Oral History Program Linda Oda Interviewed by Dr. Shannon Butler 19-22 August 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Linda Oda Interviewed by Dr. Shannon Butler 19-22 August 2019 Copyright © 2022 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Beyond Suffrage Project was initiated to examine the impact women have had on northern Utah. Weber State University explored and documented women past and present who have influenced the history of the community, the development of education, and are bringing the area forward for the next generation. The project looked at how the 19th Amendment gave women a voice and representation, and was the catalyst for the way women became involved in the progress of the local area. The project examines the 50 years (1870-1920) before the amendment, the decades to follow and how women are making history today. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Oda, Linda, an oral history by Dr. Shannon Butler, 19-22 August 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Linda Oda Circa 1964 Linda Oda Circa 2004 Linda Oda 22 August 2019 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Dr. Linda Oda, conducted on August 19 and 22, 2019 by Dr. Shannon Butler and Kandice Harris. Linda discusses growing up in Ogden; attending and graduating from Weber State College in 1967; her career in elementary education, secondary education, higher education, and working for the state of Utah; her passion and work in equity and diversity; and the impact of the 19th Amendment. Michael Thompson, the video technician, is also present during this interview. KH: Today is August 19, 2019; it is 10:30 a.m. We are in the Stewart Library and Dr. Shannon Butler is interviewing Dr. Linda Oda. Michael Thompson and Kandice Harris are present. SB: Let’s start with giving us a little bit about your life story. Start with when you were born and talk a little bit about your early childhood. LO: Okay, well June 3, 1944 is my birthdate and I was born in Brigham City in the, I think it’s the Hoover Hospital. In actuality, we lived in Perry, Utah; that’s close to Brigham City, Utah. Actually, my parents were relocated from Los Angeles to Utah. And there’s an interesting story about how they got here. [With Executive Order] 9066, President Roosevelt had declared that he was moving all of the Japanese Americans from the western states to ten relocation camps. That was not widely known what was going to happen to the Japanese and Japanese Americans. My parents had heard that they were going to do something. So my parents decided that my Uncle Sugino and my father, who is Kay Kimatsomino, and my mother is Hatsue Imouye. Anyway, they made the 2 decision. My father had to actually leave my mother in Los Angeles. They actually owned a five-story apartment house. So he and my Uncle Sugino actually ventured out to Idaho to start off to try to find work. And that was what the word was through the Japanese American grapevine, that there were possibilities and people that were amenable to hiring Japanese and Japanese Americans—farming and so on and so forth. So, they went to Idaho first and didn’t find anything. Then they came to Utah and were doing some exploratory and there was somewhat of a very small Japanese community in the area. They were trying to scope out what was the possibility. Interestingly enough, they went to a grocery store; it was Takahashi’s Grocery Store, which was located on Lincoln between 25th and 24th street. It was a little Japanese store that had amazing artifacts of Japanese things. I mean, I remember as a child going in there and finding little dolls, artifacts, and teacups and so on there; it was all Japanese goods. Mr. Takahashi told my Uncle Sugino, not to go back to Los Angeles because they were looking for him. Now if you knew that time, there was a lot of paranoia. The FBI had been rounding up all of the leaders; my Uncle Sugino was actually a leader of the Japanese school. You think, “Well education, that’s not too much of a threat.” But, he was there and then he was also an official at the Buddhist church there in Los Angeles. So, they decided he was a threat. They were looking for him and so Mr. Takahashi said, “Don’t go back because they’re looking for you.” So, Mr. Sugino, my uncle, told my dad to go back and load everybody up and they had one car here. And then they loaded up two cars in Los Angeles and that was two 3 families. The Suginos, which was made up of mother and four children, two boys and two girls, and then, of course, Mr. Sugino stayed in Utah. My mother made sure that my older brother and my sister were loaded up and they came. They could only load up what they had. I mean, obviously, they had a lot of commodities, a lot of kitchen whatever, bedding whatever; they couldn’t take any of it. They brought some, but not very much. You have to think, two cars, two families trying to get here to Utah with whatever they had. And so in two cars, they loaded up and came to Utah. I wasn’t born at that point. This was in 1942; it was right after when Pearl Harbor was bombed. This hysteria was occurring, and so we ended up at the Honeyville church. That building still stands in Honeyville. There were seven families there; all seven families, including our two families, stayed there temporarily while we were looking for work. There’s a real interesting story about some of the locals who were not happy with us being there. Some young kids came by and they threatened the families. I guess they did it continuously because it was really bothering them. The Japanese American kids—teenage kids—they were ready for them the next time they came. And so when they came and were harassing everybody, they surrounded them and said, “Okay, come and fight us.” And let me tell you, those kids, those Japanese kids were trained in Judo, so they beat the heck out of them. They never came back; that’s a story that happens over and over to families that were here. Well, we’re here, but a lot of that happened on the coast. You’re talking about California, Washington, and Oregon. I mean, it happened all over the place and the Japanese Americans were harassed. People say, “Oh 4 you were better off not going to the relocation camps because you know, you had freedom.” Well I don’t know about that freedom simply because how do you translate freedom when you’re harassed, you’re told that you’re un-American, and you’re doing all kinds of different things. Of course, the discovery after history has gone by, they’re saying that there was not one incident of spying or infiltration or any kind of abuse by the Japanese Americans. As a matter of fact, most of the Japanese Americans that went to the relocation camps really made a determination that they were there for a reason. Interestingly enough, I heard an expert on relocation and she said, “The reason why most of the Japanese Americans didn’t retaliate…” They were in the camps and they did what they could to make the best of the camps. When they were in the relocation camps, you hardly heard of any dissidence; maybe a few incidents. But, what this expert said is the reason why she thinks that happened is because it’s like a victim of rape. A victim of rape thinks that it was their fault somehow. So they decided that maybe it was our fault somewhat. We have a few words: • ‘gaman’ means tolerate it; just get through this. • ‘shikata ga nai’ means that it’s inevitable; can’t help it. • ‘shinbo’ means be patient because this is going to be over one of these days. ‘Yasashii’ actually is a real prominent word in Japanese because yasashii means kind and gentle, and that had to be maintained. We were taught as young children to be kind and gentle. Also there’s a philosophy called, 5 okagesamade, and that philosophy says that everything good that happens in your life is because of somebody else. And this happened in the church all of the time when I’d go to church. Everybody would say, “Oh, Happy New Year.” And the other person would say, “Okagesamade,” which means, because of you, I’m going to have a good new year. If I win at Wendover, okagesamade, I won because of you. Everything, every good luck, every good fortune always comes from the other person. Now, if you think about that, if you had that philosophy in your family and the philosophy within your community, obviously you feel you’re dependent on the other person. And, if you’re dependent on the other person, what do you do? You treat that other person kindly. So that was a philosophy that many of the Japanese people always said to me. There’s another word, ‘bachi ga ataru,’ and it means that if you throw sand at me, the sand will come back to you; the misfortune goes back to you. So if you have good karma and you throw something at me, then you’re going to have bad karma. I keep thinking, if politicians felt that way, how politics would change. If I believe that my good fortune is always based on somebody else, and obviously, you would always think about the other person. Think about our politics, if we had that kind of philosophy, the difference that would make. Anyway, we ended up at Perry, Utah and they found work at the cannery. All of the farmers had commodities; they were growing tomatoes and sugar beets. We here in Utah are famous for our sugar beets. So they would bring their farm goods and they would be canned there. There was a gentleman, 6 and I wish I could remember his name because we need to give credit for him, that hired a lot of Japanese Americans and we survived there. As a matter of fact, interestingly enough, my brother and my uncle actually went back to Perry, Utah and my father actually built with his own hands a cinder block house. It’s still there; somebody says it’s still there. And that’s where we existed. My dad was an entrepreneur because he established a little fish market in that little cinder box place. As Japanese Americans we have Sashimi all of the time, fresh fish. But not in this area. My mother got in the car, went all of the way to Salt Lake, went to the fish market, picked up the fish, brought it back, and then sold it to the Japanese around there. So, he was quite an entrepreneur. As a matter of fact, he actually has a business degree, which is unheard of because of the fact that he was a Japanese American. He came here at a very young age; 15, 16 something like that. And so you kind of go, “How did he get a business degree?” Well, he did; he got a business degree. SB: Your parents came directly from Japan. Are you considered first generation, second generation? LO: Oh good question. I’m considered a Sansei, which is third generation. I have an interesting story about that because my father actually was born in America. They sent him back to Japan to be educated because he is the first son of the first son of the first son. Only the first son can own property. They felt like he had to be educated in Japan. So he went back, and he’s known as what they 7 call a Kibei. A kibei is someone that was born in America but went back to Japan and was educated. He was born in Hawaii and that was a property of the United States at the time. So he really was a citizen and didn’t have to go through all of those throws. But the fact is that he was educated in Japan. Interestingly enough, our background is so immersed in childcare and child upbringing. I remember a professor from here, from Weber State University, telling me, “You’re more Japanese than I am.” She’s right directly from Japan. She was a Japanese instructor. I said, “How do you figure?” She says, “Because you have been raised as a traditional child.” When we came to the dinner table, we had to wait for my brother because he was the oldest son. We also had to draw his bath because he’s the oldest son. This was the kind of sister we had to be; very obedient and subservient to my big brother. He tells our three sisters to go out and wash/ wax his car; brand new Pontiac. He was the only one that was allotted those things because he was the oldest son. And in Japanese tradition, the oldest son is greatly revered. As a matter of fact, more greatly revered than the mother, which is an interesting thing. If you go to Harry Kitano’s book (he’s an anthropologist) he’ll tell you about these real interesting things. He has since passed away, but I have his books and that’s one of the things he said is, “Even over the mother, he has a status.” My brother, Norman Kogi, told us we had to go out there and wash/ wax the car. So we went out there, and we washed it great. But I don’t know all about turtle wax. Turtle Wax is wax on, wax off, like in “The Karate Kid.” 8 So we went there and waxed on, waxed on, waxed on, and by that time, it was all dry and to try to get it off, it