She graduated from high school in Jerome and was the class valedictorian and gave a speech. And how this showed up was not my mom telling this story but when I was doing research for this paper I had I came across her valedictory speech from a posting in the University of Arkansas archives and they had her speech– but there was tear across the bottom that basically wiped out two sentences. So anyway I had a copy of this and I go to dinner with my mother every week, every Sunday, and so I produced this for her. “Mom, here’s your speech.” And she was shocked it was even there. It was full of patriotism, it was an incredible speech. So I asked her, “Do you remember what these two missing lines were?” And she laughs at me and goes “Are you kidding?” She doesn’t remember it. At the end of dinner she tells me “I might be able to get something that will help.” Next week we go to dinner, no mention of anything, I drop her off at her house she says “Here, I did find something. You can have this.” And she handed me the 3x5 notecards, original, that she wrote from.
Date: April 25, 2018
Location: California, US
Interviewer: John Esaki
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
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