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LG: Before we move on to your college experience, is there anything else about elementary school, high school, growing up here that you wanted to share?

DM: You know, during my era it was segregation. So we never really did anything like the basketball team. There were quite a few of us of Japanese descent on the team, but we never socialized. Some of them did. Some of the girls would invite the basketball team over to their house and they would go. But I think I had an inferiority complex back then and I never felt like I fit in. But my sister-in-law, who was on a team with me, she would go. And you know, she never felt inferior. But when I had my bout with depression, I could see why. With my personality, I was a prime target for depression because of this inferiority complex that I had my whole life. I just never felt like I fit in. So because of that, I was fortunate that I grew up in a place like this where I wasn't exposed to being the only Japanese in another world. So I grew up relatively normal then. My first cultural shock was when I went away to college.

LG: [Inaudible]

DM: Yes. It was a combination. I went to a college, Upsala College. They had a nursing program combined with Mountainside Hospital School of Nursing. So I went for four years and got my B.S. And that's another thing. I had to fight to go to college. I went all through high school, and like I say, I wasn't crazy about school, but I did okay. And I did well enough. I didn't get all As, wasn't a valedictorian, but I did make the honor society. So I wasn't a total loss. But I took the scientific course knowing I wanted to go to college. And when I was entering my senior year and I was talking about, with my parents, about going to college, they had no inkling that I wanted to go to college. My mother told me, "Be a secretary like your sister." Took no typing, took no shorthand, took biology, took chemistry, took physics, took algebra. I'm going to be a secretary? I don't think so. So I said I want to go to college. So fortunately, I had a good guidance counselor who showed me this program, which was not university standards. It was a college that was associated with the nursing school, so it was relatively cheap and I was able to get into that program. And so the guidance counselor said, "You can fill out these forms to get aid," and my father said no. He said, "No one has to know how much I make. No one is going to be privileged with that information," because he was proud, he had his pride. So they paid for my whole education. But, begrudgingly, because they were saving their money for number one son to go to college. So he went to Ursinus, and there was no talk about struggling to put him through college. He went to college.

LG: Do you have an significant college experiences?

DM: Well, you know, fortunately, I was in the nursing program, so the nurses stuck together. So I wasn't thrown into the entire population of the college, because we lived in a house, actually, broken up into apartments, and we lived with roommates as a group of nursing students. So we were sort of like isolated, so I had only this group to contend with. But in college, I was invited to join a sorority, which I did, which was the biggest mistake of my life, because it cost me so much money that I didn't have, and I discouraged my daughters and my granddaughters from joining sororities. [Laughs] Maybe that wasn't nice, but I did. And I didn't feel like I fit in the sorority at all. So it was maybe an ego trip that I was invited, who knows? Once I went over to the nursing home, I had nothing to do with the college, so that went my sorority days. So once I went over to the nursing home, then I was with my group of students who were going to get their degree, and we joined a group of students who were just getting their RN. So we were going to get our degree, but these students were going to just become RNs, and there was animosity between the two groups. Because they felt that we felt better than they were, but they were by far the better nurses. Because they were in that program for three complete years, we were in it only for two and a half. So they were excellent nurses, there was no difference, there was no difference. And so many of them went on to get their degrees in nursing. But the reason why I wanted to get my degree was greater flexibility. So that's why I insisted, and that's how I begrudgingly was afforded a college education, but it wasn't easy. And I knew I had to finish; there was no quitting.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2023 JACL Philadelphia. All Rights Reserved.