was impossible. His black car looked gray. He was so mad at us. Obviously he wouldn’t have ever asked us again, but it was like torture. Because we were out there scraping away, the three sisters trying to get it off and we could not get it off. He was a pretty good brother actually, when I think back about it. I always used to have to iron his shirts. I don’t know if you know Gant Shirts, but they have this pleat in the back and the pleat has to be absolutely straight when you iron it. Guess whose task that was; mine. So my mom used to laugh and she’d say—well she didn’t laugh, she said, “You’re the most obedient child because even though you had to do that, your tears would water the pleats to iron it.” We did all of that. We ended up in Ogden, Utah. Like I said, my father was an entrepreneur, so he established a grocery store. If you go down to 25th street and you know that needlepoint place right next to Rooster’s, that’s our first store [241 25th Street]. SB: You lived above the store. LO: No, this one we lived in the back, because there was no upstairs. I remember going over there to the knit shop and I told them our history there. And she let me go downstairs. That was really interesting to live there because there was a coal bin where you could open from the streets and then people would load up the coal and that’s what you used to heat up your house. As a matter of fact, we never used coal. My father built downstairs a galvanized steel Japanese tub. I don’t know if you know about those, but it has a little float. If you know something about Japanese you don’t wash in the bathtubs; you wash on the 9 outside and then you go into the tub. That little float immerses you gradually because it’s hotter than heck. You can’t even stand in it hardly until you get in there. So you go down, you soak, and then you get out of there. My dad actually built a little extra room in the basement. They had a Boy Scout troop--a Japanese American boy scouts troop. They used to come and establish a Halloween spook alley down there. And they would get these ugly masks like this pumpkin mask and it would scare the heck out of us. The tunnels, people always ask about the tunnels. There are tunnels there. As a matter of fact, my brother was much more exploratory than us. The boy scouts went through all of the tunnels. There’s actually a tunnel in Star Noodle that’ll take you from that point to the end of the block. The purpose for the tunnel was that they would have speakeasies, gambling, and stuff. I remember in our basement, we had one. We had gambling tables, craps tables, card tables, and poker tables downstairs. I think to myself, “Gee, I wish I would have saved that because their worth a lot of money.” Anyway, there was a light there and if it flashed red, then they would go out through the back door or back tunnel and then they’d be out in the alleyway; they would escape. Anyway, there are tunnels. So we lived in the back and just to give you some idea, it was a dangerous place to be. Our second store is where Pig in a Jelly Jar is now, and right next to it, there is an upstairs; that’s where we lived. There were times when, apparently, they had a brothel there. So, there were times when men would pound on the door, thinking it’s a brothel. It was scary. 10 SB: They used to have a brothel before you moved in? LO: Oh yeah. SB: Upstairs. LO: Upstairs. And they had red light… SB: Red light district. LO: And the whole business. If you look at the Pig in a Jelly Jar, you’ll see that upstairs, there’s a window there and that’s where my brother stayed. We had maybe about seven rooms and they were all individual rooms. And each of those rooms had a gas oven or gas stove. SB: A heater. LO: It wasn’t a heater; you actually cooked on it. That’s how we heated our house, and I would think that it was dangerous because it was all gas. So anyway, all of us had our own little individual gas stoves and then my father eventually turned that into a hallway stove. I remember getting ready for school and running to the kitchen, turning on the oven and putting my clothes on there before I put them on. It heated it up and then I put my clothes on really fast, because it got awfully cold. We could see out of my brother’s window, which was in the front. We could see drunks, the prostitutes doing their…whatever. As a matter of fact, they had cribs in back of 25th street. [Showing with hands] back of here, which this is Lincoln and Grant, back here they had what they called, “Cribs.” That’s where the prostitutes did their work. We could 11 actually see beyond that window; we would hear gunshots, people getting beat up, knifing, and then the next morning we’d say, “Oh somebody was murdered or shot or whatever.” So we lived around that. Interestingly enough, the Japanese community ended up there because that was the only place that we were “allowed” to live. We lived amongst the Chinese, African Americans, and Hispanics; we were all together. We just existed. The only thing about the Japanese American community is we were very close. They were very protective of all of the kids. So we could not move. SB: How many families were there? LO: Oh, there had to be maybe 15 families at one time. They had restaurants; Mr. Aukotami had an appliance store where we’d get all of our appliances, electronics, and toasters. SB: So you were insulated. LO: Yeah. SB: And the way that you bought your groceries, your appliances, and everything were from other Japanese families? LO: Right and as a matter of fact, if you remember me talking about Mr. Takahashi, he still had that store. Right next to that is where we established our Buddhist church. It’s funny because if you would have looked at the pictures there, it looks like it has a swastika on the top, but it isn’t. If you study the swastika in the Buddhist symbol, it’s actually the opposite. If the tines are going one way then 12 it’s opposite. So that was the Buddhist church. I bet you people thought, “Well they’re Nazi’s, you know.” We weren’t. Anyway, we had all of our funerals and all of our weddings and we even went to Saturday school for Japanese school. I went there 13 years and I can sing, “Moshi, Moshi, Kame San.” That’s the turtle and the hare. I can’t remember a whole lot of things. But it’s really funny though, I do remember some of the things. It’s just that it was subliminal. But anyway, we used to go every Saturday. For 13 years I went to Saturday school and so did all of my family. In the church, there was one fellow, Mr. Komatsu, that would bring Japanese movies; like ’47 and all of that other stuff. We got to see all of these things; this man would bring this huge projector and he’d project it on whatever, and we got to see it. Some of it was really scary. Anyway, that was our church. We had a reverend. If you go to our present church, which is on 155 North, close to North Ogden in Harrisville, you’ll see that the pictures are all lined up from the beginning of our church to what it is now. Anyway, we’ve really had an interesting history in Ogden, Utah. There were opium dens. I remember on Halloween sometimes, some of us mischievous kids, got the soap, the Ivory soap, and soap up their things; they just chased us away. But we’d kind of peak in their windows and sure enough there are old guys just lying down and smoke all over; it was opium dens. I could tell you some stories about the people there because there was a Japanese American woman, and she made it into the detective magazine, which was really popular in those days. They named her the Jezebel of 25th street; she 13 was a prostitute. She actually was; I could tell you another story but I’m not going to tell you that. Anyway, there were some amazing good people. The Nakashima’s and Mary had a little grocery store. It was called Yuke’s Café. They were amazing and you can look at the archives and find Mary and Yuke. Mary had this big old mirror and this bar like thing. She’d feed people; homeless people, drunks, derelicts, and so on. They would come in and bring in their paycheck; maybe they’d get paid every month or something like that and bring in their paycheck. Mary actually translated that into a little food card; it’s a punch card. I remember where, on her mirror, she had all of these punch cards lined up because when they didn’t have any money. They’d come in and Mary would feed them. SB: Into the grocery store? LO: In the grocery store, and at that point in time we were at 227 25th street. The time before was 241 25th street. In those days, we had a meat counter where all of the lunchmeats were all lined up. It’s not packaged, which I think we better go back to because of the plastic waste that we have. Anyway, when people would come in and they were derelict and they didn’t have any money, she would take all of the dry lunchmeats, stick it in a butcher bag and give it to them. Maybe give them a few crackers or a few breads or whatever she could give them and then they’d leave. There was this one particular guy, that I’ll never forget. We coined his name as Leo the Lion. He would come in and he’d be a boisterous guy and he was drunker than a skunk, of course. And he’d come in and say, “Mrs. Kay, Mrs. 14 Kay”—they used to call her Mrs. Kay because we had “Kay’s Market.” “Mrs. Kay, Mrs. Kay, the police are looking for me.” So she’d hide him in the back. Then the police would come and then they’d be gone and she’d say, “Okay, Leo, you can come out now.” We found out that actually he was a professional. We think that he was a brain surgeon at one time, but got into alcohol and it just totally wiped him out. We don’t know about his family. SB: Was he Japanese American? LO: No, he was Caucasian. There were a lot of those kinds of things. There were a lot of Hispanic people that would come in. They would borrow from us; they would buy groceries and we’d have this record keeping and so on and so forth. We’d have a lot of African Americans come in, and Native Americans. We would have specialty foods for them like with the Native American we would get mutton. For the Hispanics we would get chorizo, pig stomach. Several times, this one fellow always ordered the pig head. One time, I walked into our big huge walk in icebox, and there’s a big ole pig head looking at me. I screamed bloody murder. And so this guy, he was a Mexican guy, he said he makes tamales out of everything. He takes the brains, the skin, and everything and makes tamales. And they were the best tamales in the world, let me tell you. Anyway, we used to get chicharrones for the Hispanics. For the African Americans, we’d get pig stomach and certain greens that they liked. We also had Japanese food. We had canned abalone; oh boy, I wish we had that 15 now. I don’t know if you know about abalone, but you can’t even get it anymore. They’re probably $300 for a pound; you’re talking big money. SB: For abalone? LO: Oh yeah. We used to have all of these commodities and also macaroni and cheese, which was affordable; it was ten cents/ five cents. The homeless would come in and buy just that, macaroni and cheese. SB: So did you have prepared foods for that then? LO: No. SB: They’d just buy it in a box? LO: No prepared foods; they had to prepare it. But, and Shannon knows this, my father was actually murdered. He was murdered in a robbery. And it was in the store. There was no more than $100. He actually had $100 every day and brought it down for change. I’ll never forget that morning; it was November and there was snow on the ground. SB: How old were you? LO: I was in high school. I walked down the stairs, saw dad, waved at him, and then left. And for some reason, I just remember my footsteps on the snow. SB: You left for school? LO: I left for school. And we would have to either walk to school or catch a bus; at that point in time, we were catching buses. I remember doing that and then my sister called the school and said, “You need to get Linda in the office. I need to 16 talk to her.” I’m one of those kids that never knows what the office is because I was always this obedient, subservient kid. I’m thinking, “Why are they calling me?” So I went to the office and my sister had me catch a cab, “I’m sending a cab right now;” which is really unusual for us. And, “You’ve got to come home.” And I said, “Well what’s happening?” She said, “Dad has… Dad’s in the hospital.” I said, “Okay,” nothing else, but jumped in the cab. When I got home, it was awful obvious. The last time I saw my dad was that morning. Then we all gathered, and the reverend was with us and took us to the hospital. All I can remember is he was lying in state at that point in time; he had passed away. And they had wrappings on his head because he was bludgeoned. SB: He was bludgeoned; he wasn’t shot? LO: Oh yeah, he was bludgeoned. Interestingly enough, he was bludgeoned with mayonnaise jars. They found all of these mayonnaise shards with all of this blood on them. One of the customers that came in, Mrs.