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LT: So even though you didn't like school when you were a student in Portland, you went on to college and you pursued education.

TT: And a lot of it was, you know, because I said no one should have to hate something for sixteen years and have to go. And I really knew that school could be different. Because I always like to learn, I always read and things, and studied, I just didn't like school, just seemed so negative. So, yes, that was the main thing that actually encouraged me to go back. And it was interesting, because from the first time we went, I went into a classroom, as sophomores that were in the college of education, they put you right in with kids immediately. And it was very, very natural for me. I truly enjoyed it, and for some reason I get along very well with bad boys. And so my career took me into Glenhaven where the Asian gang kids were, and then, of course, into Whitcomb middle school where a lot of the black gang kids were, and then into North Portland where the same kind of problems seemed to happen. But it just was the easiest thirty years of work, because it was something I truly enjoyed. And I loved hanging out with the kids, you know. To go every day to play with a bunch of kids, and to share stuff with 'em and say, "Gee, if you want to learn this stuff, I'm really happy to teach you," and they were eager. And I was always impressed that these kids come with such an open mind and want to learn. And even the, when I was with the gang boys, they know that they have to know something. And so it was always a very positive thing. In all the years I worked, I can't remember an unhappy day for me. I can remember some staff that drove me crazy, I can remember some parents and some kids who caused some frustration, but yeah, it was a fabulous, fabulous career. It was like not going to work at all for thirty years. And then they paid me to not work. [Laughs] I mean, how good can that be?

LT: And at college where you followed your dreams to become an educator and share your background and your culture, you also had another awakening, and that was when you made the decision to change your legal name.

TT: Uh-huh, it was really interesting. When I first got to Western Oregon State College, there was a huge group of Hawaiians, and they kept inviting me to join the Hawaiian group. And I kept looking like... because we used to go to Hawaii because I had relatives there, and I kept looking at them, why do they want me in their group? I mean, I don't hang with them, I don't do anything. But then I did start spending a little bit more time with them, because they had all those good little treats that they brought. They brought riceballs from home and stuff, and they knew how to cook all of that stuff. So then I started spending more time, and then the more I started looking into my heritage, I started doing a lot more reading. And I read about the shogun and all this type of thing, and it became obvious to me that I wasn't a white person who could just go on my merry way, but that there was a real culture that I had never studied. And so I started to take some Japanese language classes, and I did do, tried a little calligraphy, which I was not so hot in that.

But I started to nose around into the Japanese community, and so that is when, yes, actually it was after I went to Salem Public Schools and started working that I decided that I wanted to change my name, and then I needed to pursue, so that is when I really started looking at my Japanese heritage. And a friend of mine, Mako Hayashi Mayfield started a group called Matsukai, and there was only about three people in the group in Salem, because there's only about three Japanese people, I think, in Salem. And I started to go to her meetings and it was fascinating to me because I didn't realize about what mizuhiki, you know, with the cording, or bunka, the embroidery art, I just became fascinated. And Mako collects everything, so she buys things in thrift stores that are Japanese, she had kokeshi dolls and stuff. And I had 'em, I just didn't know what they were.

So I started a whole different search, I guess, and I started to seek out Japanese people. And luckily I ran into Alice Yoshikai, who was a principal down in Salem and eventually a school was named after her. And at the time, she was still a teacher, and she kind of took me under her wing because I think I was the second Japanese person in Salem, and we would hang out. And she was a wonderful mentor for me. She was very Americanized, she dressed like she came out of Vogue all the time, but we talked more Japanese stuff. And she was a wonderful cook, and I started to see things. So when I started to come home, I'd ask my mother, and I didn't realize she could cook like that, too. And then things started changing when we had our family stuff, we started doing more of that. So all of us seemed to kind of grow at the same time, and we came maybe more into our own. And some of my cousins, the Okawa kids, went on to college and they took Japanese language. And so it was like we all had a new awakening.

LT: How did your first trip to Japan contribute to that?

TT: That was hilarious. I went... we had a new minister here at Oregon Buddhist Temple, Reverend Julie, and she was a young gal, and she and I became friends. And she said, "If you do nothing else, you need to at least go to Japan once because that's your heritage." And I have, I don't like to fly, and so it was not something I even wanted to do, but I thought, okay, I'll go one time. And it was so totally comfortable for me, it was like being at Grandma's house. The smells and everything felt like Grandma's house, and the people are so kind to you. And as soon as someone says... of course, I was retired by then, said I was a principal, they invited me into their homes for dinner. I could have stayed with people for weeks. They were just so, I absolutely loved it. Then we got a chance to go to more temples than I'd ever want to see. By the third day of our ten-day trip, I was done with that. But to be able to go to these places and see things that... it was amazing to me, yes. It was a huge awakening, and I started to buy things that were Japanese and get more interested in all of that. And a lot of it was from, most definitely, my first trip. And then being with Reverend Julie and the Buddhist Temple, coming here and meeting people who knew my folks from forever, and people who were my age or a little older who knew my sister and my aunts and uncles. And then they were so open, and they all can cook. And so I started to learn cooking things, and so Sahomi Tachibana had returned from New York, a folk dance classical teacher, and she came to Portland. And so my love for dancing, right away, I started taking from her. She knows everything about Japanese culture, and she stays in touch with all that. So we would talk about the houses where people would go and live and do nothing but dance, and she actually went as like a sixth grader and lived in Japan, and she has family that's in kabuki and who do the raku pottery and things. So she gave me a lot of encouragement into more of the culture. And then coming to this temple, you meet a lot of Japanese nationals, and they bring with them that culture. And so I've continued, so it was... oh, it was, whether it was Reverend Julie or that, coming to the Buddhist Temple or the trip, yeah, it all seems to come at one time, and I just was ready for it.

LT: So it was almost as if there was a phase one in Linda Takeuchi's life, and then phase two, Tomiko Takeuchi.

TT: Tomiko. It is. Phoenix. [Laughs]

LT: Which is very much inculcated with Japanese culture.

TT: Yes, yeah.

LT: And so in your profession, were there other ways that your awareness, the metamorphosis in terms of your Japanese American background, did that have an influence in your profession?

TT: Not as much. I'm thinking, because I went from basic classroom teaching, and then I went into a lot of resource work. I did a lot with special education and then did resource where I actually was in charge of a building to help people learn how to teach reading better, that type of thing, and set up workshops and worked with tagging that. Then got up to Portland where then I got really into the gang schools and more of the behavior component part of it. But the influence of my being Tomiko versus Linda Ann, I know shows in my dress, obviously, and in the way, when I go in and talk to kids, I did talk to them a lot about the internment. I always would read stories or have friends come in who were Japanese, and shared that. I made sure that Sahomi came for Arts in the Schools, and she would always come and do part of that. And then I made sure there was other ethnicities, too, but yeah, so I think that it did carry over. Maybe not as great with the direction I went, but the pride in it, and then outside I kept studying. My Japanese is still horrid, you know, but yeah. So the impact was huge, but you're right, it's like it was almost two phases.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright &copy; 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.