<Begin Segment 9>

TI: So let's move to school. You mentioned the Atkinson Elementary. When you started school... well, let me back up. When you were, before school, did you speak mostly Japanese or English?

KO: I think it was mostly English, because I don't really remember too many conversations with Mother or Father.

TI: Because you had older siblings, so in that case, a lot of times, it is English, because the siblings are speaking English. And so tell me what it was like when you started going to school? What was that like for you? You mentioned Atkinson where it was, you said ninety-eight percent either Chinese or Japanese?

KO: Uh-huh.

TI: And that was kind of a different experience for you?

KO: Yeah. But because my sisters had all preceded me to school, they would tell me before we even got close to Atkinson that, "You're gonna meet Ms. Brody, you're gonna meet Ms. Cramer. In the fourth grade you're gonna have Ms. Strout, in the fifth grade you're gonna..." and so I knew pretty much what to expect of school, and it was everything they said it was. Sure enough, Ms. Cramer in the second grade would do this, and in the third grade, Ms. Brody would do this. And in the fourth grade, Ms. Strout, you don't even drop your pencil on the floor because the room is so quiet. But somebody dropped a pencil on the floor and Ms. Strout would say, "Now, who made all that noise?" And then the kids being honest would raise their hand and get rapped on the knuckle with a ruler. [Laughs] I was kind of pre-warned of what school was going to be like all the way from grade school, actually, into high school, because my sisters all went two years following, and the teachers were still there.

TI: So it sounds like you had a very close relationship with your sisters, that they really kind of looked out for you, they helped you kind of prepare yourself for school and things like that.

KO: Right, we were very close. In fact, I kind of joke about it. We were so close, we used to almost sleep on top of each other, two beds and seven people. [Laughs] But that was one of the important things to my father, that the family stands together, and we stand up for each other, you take care of each other. And today, we are still very close. And I find it in my own kids, they compliment each other, they speak highly of each other, and we did the same thing. My sisters would talk about how smart so-and-so is and how hard working so and so is and so on.

TI: That's not always the case. Oftentimes you would get sibling rivalries, and it's hard to, in some families, you don't see that as much. So it's very, I guess, brave that your family was able to promote that. And that, you said, came more from your father, you think, or from both parents?

KO: Well, I'm sure it was from both parents, but there was never strife between brothers and sisters.

TI: I want to ask you, when you were growing up, did you attend Japanese language school?

KO: We did. We went to the regular public school day, and then at four o'clock, run down to the Japanese school.

TI: So just walk through a typical day for me. So like a school day, from the moment you wake up, just kind of walk through a day. I'm just curious how your day flowed.

KO: All I could think of, the years we lived in the rental house, we would leave the house at 7:30 or so to walk up to Atkinson school, which was about, almost a mile away. And then walk east to the Japanese school. Atkinson was on Eleventh Avenue.

TI: And even going back to when you woke up, describe what would be your breakfast.

KO: I think it was probably a Japanese type of breakfast, tea and rice and maybe a fried egg, and I don't say bacon, but a wiener or something like that. I know one of the things, oftentimes we were asked, "And what did you have for breakfast?" and the kids would raise their hand and say, "We had toast and we had eggs," and how do we say, "I had tea and rice and some ochazuke with tsukemono"? [Laughs]

TI: But then you mentioned at Atkinson there were a lot of Japanese.

KO: That's right.

TI: So that wouldn't be that uncommon then?

KO: No, no, it wouldn't.

TI: And so you would, yeah, have your breakfast and you would walk a mile from Atkinson.

KO: Yeah, and then we'd go...

TI: To the Buddhist...

KO: To the Japanese, which was on Fifth Avenue. So we'd walk the six blocks from Atkinson to the Japanese language school.

TI: And how long would you have to be at the Japanese language school?

KO: That'd be four to six o'clock. And then walk home.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.