Densho Digital Archive - Shigeki Sugiyama Interview (denshovh-sshigeki-01-0006)

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RP: You had dropped out of school for a while.

SS: Yes, so I had entered... well, when I graduated from Porter School in January, the end of January 1942, I went to Alameda High School and attended the Alameda High School for four weeks before we moved to French camp. And when we moved to French Camp, I enrolled at Edison High School in Stockton and that was about five miles (away). And then when the relocation started... so I enrolled in Edison High School say the end of February or the beginning of March, and then I guess I attended for about two months, end of April or beginning of May, my mother... well, we knew we were going into camp. And so my mother suggested that I drop out of school and work a while so we can... we could earn some money before going into camp. So I dropped out of Edison High School and, it was in May, that's right, and went to Courtland, work on a farm up there, planting tomatoes. So I was there about ten days and then when they started moving people out, and once people moved out of an area, were moved out of an area, you couldn't go back in. And so when they started closing up places we decided that... well, actually it was my cousin, Takeshi Yamamoto, and his father, and the three of us went up to Courtland, and we decided so that we wouldn't be cut off we returned after ten days. And then we did some farm labor in the French Camp area, weeding (...), onions and so forth.

So I dropped out of school, actually my ninth... first semester of the ninth grade was rather hectic, four weeks at Alameda High School, and then about, let's see, March, April, maybe eight weeks, six to eight weeks at Edison High School. And fortunately when I left Edison High School my teachers had let me take my books with me and home study, you know, on my own. And I then took the books with me to Manzanar and after we got to Manzanar they set up a self-study center in one of the mess halls there. And through correspondence I managed to get through the first semester of the ninth grade and then they started the school in the fall, September of 1942, or it was decided they would start it. And so, during the summer of '42, at that time it was, I don't know if they still have it now, but we had the high and low, in other words, two semesters a year, and they had the first half, those that entered in the first half, in September, and then those like myself who were in the second half. And so they gave us an option as to, well, they're going to have only one class or one year. And so they gave us an option of either falling back, you know, one semester, or taking (an) accelerated six week program during the summer and advancing a semester. And that summer session you could take three courses so I opted to take it, moving ahead rather than falling back. And so my second semester the ninth grade was compressed into six weeks. So my first half of the ninth grade was in two different schools and then my second half of ninth grade was compressed into six weeks. And then the tenth and the beginning few months of the eleventh grade was in Manzanar and I finished up the eleventh grade in Topaz. And then my twelfth grade or my senior year in high school I was in Ann Arbor, Michigan. [Laughs]

RP: Yeah, a mosaic of schools.

SS: But I was fortunate and I was, you know, the reason I went to Michigan was to try to get into the university. And lo and behold I was accepted and also because of my having finished at the University High School, I also got a scholarship to the university. So it worked out.

RP: Kind of step back, ask you a few questions about the Alameda experience, how were you treated by your classmates after, you know, war broke out? Did you sense that you --

SS: I don't recall any difference. Well, I mean, we'd grown up together and in the eighth grade I was the class treasurer and also they had the junior traffic patrol, you know, the kids, and I was the first sergeant of that and so forth. I don't recall any tangible, any overt concern, you know, we were just buddies all the way around.