<Begin Segment 11>

RP: And you mentioned that when you went to Topaz you were reunited with folks from the Bay Area because you really felt like a fish out of water at Manzanar with all these Southern Californians.

SS: Well, I think at Topaz too there weren't that many... too many of my classmates, because remember, the Alamedans were spread out all over and there weren't too many from my group, my age group from Alameda at Topaz itself. So I got into... again, sort of a different kind of Nisei at Topaz from the Manzanar.

RP: In what way?

SS: It's sort of difficult to classify them. You might say conservative in a way, but it's not that, it's... well, I got the impression that Southern Californians were more, how do you say it, freewheeling, and the Northern California were a little bit more settled, you know. And maybe it's because in Manzanar, once I started working the hospital, well, I never did get mixed in with the young people there too much anyway. And at Topaz, for the first time, I was involved in different activities in the school so I had a chance to deal more with people my age and so that was the difference. I guess in Topaz, once you started working in the hospital I was always with people older than myself as well as with the other thing in the wards was we're dealing with Issei and so that's where I started using my Japanese more so it was a different... with Manzanar it was a little bit more adult, Topaz was short eight months, you know, with people my group, my peers and so forth.

RP: What type of activities did you get involved with socially?

SS: Well, there's the... as soon as I got there, Mr. Evans, the speech teacher was also the drama coach, nailed me as soon as I went in to register for school and drafted me into the drama club, so I got involved in drama and stage. And there was Barbara Loomis was one of the music teacher from, I think she was from Boston, the glee club, and then there was a science club and then I got involved in the church, and Sunday school teacher. And somewhere along the line, before I left, they made me superintendent of Sunday school, too. I was sixteen then. Let's see, drama, then of course in the hospital, that sort of cut into my time, but acting, you know, I got involved in school, normal school activities. Then I must have been active in the church, what is now the Buddhist Churches of America was incorporated at Topaz and I was involved.

One of my teachers, Mrs. Lyle, counseled me one day, she taught American History, eleventh grade, and she called me aside one day and I guess she noticed that I'd become very active in the church among other things, and she cautioned me and she says, "Whatever you do, Shig," she says, "don't become a minister." [Laughs] She was great, she was really kind, she's also the teacher that on our final exam, she taught three separate classes on the same subject, and so she had three different final exams. It was a two-hour exam, so I took my exam and finished it in an hour and turned it in and I started to walk out and she says, "Wait a minute, Shig," and she handed me test number two and so I took that, lot of it was duplicate so very easy to go through it, turned that in and started to leave and she says, "Wait a minute, Shig," and gave me test number three. [Laughs] So I took all three tests, you know, but I guess she liked me and she knew, I guess in that class, it was during the winter and they had a coal burning stove toward the rear of the classroom, and so at first I used to sit up in front and I did my homework, and at the morning and the beginning of class, she'd always give a quiz, you know, questions. I always had the answer or I'd raise my hand and so she stopped calling me. And then I moved back to the back to be near the stove, and so by that time I think I was pretty active in other things, I wasn't doing quite my homework that I should be so I knew she wasn't going to call me at the beginning. And so she'd ask a question and I'd have a chance to look, I'd have the answer, and so that's why it worked. But I think she caught me on that. [Laughs] That's when she gave me the three tests, she knew that I was going to do well on it.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.