<Begin Segment 12>

VO: What was it like starting school again in Seattle?

EO: Yeah, it was different. I was a sophomore, and I went to Garfield High School. It was... having been with all Japanese kids for how many years, it was different. Because at that time, Garfield was mostly white, and there were some Chinese students. And so when I was talking to my classmates, I'd have to watch myself not to use any Japanese words. [Laughs] Because when you're with Japanese kids, you use Japanese words, a lot of slang. So I got over that and I got involved in the school activities.

VO: And how did the other students accept you?

EO: I never felt any kind of tension. In fact, the first day I went to school, they got this girl to kind of be a hostess, and we still keep in touch, wonderful Jewish girl. And she showed me around, and so I just really felt good, I can remember that.

VO: That's quite something to stay in touch after so many years.

EO: We lost... after she got, I remember I went to her wedding, and then we lost touch with each other. Then about a year ago, I got this phone call, and Jenny says, "I finally found you." She lives in Los Gatos, California. Well, it just happened that she was taking a class with, everything was, some exercise class with another Japanese girl, so she asked her if she knew me. This girl didn't, but this girl knew, had a friend in Tacoma who knew me. So that's how Jenny got in touch with me, and ever since then, we've been corresponding, and I've gone to see her. So it's a small world. She's just a real good friend.

VO: And you were able to kind of pick up your life again in high school.

EO: Yes, but there was this one incident that I mentioned about before that showed some discrimination. We had a principal that wasn't all that great, and I knew I had all A's when I was in Crystal City, okay? So when I found out that I wasn't included in the top ten, I said, "Well, that's funny because I had all A's." And so my Spanish teacher -- and I think she was one of the advisors -- I talked to her, and she went to the principal. And what had happened was the principals had changed all the A-minuses that I had to B's, so therefore I had all these B's. And so the advisor, she stood up for me, and she got half of them changed back to A's. So I was able to graduate in the top ten from the graduating class. But I think it was, the schools in Crystal City were, they were accredited by the State of Texas, so they were just as good as any other public school according to the state. But he probably felt like it wasn't, I'm pretty sure, that it wasn't up to standard. But anyway, that's the only time that I had any problem. The rest of the time we got along with members.

VO: And that transition from being an all-Japanese environment to being at Garfield...

EO: Yeah, that was, at first, kind of a shock. But I got over it. And it's one thing that all of us kids who were, went through this experience, we never talked about it to anybody. Maybe we talked about it within ourselves, but we never talked about it to anybody else. And when I was a freshman in college, that's the first time I wrote a paper about it. And my English professor was so... I guess he knew nothing about it, he was so impressed that he put my paper in the library. So I don't know, I guess to this day it must be in the library somewhere. [Laughs] It wasn't such a great paper, but, you know, he had never heard about a Japanese going through all this.

VO: Did you ever run into friends that you had from before you left who were not Japanese, but who wondered what happened to you?

EO: Yeah, I kept in touch with a couple of my Chinese friends, but none of the others, none of the white kids.

VO: And so they knew where you were?

EO: I think so. I don't know if they knew the details, but they kind of knew what happened to us.

VO: And did you ever reconnect with them again after?

EO: Yeah.

VO: But again, people didn't really, you didn't speak about that experience?

EO: No, we never talked about it.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.