—I can’t remember her name. Anyway, she found him and he had a bloodied head so they called the police and everything. Another kind of side story is that the police actually wiped up all of the evidence. So, we don’t know who killed him or whatever, and we may really never know, actually. There is a theory though. One of the neighbors across the street said that they suspected this one fellow that actually did the same thing to someone in Bountiful and stole money; they suspect it was him. The chief of police actually talked to Dave Loki, who owned the barbershop, and he said that he suspected it was him. They did put him in prison for the one in Bountiful, but never caught 17 him for my dad. That was just a theory. But Dave Loki said that he feared for our family because that guy maintained good behavior in the prison and they allowed him to come and be a delivery man. He actually was on 25th street while I was operating the store. I actually operated the store most of the time. My mom became incapacitated and paralyzed. I was a schoolteacher at the time. SB: Let’s go back for a minute. LO: Okay. SB: You were raised in the store, and as a child grew up in the store, hen when your father passed away, you became a manager of the store? LO: Yeah, my mom, after my dad passed away, kept the store open as long as she could. And I can’t relate time wise, but she became incapacitated; she had a stroke. I took over and this is when I went to high school. I finished high school, went to the university here, and got my degree in teacher education. Then my mother, at this point in time, was not capable of having the store. I got a job at Grant Elementary School, which is a neighboring school. SB: As a teacher? LO: As a teacher; I was a second grade teacher and I had to walk maybe five blocks from there to the store. My routine was, in the morning I’d wake up and let the fresh food people come in. The people who had vegetables and things like that, I let them in and replenished whatever was ordered. Then the milk people would come in and replenish the milk. I’d then close the store, go to Grant School, and teach. Then Mr. Martin—I’ll never forget Mr. Paul Martin, he was my principal 18 and he allowed me to leave when the children left. So as the children were leaving, I left, came back to the store, and opened the store temporarily. Then at six o’clock, I went to the hospital and fed my mom who was incapacitated, came back to the store, and opened up until nine o’clock. SB: What about your siblings? LO: My younger sister was around. She was going to the university. My older sister was married and had two children. My brother had moved to California because he had earned a degree at the Artsen, which is a prestigious art center. He’s my claim to fame because he became someone who worked at General Motors as well as Disney. He actually had a lot to do with Epcot. He was gone, so I was it. SB: Being raised on 25th street, were you encouraged to pursue an education? LO: I was not. SB: You were not encouraged to pursue an education. LO: My mom told me towards the end of high school that, “No, I don’t want you to go to college because there’s no future. What will happen, you’ll get married and you’ll leave the family and then, you know, you’re gone.” And I said, “That’s not the case with me.” She wouldn’t believe me, but I went ahead and went. I used to work for Eller Samuels and then it turned into RMAX. So I had an extra job as well as working in the store. I basically paid for my own tuition. I would catch a bus on Washington Boulevard and go up to Weber State every day. When I think about the program that I’m doing now—Peer Mentor program, I keep telling those kids that they’re fortunate; the fact that they can be on campus and do 19 some different things with peer mentoring. I couldn’t, I went to school, went directly home, and worked. I don’t know anything about what was happening on the social end of it. SB: Did you have any particular women that you looked up to when you were growing up? I mean you had your mom and that model, but… LO: Yeah, definitely. To be honest with you, there wasn’t. Looking at Weber State, very honestly, it was more of a white man institution. All of the leaders were all white men and we dealt with it. I was a teacher and then I left and became a reading specialist for Granite, Salt Lake—actually Weber County School District. I mean I was all over the place. I even went to the Native American schools. We travelled a lot because I was a reading specialist. I became a reading specialist and after that I actually came back to Ogden and became a principal. SB: So what degrees do you hold? LO: I have a doctorate degree from Brigham Young University. I have a master’s degree from Utah State University, I have a bachelor of science degree from Weber State. KH: And all of them were in education? LO: Actually, Weber State was Elementary Education; my minors were Child Development and English. Utah State University was Elementary Education, and at Brigham Young University, it was Curriculum & Instruction and Educational Leadership. 20 SB: You were already hired at Weber when you started your doctorate though, isn’t that correct? LO: No, I finished my doctorate while I was in Ogden School District. Superintendent William Garner was very supportive of me. He was the superintendent so he actually allowed me to go back to school. I would spend the summers going back to school and I actually had an eleven-month contract. So I had to relinquish one month of my vacation, but the rest of it I worked at Brigham Young University. It was really interesting because William Garner and two of his leaders came to meet with me while I was at Brigham Young University. The reason why they wanted to meet with me is that they wanted for me to be a principal. I’ll never forget that. They gave me the keys to the principal’s office, and I’m opening the door and thinking, “What did I get myself into.” SB: At what school were you a principal? LO: Taylor Elementary; it turned into Taylor Canyon. It’s above Harrison around 20th street; I became the principal there. After my principal stint, there was a curriculum position that was open; my area is reading and language arts. I jumped in and applied for it. I’ll never forget, Brent Cherry, who was a board member, called me up and he said, “You know, your name is right here and they want to appoint you as the curriculum person, but I kind of don’t want you to do this.” I kind of settled down Taylor Elementary because they were really in turmoil. Teachers would come to me, cry, and tell me how difficult it has been for them to be a teacher and so on and so forth. I settled that all down. By the time I left, people were really settled; parents were settled. I’ll never forget that when I 21 ended up over there, parents would just bombard me. We’d have meeting after meeting after meeting and they would cry. I’d have to say, “Okay, this is what we’re going to do.” I really settled that down. Brent Cherrington said, “Actually, I don’t want you to leave because you’ve been a positive force.” And I said, “Well, those positions don’t open. You’ll find that when you become an administrator on the administration in Ogden City or any school district, it’s hard to get in because these people stay forever. As a matter of fact, there were two gentleman and I dearly loved them; Norm Skanky, who has since passed away and also Dr. Thompson. Norm Skanky was the art director and he was over all of elementary education. Dr. Thompson was the music person. And Mill Kendrick, who was my principal at Dee School—I finally went to Dee School after Grant. Dee School was a very difficult school, as you probably know, because they have a history. Anyway, so Mill Kendrick was my principal and then he became assistant superintendent. So he was my boss. He said to me, “Well Linda, we are going to appoint you to be the fine arts director.” I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me. I don’t know how to sing, I don’t know how to dance, I don’t know how to do drama, I don’t do an instrument, I don’t do anything.” He says, “I’m not appointing you as the fine arts person, you are an administrator and that’s what you are going to do.” I’ll never forget my first meeting with the music and the art and dance and whatever. SB: You were now their bosses. LO: Oh yeah, and they were ready to kill me. They were going to tar and feather me. I sat there and just listened to them and listened to them; “We really liked 22 Skanky, we really liked…” “I understand that.” But they both were retiring. I said, “Look, I haven’t been appointed to be the expert. Who is the expert in here? You guys are, not me. And so therefore, what you’re going to do is you are going to get together today and you’re going to make a plan of what’s good for your programs.” And they did that. To this day, there’s a woman by the name of Patricia Wade who is a music teacher. I don’t think she stayed with Ogden School District, but I saw her one day, and she stopped me and she said, “Dr. Oda, Dr. Oda.” And I said, “What?” I couldn’t remember her right away, but she said, “You remember when you became the director? We were all kind of messed up kind of.” And so we had a program and Weber State University, two of your professors came to my office when I was the fine arts director and said, “You know what? We are not getting any of your kids from Ogden School District to be in music or anything like that.” So what’s happening, and I say, “Beats me. I’m just taking over.” So I said, “Okay, let’s work on it.” So we worked on it and we formulated with Pat Wade, this program where with the violin instruments, you know, which is usually fifth grade. We—what they were telling me was that they would be at a school for three weeks and then they’d leave and then the kids wouldn’t remember a thing. And then they’d go to another school and try to fit all of the schools, fifteen elementary schools. SB: Oh they were travelling violin teachers. LO: They were travelling and Pat was hauling all of these instruments every single time. What we decided was that we were going to go 8 weeks; we were not 23 going to cover all of the schools, but eventually we would. After 8 weeks, Pat said that the kids got it; they were learning. As a matter of fact, Pat formulated some music just for these kids. When she’d go back there, they would be excited because they could play and they could actually perform. That was kind of a legacy of what happened. Then the two professors came back and he said, “I don’t know what’s happening.” This is 10 years later. They said, “In a newspaper article…” and I didn’t see the newspaper article but Pat says, “Ten years later…” And then she showed me the article, it says, “We are getting more kids from Ogden School District in our programs.” That was a testimonial right? And then art happened. We did things in the Ogden Mall where we’d have storytelling, we displayed all of the high school arts, and it would be a celebration. Now, the mall loved us because whenever we had storytelling, and we had a child story-tell on a video, we’d have it constantly playing; grandparents, uncles, and aunts came to the mall. Well of course, they are going to spend money. They [the mall] loved us. We’d have an awards night and a festival of the arts, and we would give art awards and things like that. Now, I didn’t start that but I enhanced it. Norm Skanky really started it, but I enhanced it so that we could do these things. I’m still in contact with the art person—, the colleague that I’m talking about is still in the system and she says, “Wow that made a difference.” They carried that on when I left; I left after, I can’t even remember how many years after that. Then I actually came here to Weber. SB: What drew you to Weber? 