole school of pharmacy, Japanese girls. They all graduated. And then I, after I got married, I know, I did relief work. Someone heard, my doctor heard about me, a family doctor, and he told someone that, they want someone for relief, like they want to take a day off or a vacation, I did relief work in Anaheim for a couple doctors and they offered, after the kids grew up I did that part time. And I got a call from the Santa Ana Community Hospital that they need a pharmacist and I had a neighbor, a nurse that was working there. She said, "You should go there." Says they need a pharmacist. I said I don't know whether I want to go work or not, then I got two calls. She said, "Well, at least go over and interview them." So I... my kids are still, they were junior high and all, and I didn't feel like I wanted to go to work. But finally I did and I worked there almost fifteen years until I retired from Santa Ana Community Hospital.