24 LO: I was here from 1989 to 2003, and I gained my full tenured professorship. Shannon knows that because she and I actually did some professional stuff. The highlight—and there’s one question in there that says, “What was one of the highlights of Weber State?” And that is our…[to Shannon] What did we call it? SB: Hemmingway. LO: What is it? SB: The Hemmingway Program. LO: The Hemmingway Program and we called it Student whatever…? Teacher whatever? I can’t remember what it was. But the Hemmingway Project. The Hemingway gave us money to do this project. We went out to the schools and worked with student teachers, if you remember; we nurtured some excellent leaders. As a matter of, some of those leaders are in your system now that are doing amazing things. Shannon can testify to that because we both were in it. That was the highlight of my Weber State University tenure there because we did something; we made a difference. It was Shannon Butler, Kathleen Herndon, Gary Dohrer, and Jim Young; there were five of us that worked on it. SB: Janice. LO: And Janice Fowsky. Janice had to leave us. There were six of us that did this amazing thing in Davis, in Ogden, in Weber; they couldn’t say enough good about what we did there. That was the highlight of my time at Weber State University and it was because there were some people that had vision. Now I have to say that not everybody there had vision. We almost had to force it 25 sometimes. I’ll never forget we all had to go to battle sometimes trying to convince people that this was the right way to do this. The beauty of it is we did have support from higher up; Paul Thompson was one of them. SB: We called it the on-site program. LO: Yeah, on-site program. SB: Because it wasn’t on campus; site based. LO: Right, it was site based. We actually went to them; they didn’t come to us. We went to them, and we worked with them. It was an amazing program. And Paul Thompson was the president and before him was Brady. KH: Stephen Nadauld. LO: Oh yeah, Stephen Nadauld. So there was Rodney Brady, Stephen Nadauld, and… SB: Oh, it was the provost. LO: Paul Thomas. SB: Who was the provost at the time? KH: Robert Smith. SB: Yes, Bob Smith. LO: Okay, Bob Smith was instrumental. SB: He was; he got it. 26 LO: Yeah, he found funding for us, and Hemmingway was one of them. SB: It was a ten-year program; it lasted ten years. LO: Yeah, it was ten years, and within those ten years, we had nurtured some amazing educators. All of the way from high school down to elementary. It was amazing. I think our emphasis was more high school, wasn’t it? And junior high school. But we made a difference. I remember Ogden School District people saying that we made a difference; and so did Davis. Mary King was one of the teachers. I even remember Stevens…Stevenson; Jeff Stephens, was he involved? SB: He was involved as far as helping us get Weber District schools involved. LO: That was it. He presently is now the superintendent. SB: Superintendent of Weber District. LO: Yeah, Weber District. We really had some good people that were supporting us. But that was the highlight of my time at Weber State. No one can refute me; no one can touch me because I’m retired, and I’m emeritus. Actually, I worked for the governor’s office with Jon Huntsman Jr. So Jon Huntsman Jr. comes back and runs for office, I’m going to vote for him because he was an amazing governor. SB: How long were at Weber? LO: Weber? 14 years. KH: What made you decide to work at Weber State? 27 LO: I’m a real believer of learning all of the aspects of education. And so, it was really important for me to see the other side to that; training teachers actually. I could speak to good teaching; I did it and I felt good about it. Actually, I worked with Dr. Ethna Reed; she’s famous for her program reading. She has a nationwide program. Dr. Ethna Reid actually taught me how to be a reading specialist. To this day, somebody said they saw my video; teaching a sight word; no, a phonic word. And I had hair down to here; they wouldn’t recognize me. But somebody said they saw that. Anyway, Dr. Ethna Reid nurtured that real important thing. I worked for Dr. Ethna Reid in between school, I mean, being with Ogden School District. But that to me wasn’t real education for me. And actually with Dr. Ethna Reid, I would go to lots of districts. As a matter of fact, I supervised a lot of teachers in actually working with them. SB: So this was a natural move to come to Weber as a teacher educator in elementary ed. LO: Right, I actually worked with Dr. Don Sharps, and he’s an amazing leader. I worked with him and finished my master’s under him. The other person that helped nurture that was Dr. Varnell Bench. Dr. Varnell Bench was the director of educational administration. So I can’t remember what it is, ed admin whatever— at Utah State University. I’ll never forget meeting with him because he said, “Okay, let’s look at your program.” He says, “Oh, we’ll count that, we’ll count that.” I ended up taking just a narrow bunch of classes. So, I got through that and he also helped me through my administrative; amazing stuff that he helped me with. 28 Then, I actually became an assistant; the academic Olympiad, he’s the one that nurtured that. I went to Russia with him. I went to the Netherlands with him with a whole cadre of teachers and students. We took students actually to Russia and to the Netherlands and thereafter, somebody took a group to Germany. We did have a three-year program where we actually went to Europe. Anyway, it’s just real interesting. There were a lot of mentors on the way. John Sharse was one of them. Varnell Bench was another one; so many good people. Actually Shannon Butler, whatever she said, I went along with because I knew she was right all of the way through. I mean, all of us would say, “What do you think Shannon?” and Shannon would say, “Well, I think…” She’s very thoughtful, so we figured out we need to follow her direction. But anyway, I had lots of mentors. Interestingly enough, one other person that I need to cite is Dr. David Green. Dr. David Green was an African American Dean of Education. And that was revolutionary because we didn’t have African Americans. We were so lucky to have Dr. Forrest Crawford. But Dr. David Green, he was a good one because he might not have started anything, but he always supported us. SB: Yes, he did. LO: Even when we had these hair brain ideas, he’d kind of go along with it and nurture it. We did all of that kind of stuff. There were some really good mentors on the way to wherever I need to go. I think that’s one of my highlights at Weber State, I think some those people have nurtured. Interestingly, there weren’t enough supportive people at Weber State; to me, they were few and far between who nurtured that kind of thinking. I’m just going to put that on the table. A little 29 bit different thinking, to do some different revolutionary things. I’m hoping that there’s more here because this is family; educators are family. After I went from Ogden School District to Weber State University, and finished out all of my tenure, I then went to Davis School District. SB: Why did you leave Weber? LO: Because one of the administrators, the assistant superintendent at Davis School District said she wanted me to come there. I can’t ever say that, and I can’t tell you her name. But she saw potential in me and said, “We would love to have you in Davis School District.” So, I went to Davis School District, and I ran the teacher quality program, which was worth like $12 million. And actually I was in charge of teacher quality at Ogden School District. It was named differently there, but that had $5-6 million too. I’ll never forget; you have all of that money, what are you doing with it? Well, I was adamant that it make a difference for teachers and for students. I instituted somethings there in Ogden School District that there was criteria. I’ll never forget—I’m one of those crazy organized people; I remember organizing this whole thing. My secretaries would know exactly what everything was. One of the principals called me up and she said, “Look, you have not told me how much I’m allocated in teacher quality.” And I said, “Just a minute.” I got my notebook out and then I told her, “On September such and such, I sent you a letter and this is how much you are getting and this is your criteria.” And I did that at Davis too. I knew where every cent of that $12-$14 million went. It was kind of hilarious because I just knew everything was there. I have a tendency to be 30 that way. Anyway, in the teacher quality program at Ogden, I was adamant that it went to teachers, but for certain criteria. I shouldn’t say this; well I will, but I won’t name the person. There was a high-up administrator that came to me. They said, “I want you to sign this paper so that you can give this coach money so that he can run the summer program.” I said, “Well okay, tell me about it.” It was all for boys; no girls were included in this summer program. I said, “Well then we have to change that.” And he said, “No, we’re not going to change it.” I said, “Well, then I’m not signing it.” And the administrator from the Utah State Office of Education; I wish I could remember his name. I called him up and I said, “Look, I just told so and so that I’m not going to sign it. And if he’s going to get the money, that person has to sign it.” And I told the person, and he was high, high up, I said, “You can fire me. But I won’t sign this because that’s not where the money should be going. So if you can prove to me that you include girls, then okay.” Didn’t sign it; but the higher up, signed it. And so I called up the state person, and I said, “Look, I didn’t sign it. So if we get in trouble…” It was against the principles of Ogden School District, which I wrote. He said, “Well, more power to you Linda. I’ll back you up if we get in the court of law.” I said, “Okay.” I’ll never forget the same administrator, when that teacher quality money was being figured out, there was a lot of dissension with teachers of how it was going to be spent. I actually called the meeting; I said, “All you dissenters show up.” I didn’t say that, but I encouraged everybody to come; the whole district, because I’m going to make a determination of where this money is going. So, I 31 met with them at Ben Lomond High School, in their media center; and there were tons of teachers. What I did, was I called up people that I knew I could count on because they believed in the same thing I did. I called them up and said, “If you can come to the meeting, please come to the meeting.” Those advocates came; I’ll never forget, they were ready to tar and feather me again. I mean, I’m wondering if I ever made it out of there. Anyway, they were so angry at me because they felt like we weren’t using the money for teachers. I explained the program and so on and so forth. I said, “Now, start talking. Everybody start talking.” And these people pop up and say a criticism and they’d even be personal about it. They’d say, “Well Linda you did this.” There were several people that popped up to speak. Then my advocates stood up and said, “I don’t think you’re right. I think Linda is doing this, and this is her intention and so on and so forth.” There were two board members in there as well as a legislator, John Arrington. I think he has since passed away. One of the board members stood up and says, “Look, you teachers, here is the legislator, John Arrington, sitting here and he has to go back and tell the legislature whether or not this money is working for you. So someone say something positive.” All of the sudden, my advocates stood up and said, “Well look, this is what the intention of what the money was to go to. It was supposed to go to teachers, not to administrators, to teachers and that was my whole thing was to get it to teachers.” And then things like making sure that the money goes to programs that are equal; you know are equitable. After that then the state person was in 32 the audience and he says, “Well it’s a wonder you’re not two inches shorter because they bludgeoned you to death.” And I said, “That’s part of the job I guess.” He said, “Look, I back you up 100%. What you’re saying and what you’re doing is the right way and these are the rules. You know the rules left and right, so you go forth and do what you have to do. But you’re not alone.” Well I never heard a peep after that because I took it on. You have to take it on; you can’t just sit and hear the comments and things like that. So I invited everybody, and if everybody wasn’t there, then that’s not my problem. But it settled down big time and I was able to administrate the money. Davis, same situation; I had to be pretty firm about where the money was going to go. But at that point, I knew what I had to do, which made it a lot easier. SB: After you were at Davis District, I understand that you went to the governor’s office. LO: Right, I went to the governor’s office. I was appointed the Director of Asian Affairs. I was there and there were five of us. There was Asian Affairs, Pacific Islander, Native American, Hispanic, and African American. There were five directors and we did as much as we could in the state. Jon Huntsman Jr. had an amazing influence on diversity because of the fact that he believed in it. In fact, I remember when I was the Asian Director, I would have to go to some things that he’d go to. And one time, he went to this one Chinese New Year; there were at least 1,000 Chinese Americans there. They did this amazing program and so on and so forth. They invited him to come up and he spoke in Mandarin Chinese. I think most people know that he went on a… 33 SB: He became an ambassador to China. LO: Oh yeah, but he also did his… KH: LDS mission. LO: LDS mission there; two years or whatever. And he learned Mandarin Chinese. So he got up and he was telling jokes in Chinese. And I’m here to tell you, if you tell a joke in a foreign language, it’s really hard. But he had them rolling on the floor and then he invited his adopted child from China. And she spoke Mandarin Chinese and they went wild because you know, he believed in that. SB: What were some of your responsibilities as Asian Affairs Director? LO: I actually did some interesting things because our charge was to work with agencies—state agencies—to see if they were on target with diversity and equitability, and treating their clients with equitability. I actually went to the labor commission. Interestingly enough, my friend was the director, Sheri Loshki. And so I said, “Sheri, can I come in and find out about your equitable practice.” “You bet.” So she gives me this thick notebook. I went through it with a fine-tooth comb. I even went on their website and took lots of notes; that was all of their policies. Then I said, “I’m ready for your directors.” So all of the directors were around the table and most of them were attorneys. And I said, “I’m here to tell you that you are pretty much on target.” That’s because of Sheri Loshki because she is an equitable specialist. She’s an attorney by herself. And so, she had been in the throes of that. I said, “The reason why is because Sheri is your leader, but I did find somethings.” I went with a fine-tooth 34 comb, they all had their notebooks you know, and said, “Okay, you really need to do this. And someone…” After that, then I told them about their website, and how they could improve it. Then Sheri thanked me and she wrote me a letter. That’s what we should be doing. Not having celebrations, because our groups have celebrations and that’s good. Although, I do have to say that Forrest Crawford actually instituted Martin Luther King Day; that was amazing and we did that every year. Anyway, I was part of that because I helped our African American representative. We did all of that kind of stuff there. So truly, I tried to get into agencies and lots of agencies are not amenable for you to come in and examine their policies. It was really hard, but on occasion I could kind of give them feedback. So I did do that. One of the things that I feel proud about is that the Asian community could come to me. On one occasion, a Chinese immigrant called me up and he said, “I won’t tell you my name, I won’t give you my contact, I won’t tell you anything about me. But, there’s a grocery store, a Chinese grocery store that is abusing the immigrants. He’s holding it over their heads and so they have to work long hours and so on and so forth.” And he was injured on the job and the owner would not allow him to go to a doctor. He could actually have been under workman’s compensation, even though he’s an immigrant; undocumented immigrant, as a matter of fact. I said, “I want you to call the labor commission. They will not ask you if you are undocumented or not.” I did not know that, I had to go find out from the lawyers. I talked to the lawyer and they said, “We won’t ask that question, we will 35 help him.” So I gave him the phone number, he called, and later, the lawyer actually came and talked to me. She said, “We solved that problem. We actually have indicted the owner and tried to help the immigrants there to get up to speed.” And so they helped. I’m real proud of that because most of our immigrants don’t know that. Some of our agencies won’t ask that question. SB: Well plus they don’t know who their advocates are; you were one, obviously, in your position. LO: Exactly. So I was there and then Governor Huntsman left. After he left, then everything was kind of like getting rid of it. SB: Actually, your position was dissolved wasn’t it? And you went to the board of education at that point. LO: Right, but before it was dissolved, we had meeting after meeting trying to keep it in place. It was no good because it was political. They started whittling away and I could see the writing on the wall. Nancy Livingston, she’s a well-known entity in the state in the reading area, she calls me up and says, “Linda, you have to apply for this job. It’s been open for three years. Nobody wants to take it because it’s a hard job.” SB: At the board of education? LO: Wow, that doesn’t bother me because I’ve been through a lot of stuff. I said, “That doesn’t bother me.” So okay, sock it to me. I went in there and applied and the director was amazing. He was amazing; he believed in equity and everything and I became the English Language Learner Coordinator. And I’ll 36 never forget him telling me—the director—he said, “Listen, I’ve read your credentials and everything like that and I see you have your doctorate. I’m putting you on the doctor’s scale on the top level.” Nobody ever did that to me. It was always, “Okay, well you know...” SB: You had to work your way. LO: “This is where you are.” Yeah, I think I’ll put you in the middle or put you on the bottom and then you can work up. Well it took me forever to work up. And that was one of the things that didn’t bother if I was down loaded. Actually when I came here, I got less than the rest of the school district. And I’m thinking, “What the heck am I doing?” But I did. I took the salary that was offered to me and I did what I could; same at the Office of Ethnic Affairs, same at Davis. Davis was kind of on the scale of Ogden, so I made up some and then went to the Office of Ethnic Affairs and still had to downgrade. Then I went to the Utah State Office of Education. I don’t think it was equitable, but he put me on the highest level that I could go with an administrative credential. I have an administrative supervisory credential, which allows me to be a superintendent. I did apply for the superintendent one year; Ogden School District. I was one of two last standing candidates and they picked the male; white male. Somebody said, “Well you knew that was going to happen.” And I said, “Well maybe I did, but I was making a statement. I was saying I’m capable, I’m a minority, I’m a woman, and I’m not even part of the LDS Church, the dominant religion. I was making a statement that I was capable. I knew I wasn’t going to get it, but I still applied and that’s what I did. I didn’t get it, 37 but I just kept on moving to different places. After I went to the Office of Ethnic Affairs, then Nancy Livingston said, “You need to apply.” So I applied there and I went to the Utah State Office of Education and became the English Language Learner. I learned a lot there, and we are not equitable. I’m sorry, but we’re not equitable. KH: Who is we? LO: The administration. I think following all of the way up. I found that the Native Americans were ignored. I don’t know if you saw an article the other day, but it said that the Native American vote is going to be very important because they are going to get the census down to them and they will learn to vote. And a lot of these democratic candidates are going down there to meet them. I’m thinking to myself, “Utah? Come on, get with the program.” And I’ll probably get sued. Anyway, at that point in time, I didn’t feel really good about how the English Language Learner Program was reinforcing what they needed to do there. They also instituted—and I just love that—teaching the Navajo language. I think we should have supported that; we didn’t. Anyway, there’s just some equitability kinds of things. One of the things that I’m proud of at the Office of Ethnic Affairs is that we have a tendency in all of the organizations to be on silo. I’m special education, I’m English language learner, I’m assessment; we’re all in a silo and we are all operating in a silo. I refused to accept that. I recruited someone from special education, which she is now my very good friend, Janet Gibbs. Then I recruited someone from the assessment. So we had assessment and also 38 special education coming to every single meeting I had with the directors and I had…. SB: At the Utah State Office? LO: At the Utah State Office of Education and all of the directors had to come to these meetings, although they all didn’t come. But I did do something that one meeting, I think everyone was there. I told them that I was going to have computers in Davis School District. Davis School District was my friend. They had set up all of these computers in this room. I invited all of the directors to come and learn the Utah State Office of Education System of Assessment. There was an assessment that actually created this app or whatever it was. He took them through it and told them that you could drill down all of the way from the records at the Utah State Office of Education, to the District, to the school, to every teacher and every student. They could do that. They had that capability, and they didn’t know that. I said, “Okay, you’re coming to this meeting and this is what we are going to learn from this fellow. So show up.” A lot of them brought their own computers and a lot of them didn’t. We all put them on computers and we showed them how to do it. They could actually drill down to even a teacher on how they’re doing with a particular student; that’s possible. My directors didn’t know that, but they knew it after that. And then I also included the charter schools. There was a woman that came in and said, “Nobody ever includes us in everything.” And I said, “Well you’re going to be included here.” So they came and learned. They left there and said, “We learned so much. We can now 39 access some of those things.” Also, while I was there, the Navajo Nation came and I don’t know if anyone knew this but they actually could not contact parents or anything. I can’t remember. No, no, they couldn’t get the records because of—what’s that rule? SB: Privacy? LO: What is it? SB: The privacy rule? LO: Privacy rule and it’s called something. KH: FERPA? LO: FERPA. They could not access certain records of students. They needed to know who was failing and who was not. They appealed to the Utah State Office of Education while I was there; they approached FERPA, the National Education, and they got permission. I felt great about that because now they can go into the records without worrying about FERPA. They needed that information so that they could track their kids to see how they were doing. They didn’t have that. Now the Navajo Nation has that. We had a ceremony while I was there; it was amazing. Another thing that I am proud of at the Utah State Office of Education is when they did Sage, which everybody is mad at Sage. Well they shouldn’t be, because it was a good program. As a matter of fact, because I was the English Language Learner Administrator, I insisted that there’s going to be some 40 intervention for the kids that are English Language Learner. One of the things the testing people did was that there would be buttons so if they didn’t understand a particular word and if there was a button, they could hit the button and then it would show them a picture of it. I’ll give you an example. A lot of kids—maybe Native Americans---do not know what a carton of milk is. They understand a bottle of milk because that’s how it’s transported to them. But they don’t understand a carton of milk. What they did was they had a little button, so if it said, “Carton of Milk,” And you hit that, then it showed a bottle of milk. “Oh okay, that’s what they’re talking about” and they could move on. They did that in Sage. SB: That’s cool. LO: And then, because I had an alignment with assessment, the assessment people, along with special ed, made sure that the testing scores of the kids that were behind were not enhanced. I can’t even remember how they called it. But they looked at it differently. SB: Computed their score differently. LO: Yeah, so that there would be… SB: Made some adjustments. LO: Yeah, so that they could continue to succeed and be able to finish out whatever. SB: Right, not be held back or whatever was the intent of the assessment in the first place. 41 LO: Right. Another thing that came up at the state board that I just think was wonderful was the fact that we discovered—actually, special ed discovered. Was it special ed or assessment? Anyway, they discovered that our dropout rate was inflated. Do you know how we get the dropout rate and why? A lot of these Hispanic kids go by one name. So it’s Jesus Gutierrez Montoya. But the next time they show up, it’s John Montoya Gutierrez. SB: So it was like two different people. LO: They have two different numbers even. SB: So it was like two dropouts instead of one. LO: Right. SB: Is what you are saying? LO: No, one dropout, one graduate; the graduation rates were way off. The discoveries that they learned while I was there were just amazing. They decided that they are going to train secretaries. Does that make sense? Absolutely. SB: School secretaries? LO: The other ones are the input people. SB: Yeah. LO: So they got really tough on numbers; what was their identification number. But you can well imagine that would be horrible because the Hispanic population would look like they were all dropouts; like 87% dropouts. Excuse me, but there’s something wrong with 87%. Anyway, those are the things. Boy, did I 42 learn lots of stuff. At that point on, I actually left and just a short period of time, I worked with the Leonardo Museum and that was interesting. Then I left because I was a volunteer coordinator and they weren’t ready for my program. I had a huge program that I was instituting and they weren’t ready for it. So I left and told them, “When you’re ready, I’ll come back.” I’m not sure if I will, but I have this program ready to go. I could start it tomorrow and actually start it because they need volunteers’ oh my gosh, they are really in need of volunteers. And then I went to United Way… SB: This is all after your retired, right? LO: Right. SB: Officially retired, and she just keeps working. LO: I went to United Way and became director of this and director of that. Actually, I requested not to be paid because I didn’t want a 9-5 job. I wouldn’t take a job at the Leonardo, I wouldn’t take a job at United Way, and I’m not taking a job now. SB: So what are you doing now at Weber? LO: I am with the peer mentor program. This program is amazing because they take seniors and juniors, and pair them up with sophomores and freshmen. A lot of the sophomores and freshmen are first attenders. Think about that; they are students that their parents, their siblings, have not come to school. SB: First Generation. 43 LO: First Generation. I’m a first generation person and I had no clue when I showed up on campus. If I had a mentor, I would have soared.SB: Heaven forbid if you got any higher or soared anymore. No but I was a mediocre student at that time. Anyway, we have a mentor program that is amazing. Think about this, this is just things in my head. If we have 60-70 graduates from the peer mentor program; these are mentees right now. They were nurtured, they were helped with their registration, with tutors, whatever they needed, and sometimes it’s just somebody to cry on their shoulder. If we graduate those 60-70 students, they are going to be solid citizens, they are going to encourage their kids to go to college, and they are going to be taxpayers. We are going to move the needle of the poverty issue. We are moving the needle, but this has been three years. This is its fourth year now, and we are still going. Brett Perrozi, he is an advocate and so is Dr. Romo. And thank goodness for those two because they keep on moving that program on. Eventually it should be instituted as a program, university wide. As a matter of fact, I think because I was in teacher ed, I think they should institute something like that. SB: Oh in teacher education? LO: Oh yeah. LO: Because we could do some good. We do have a new program. Ogla, Antonio, myself, and the mentors wrote a grant for it. We got close to $10,000 and we are going to take it to Ogden School District. I’m in contact with Sarah Roberts, who is the director of all of the schools and she wants us to be there. We are going to take at least one fifth grade class and mentor their fifth graders to see if we can 44 make a difference in getting them to move towards college and university. We are going to have to do some research, but I think it’s going to be amazing. The peer mentors we have are amazing. We have a curriculum; we just have to tweak it for a fifth grader. SB: So as a volunteer, what do you do in that program? LO: Whatever I choose to do; thank goodness for Olga. SB: Are you doing paperwork, or do you mentor or set up communications? LO: All of the above. Actually, curriculum is in my area, so I’ve written lesson plans and helped enhance the lesson plans that we have now. I’m doing different things that make sense with my background. I’m getting involved in the women’s center and those kinds of things, because I’m a real believer that we really need to do a lot more. You know about CCEL; the community kinds of connections. I’m still doing that kind of stuff. If you look at my career, I’m very interested in working with the underserved. So that means that the kids that are coming here are first generation, have never had a preschool program, and they are not ready for Kindergarten. These kids are home with uncles, aunties, and grandmas and they are just playing. These kids are now going to preschool. I think we have five preschool classrooms now that are actually working with these little kids and getting them ready for Kindergarten. They’ll know their alphabet, they’ll know their numbers, and they’ll know their colors. You have to have those kinds of things to make them feel confident that they can move on in the grades. 45 In third grade, it’s huge. If you don’t succeed in third grade, then you can predict that they’re going to be a dropout at the end of their time. I taught in Ogden School District and Ogden School District has a lot of underserved; at Dee School, and there were a lot of kids in Grant School. As a matter of fact, there are some kids that actually became prisoners. One of my second grade students actually murdered someone. I’m thinking to myself, “Boy, was I a good teacher?” You don’t have a lot of control what’s going to happen to them after they leave you, but you do the best you can. One of my second grade students was playing with two other boys in an abandoned house. They were sniffing glue. There was a loaded gun there and David took that loaded gun and blew a 6th grader away; one of his friends. I don’t know what’s happened to David. Then I have had some successes like Sam Sanchez. When he graduated from alternative school, he jumped off the Ogden High School auditorium stage, came and hugged me. He said, “Do you remember me?” I said, “Yeah Sam, I really do, because I feel really bad.” And he says, “Why?” “Because you’re the one that I was so angry at, I put you behind the door and then we went to recess and I totally forgot about you.” I felt so bad and he said, “Oh yeah, I got a real good sleep.” He was a character. SB: But he graduated? LO: He graduated and he gave me credit. He says, “You are my favorite teacher.” And then he said he became the student body president of the alternative school—Washington Alternative School. He told me that he’s engaged and he introduced me to his fiancé and he says, “I’m going to make it. I know what I 46 have to do now.” I said, “Wow.” That’s one of my successes, but then I could tell you about a few not successes. You do the best you can as a teacher; as a principal. I had some students as a principal that I really worried about later. One little boy that had run away from, what do you call it? Anyway, they brought him because he was a delinquent. He was a fifth grader. I’ll never forget when he came and sat down in my office, as a principal. I would sit down and I’d get on my knees and be eye to eye with him because he was just—I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a child but when they’re emotional, their pupils get big. So I sat down and looked at him and I said, “Calm down. I’m here to help.” Then we had this conversation, and it was after he hit somebody. He was a fifth grader, but he was powerful. He was one of those kids that stole a rifle from the back of a truck. He was one of those that we worried about. I sat down, I looked at him and I said, “You know, when you hit somebody, you could really hurt somebody. Is that your intention?” And he said, “No.” I said, “Well then from now on, we’re going to work on not hitting people. If you’re really angry, you know…” I didn’t tell him to do this, but I told him, “Don’t hit.” The fifth grade teacher, Mr. Bingham, he was amazing; he and I worked together on it. We checked on him every day; we’d check on him in recess and whatever. He stopped that kind of behavior but he was very aggressive. I’d have to intervene then, but when he left us, he wanted to see me before he left. He had this cast up from here to here. I said, “What happened?” He says, “Mrs. Oda, you told me not to hit somebody, so I hit the wall.” I went and saw the wall and he made a dent; it’s a cinder block wall. 47 That’s how powerful he was. He had broken three knuckles; they had to take him to the hospital. But then they’re going to take him away from us and we had progress. We saw progress in this child but they were going to move him to another school. Holy cow, you don’t know about the system. The system sometimes is broken, and sometimes it’s working wonderfully well. But that was one of those that I think, “Holy Cow, I didn’t want them to take him.” I wanted to work with him. We had some kids that had a whole family of things. The first day that I showed up as a principle, five kids were caught smoking. They hauled them up to my office. I read them the riot act, and I had no idea what consequence to give them. I said, “I’m sending you to Malila, and I’m going to call the police.” But I had no idea that I could this. So right after the parents and everybody left, I called up the principal and said, “What do you do about this?” And they said, “We never have had that happened to us.” Oh good, so I’m all by myself. Then the mother came; the mother of the perpetrator; I’ll remember her name. Anyway, she actually had harassed the principal before me. She actually tripped him or something, and stepped on his face. This woman was violent, and she had a violent family. So she was sitting in front of me and the first question she asked me was, “What kind of cigarettes were they?” “Lucky strikes.” Oh she was hopping mad because it was her cigarettes. It’s not that she was mad that he was smoking, but because he stole. And I bet you he got a whipping. And I said, “Listen…” And I kind of talked her down. I said, “You know, I’m here to help you. So whenever things like that happen. You need to come to me.” Well it was 48 interesting because she became my advocate. She would call me sometimes and say, “Do you know who vandalized so and so home?” And I would say, “I have no idea.” She’d give me a name, and I’d call the police up, “Well I have another name for you.” Then that boy, he started getting better. But I’m telling you, he was headed in the wrong way. That family had Kindergarten twins, so I told the Kindergarten teacher. She was wonderful. Anyway, she and I were going to work on these twins because we wanted this woman, the mother, to be our advocate. Every time those twins did something, I would send the parent a letter, “Guess what your child did?” And it was all good. She’d come over to me, “Hi Mrs. Oda, how are you doing?” You know it was scary. She was scary, but we got along. It’s the way you approach it that gets them on your team. SB: If I were entering teacher education today and wanted to make a difference in teacher education, what advice would you give me? LO: Okay, starting your career. Well, I guess I would tell them that they really need to persist; there are times when they would want to give up. Another thing I would tell them is if you don’t care about kids get out of it. There are too many people that go into teacher education because it is just some place to go. SB: Nursing maybe. LO: Now, one of the questions says, “What options did you have coming to Weber?” I actually had probably only one; nursing and teacher education. Nursing wasn’t for me so I went to teacher education. In those days, those options were not open to me; they just were not. So I would tell educators, I said, “The first thing 49 you have to remember is, ‘Do you care about kids; caring enough that you’ll nurture their skills?’” I always told my teacher education students every child has a gift. You must honor that and you must find what that gift is and then promote it. One of the things that I always taught my students, I say to them, “If a child is not responding to you appropriately of what you are asking them to do, don’t look at the child, don’t look at the parent, look at yourself.” You are the one that is in control. You can’t control anyone else, but you can control yourself. So if this child is not reading, then you take it a part, “Why is that child not reading.” And you can take it apart and you can figure out where the issues are. I taught that diagnose and prescription class and I was one of the first people that actually took it out to the schools. I took it out to Mount Ogden Middle School and I told the principal, I said, “I want your teachers to recommend at least one child in their classroom that’s having difficulty with reading.” So they all recommended a student. All of my students took on a child and I taught them the first few weeks how to diagnose because they had no idea about prescription yet. And I wasn’t going to teach them. I took this really good book that talked about diagnosis; chapters and chapters, if you observe this and this might be the problem. I took them through that. They all kind of knew if they saw this and this is a problem, then they would mend it. The kids would come every, I can’t remember, every Wednesday or Thursday, and the caveat was that parents had to come and either bring them or leave them there supervised. Then they would come after them after the class; 50 all of the parents did that. We were real careful; we knew who was coming after which students. We never released any child without that kind of permission. They would come and spend an hour with that tutor. After we diagnosed everybody, then the second part was I taught them the prescription portion; how do I help them with this particular problem? They learn that and then we talk about individual students with what problems they had, and then they went back into the classroom with that child and worked with them on their weakness. SB: That had to be even before CCEL. I mean, before the community based learning. LO: I guess; I don’t know when that was. SB: You were way ahead of the curve on that. Getting your students out into classrooms, doing the diagnosis, doing the assessment, doing the prescription, was a model that community-based faculty have really adopted. LO: You see what I’m saying about people not listening. Those things work but no one else would learn the system. It was me out there alone. I’ll give you another example of this service learning. I took my university class to three different entities. There was Horace Mann, the school for the deaf and blind, and the garden home rest home; it’s above Harrison around 7th street. I Interestingly enough, they share property kind of so that I could go through a gate and go to the school or the deaf and blind. I could take my children over to the rest home, which is only a block away. So we had this triad and we did the service learning where we tried to figure out what each of those entities needed. 51 The school for the deaf and blind had purchased a greenhouse with their own money. It had sat there for five years because they didn’t know how to build it. My students taught the kids from the school for the deaf and blind, and they had no idea how to deal with these children. So we took them into this second grade class that actually learned American Sign Language. They had them perform a song and then we performed the song; we did all of this partnering. One of my university students was a veteran. She went to Hill Air Force Base, talked to the engineers there, and asked them if they knew how to build this greenhouse. They said, “Yeah, we can do that.” So they came to the school and they plotted out how much land they needed; it was kind of in the backyard. They plotted all of the land one Saturday, which was raining like crazy. Parson’s Cement Company donated the cement. Oh man, we were all drenched, but we were in there digging away. Then Parson’s came in with their truck, dumped it, and then we just had to spread it.. The next day, it was solidified. Then the engineers were able to tell them how to erect it. And they now have a greenhouse. So if you ever go to the school for the deaf and blind, visit it because that’s our legacy. With the rest home, there were farmers. We asked them, “Would you help us nurture some plants so that we can actually take it to the school for the deaf and blind?” In the summer they had this little festival so that they could sell the plants. And we could put the names of the kids who did and so on and so forth. There was one child that had this plant that was just huge, because he just nurtured it. There was a little boy that actually did a rap about his plant. Then these people in the rest home helped him plant the seed. 52 One of my students went to Walmart with my letter and told them about that. They gave us soil, they gave us potting plants, they gave us whatever we needed; for free. We got all of that and then the classes painted the pots and took them over to the farmers, the farmers helped us put the plants in and then we took it over to the… SB: So that got the elderly people involved. LO: Right. We got the elderly to help us and then we took all of the plants over. I went and visited in the summer when they had their festival, and they were selling it. They were selling pictures of their students that they did; self-portraits and stuff like that. I just thought, “Well that was wonderful.” Anyway, that happened, but again, service learning. I could talk about this service learning, but nobody was learning. I mean, you did because you did service learning. And some of the professors did it, but you know what? It was kind of as if I did something and it didn’t matter. Which was unfortunate because even some of those things could have been built into a program. SB: Yes, but faculty back then, we were experimenting. LO: Yeah. SB: And I really believed that many of our efforts though contributed to the momentum of getting service learning up and running on campus. LO: I agree. 53 SB: You were very instrumental in doing that. And you know, even though it looked like an isolated case, there were enough of us involved that saw the advantages of it, that pressed forward with service learning. LO: Yep, yep, there were few. And I really appreciated that because you could recognize that that was a good thing. But, a lot of them didn’t. And it’s once again that… SB: It was still a challenge to get faculty involved in service learning. LO: Oh yeah, see because they’re young. You know who was amazing was Karen Lofgreen. She and I took classes out and we actually taught behavior management, and that’s really hard for our students. SB: Well isn’t it true now that elementary education is pretty much site based. LO: It’s becoming more, I think so. SB: Yeah, I think it is. LO: I think and we started that actually. SB: At the secondary level and then we did at the elementary level. LO: Karen Lofgreen and I went over there, we learned from each other, and then we changed some of the curriculum. We changed that last class that people had to take for portfolios. We changed it because we made it friendly, I think. Before, it was so grueling to people to put a portfolio together, but we modified it and kids celebrated their portfolios. It was Karen Lofgreen and I that did that. I think we made some headway and I think you are right. I think some of you caught the 54 vision and did some of those things. It was a legacy that has been followed. Some of those things are being nurtured. Another thing that I was proud of was that we did know that there were some teacher education students that should not be there. I instituted what they called Academic Retention. What was it? Retention? SB: And promotion? LO: Something like that. Well anyway, it was a committee. If professors were having a hard time with a student, they would refer them to it. I put some rules on it. If a student got two recommendations for them to come see me, then they showed up… SB: From faculty? LO: Faculty had to recommend them to be there. Then I actually had three hearings of different students. We had to have metal detectors because those three students were a little on the volatile side. It was a time when… SB: We were worried about faculty shootings. LO: Oh yeah. There was one student that came in when they were having these hearings, and shot at the committee. Do you remember Richard? He was a lawyer. SB: Richard Hill? LO: Richard Hill, he was shot. That was kind of the same era and so they didn’t take any chances. Whenever I had those hearings, they had a metal detector there. 55 Then there were some that were pretty volatile that came to Dee School and actually disrupted classes because he was unhappy about this placement or something. He was one of my students. I took him on and we got him out, but he was one of those that the faculty changed their desks so to be facing the door. SB: Oh yeah. LO: Because if they were going to get shot, they wanted to see who was shooting them. SB: They were scared faculty. LO: Yeah. SB: Changed their doors. LO: Yeah. SB: The position of their desks. LO: Because they were worried about some of these crazy people, there’s no kind of screening of these kinds of things. You can do a background check, and we do background checks all of the time now. That’s another thing that while I was at the Utah State Office of Education, we instituted background checks. Before that, we didn’t have background checks. Now we have background checks and we are getting people out. Anyway, we actually got three students out. They were not to be in the classroom. We do know that there are people like that in the classroom, and we need to get them out. That was my way of instituting that kind of rule. We actually nurtured some of them, and some of them succeeded. 56 I’ll never forget a professor from Child and Family Studies; he actually had to adjudicate one of the hearings. He said, “My hell, Linda. You really have stuff in your notebook.” And I said, “Yep. I studied this backwards and forwards.” I was not going to allow this person to continue and I went on and on and on and he says, “Okay.” He said, “We are getting him out.” And we got him out. KH: So this is out of the teacher education program. LO: And I don’t know, is it still there? SB: Yes. It got better and any department that was involved in teacher education, your science, your health, your physical ed, your English, could be one of the faculty members that recommended retention. LO: Excellent. SB: For a student that came through, we had to have both a teacher ed person and a subject area person. LO: Yeah, I like that. SB: With those two recommendations and then they would have to have a hearing. LO: Go forward. SB: Yeah. So we got a few more along the way. LO: Excellent. I like to hear that. SB: I think that still exists, that committee. It’s a really important one to have. 57 LO: It is really important because I was told that lots of students come in there and they feel it’s a property right for them to be there. SB: Yeah, I love students… I love kids so I want to be a teacher. LO: Oh yeah. LO: So that’s my advice. SB: And then they just don’t pick up the necessary skills. LO: Yeah, you have to care about kids and if you don’t, don’t stay. You could find some other job. SB: Well also, you have to be able to communicate with kids. It’s one thing to think that you love them, but it’s another thing to be able to teach them. LO: Right. SB: And there are certain students that just didn’t cut it. They are very difficult to get out of the program once they are committed to the money and the finances. They get to be seniors and then they say, “Sorry, you’re in the wrong profession really.” LO: Right. SB: But we have an avenue now of how to do that. LO: Thank goodness because at the time that we were there and I was there, we had no way of getting them out. SB: No. 58 LO: And so they continued to produce some students that would be a big concern. So anyway, our time is done, isn’t it? KH: It’s up to you; we can keep talking. SB: What other questions would you like? KH: Where did you go to primary and secondary school? LO: I went to Grant School for Elementary, which is closed. I taught there too. I not only went as a student, but I taught there. I always worried that if somebody torched it, it would go in a snap because of the oil floors, and in those days, they oiled the floors. You could just put a match on there and, “Boom!” We’d all be gone. I’ll never forget my cooperating teacher, Mrs. Mariam Stevenson. We were on the second floor and she had a ladder. You know those little portable ladders that are made out of rope, and you can throw it out there. She had that available. I ended up on the first floor, but she was always on the top floor. She says she was ready. Anyway, I left there, and then I went to Central Junior High School; they are all very rough schools. Then I went to Ogden High School. In elementary school, I was a minority, of a minority. Think about it, there was a huge population of African Americans and Hispanics, but a very small group of Japanese Americans. We were harassed probably every day, and I’d have to go out and fight some of the kids that were a head taller than I was. I’ll never forget, I went out one time and this one African American girl came up to me and she says, “So and so told me that you said something about me.” I said, “Did I?” Then she started hitting me and I started hitting her back. We just 59 fought, and all of my fights I lost, because I’m so much smaller. I remember the principal and teachers saying, “Now hold onto Linda because she’s going to blow away in the wind.” But, I went out there and fought. I had to in order for me to survive at that school. I know of some Japanese American kids that were harassed every day because they didn’t stand up to these kids. But I did and I was beat to a pole. But what the heck, so I got beat up. At one point, this African American girl, I think it was Ester, said, “It’s no use beating up Linda. You look stupid because she’s smaller and you’re going to beat her up. Well what’s the point?” She was saying things and she actually protected me. She watched over me. But that happened a lot, and I would never tell my parents or siblings because I didn’t want them to get into it. So, they never knew what happened to me when that happened. I went to junior high school, similar. SB: Could have made you a tough cookie when you were an administrator, didn’t it? LO: Oh yeah. A woman, a parent would come up to me, she’d be a head taller, and I’d be up there going like this. She’d be screaming up seventies to me, and I said, “Look Mrs. so and so, I am going to call the police and you are going to get out of here now.” And it was all because her child was behind in her paying for lunch. She was sent the notice and she was going to go and tell me what for. I said, “If you don’t leave right now, the police are going to call you out of here.” I mean, she was a head. SB: Well you’ve had many occasions in your career where you just had to stand up for yourself and stand up for others. 60 LO: Oh yeah. Well, at the age of three, I was just a little tiny person, following a person that I suspected was going to steal something… SB: In the store? LO: In the grocery store. He turned around and he said, “Do you think I’m going to steal something?” And I, my little three-year-old self, said, “Yes.” And he said, “Oh,” and walked out. I had another incident when I was a teenager; my dad had been killed, my mom was incapacitated, and I was cutting lettuce. And in those days, lettuce had all of the leaves on it, so you had to clean it up, chop off the end, and then put it in a presentable manner. People would come and you can’t get it in plastic. Which like I said, we have to stop doing. Anyway, so I was cutting lettuce in the morning and this—no it was afternoon. This guy came in— and I could see the ethnicity, but that’s not anything. It doesn’t matter. I was cutting with a knife that was this long, and he pulls out a knife just as equally long and he sticks it in my stomach and he said, “I could kill you now.” And because I’ve had to deal with this —you never show fear. Don’t ever show fear because they’ll use that against you. So I got my knife and stuck it in his stomach and I says, “I could kill you right now too.” And he says, “Oh yeah,” put back the knife, and walked out. You just had to be that way. So in junior high school, I was tough; Ogden High School I was tough. You had to be because if you were not, then you would get harassed every day. It was really hard in junior high and high school because there were always the haves and the have nots. That was the case both in Central Junior High and Ogden High School. I was a have not; although, I had a stable family, I had 61 money in my pocket. I’ll never forget, my little sister was in first grade or something like that and her teacher says, “Well, Allison, you didn’t bring your money for PTA again.” And she says, “Don’t worry about it, I’m rich.” This little five-year-old child. Okay, so we had money, but my whole world was different. I had a Japanese group and I had a Caucasian group; school group or whatever. And they were totally separate. I’m a different person. I’m actually a Gemini. When I’m with Japanese people, I’m much more subservient and obedient. I’ll bow a lot, especially to the elders because that’s the respect I have to show. I will be kind and gentle as I’m supposed to be. Otherwise, when I’m in an administrative position, I change. There was one administrator in Ogden School District that actually physically picked me up like that was—he thought it was funny. I was in my suit—I used to wear suits. I was in my suit, he picked me up, and I said, “Richard, put me down.” He put me down and I said, “I’m going to see you in your office now.” We went into the office and I said, “You will never ever do that because I am the same line of authority that you are.” You are never to do that to a woman, to someone that you think is lesser than you. You will never do that again. Well he never really did like me after that. I left and that’s the kind of administrator I was. I would take it on because of the fact that I got tough. But it was hard. It was a hard life because you had to prove yourself every day. I don’t care if you’re a teacher, teacher education professor, a principal, a reading specialist. I was a reading specialist one time to the most difficult kids in Utah. They all came to Dr. Reed’s center to be tutored. There was one kid that was huge. He was a junior high school kid, and he 62 would go like this on the table; he’d rumble it like this and disturb all of the kids. I just gently kept it down. He stood up and he hit me right here [points to chest]. Same thing, you had to be tough. So I stood my ground. I said, “Son, you’re going to the office right now.” Then the teacher, Alice, came, picked him up, and took him to the office. When I went home, I had a black and blue chest like you couldn’t believe, because he really hit me hard. But he came back, and he knew I was the authority. He listened to me after that. In fact, we got to the point where he wanted my attention. It’s hard to do that at these schools because they have to understand that you’re there for them, no matter what. That’s what Sam Sanchez understood. He could do some shenanigans. Sometimes I could have just taken him by his hair. But he understood that I cared. There’s a point where the kids really want your attention, want your approval, and that’s what happens when it turns around. SB: Well because you’ve earned their respect. LO: Yeah, they knew that I was there to teach them, not to babysit. To teach them and they understood that. There are many students now that, I mean, I have no—they have grey hair and beards. SB: And you don’t know who they are. LO: I have no clue who they are. SB: But they remember who you are. LO: They remember me as a principal, they remember me as a teacher, and I’m thinking to myself, “Okay. I kind of don’t remember you, but tell me your story.” I 63 could go to the schools sometimes and they’ll come running up to me and say, “Do you remember me?” And I say, “Well, I don’t know if…” SB: But you’re memorable; you’re unforgettable. LO: Well I think because I’m Japanese American, I look different. I went to Zurchers to find some wedding stuff for Greg’s wedding. This girl comes running up to me and says, “Dr. Oda, do you remember me?” “Not really.” And she told me her story. And yep, I taught her. She’s teaching now in an elementary school. I’ve always told my students, “Once you’re in my class, I’m always your resource; always. So that means, if you remember a poem, a reading, or something that you remember from my class, get a hold of me and I’ll get it to you.” And sure enough, that’s happened to me many a time. They’ll email me and they’ll say, “Do you remember that one reading poem that had all of these weird things in there?” “Oh yeah.” But by golly, now I can’t ever remember where I put those things. They’re in my basement. There is stuff in there that people ask me for; I’ll find it and then I’ll send it to them. It’s funny, but they remember some of those things. One lady said to me, “I remember you telling me that if a child is not responding to me, the buck stops here.” Not going into the lunchroom and complaining about the parents; it stops here. You find out why that child is not performing the way you want. She said she remembered that, and that’s good. KH: I have about another hour worth of questions, so would you like to schedule another interview? Would you like to keep going? LO: [To Shannon] We have to go to lunch, you and I. Do you have time for lunch? 64 SB: Yeah, I do. LO: Do you have time to come again? SB: We didn’t get to some of your questions about Weber State did we? KH: There are some other questions too. SB: Okay. LO: [To Shannon] Do you have time to come another day? SB: Yeah, but I think you could just work with Kandice. KH: Are you sure? LO: Sure. SB: I think you’re fine now. LO: Yeah, but the reason why I’m so happy you’re here is because you add to my experience; you know what I’ve been through. She’s been my friend forever and even been through some of the dialogue that I’ve had about the store. That’s why it’s helpful to have you here, but if you have no time that’s not important. SB: Well I just think Kandice knows what questions she needs for this particular project. LO: Okay, well that’s fine. SB: I’ll let her ask some of her questions. LO: You’re off the hook. 65 SB: I’m not sure what questions she still needs to get. LO: We can schedule another day. KH: Okay, great. LO: You’re not tired of this? KH: No, not at all. LO: Weird stories that I have, but that’s my life; it’s an interesting life. Anyway, well we’re done. KH: Okay great. We will schedule another time to finish everything out. Thank you. LO: You’re welcome. Day Two KH: Today is August 22, 2019, and this is day two with Dr. Linda Oda. You mentioned that there were some women at Weber that you wanted to talk about so why don’t we start there? LO: There have been women in my career here at Weber State that are outstanding leaders and have proven their leadership by doing some different programs; instituting some programs that are amazing and I think they’re still ongoing. I just want to site Kathryn McKay. She actually started the Teaching and Learning Institute, which was amazing. It was revolutionary because it actually invited professors to volunteer to be observed—maybe it wasn’t observed to begin with. It was really to come to workshops about teaching and learning. Because I’m an educator, and have been a long-term educator in Ogden School District as a 66 teacher and a principal, I knew some things about teaching and learning. She would bring these people together and a lot of them were very new professors, but they were willing to admit that they didn’t know much about teaching and learning. Kathryn MacKay actually brought in some experts on teaching and learning, and did some amazing things. I remember one workshop on positive reinforcement, and actually, we did a lot of that in the public schools. Karen Lofgreen and I actually went to classrooms and worked with students; had student teachers and students that wanted to be teachers actually observe us, and actually using behavior management. Now, behavior management had a bad rep at one time because they thought it was kind of like Nazism and that kind of stuff; a little bit extremist. But it’s not, it’s more positive reinforcement. So I remember Kathryn MacKay and she should be credited for instituting teaching and learning. And I’m not sure if it’s still ongoing, but I hope it is because I think we all as teachers—and I’m a seasoned teacher—I wouldn’t mind having someone come and visit my classroom; they can give me my p’s and q’s. What am I doing right? What am I doing wrong? I actually was trained on the state level when I was part of the policing army of the Utah State Office of Education. There is an existent group, and I’m trying to think of the acronym. Acronym’s kill me off here. Anyway, it was a group that actually had several educators, professors, and administrators from schools. It was a committee that determined whether a person should continue to teach or not. There were three actions you could take after the hearing. One: 67 reprimand, two: put a letter in their professional file, and the third one is to take away their license. I’m hopeful that that’s still in existence. Mill Kendrick was the chair at one time and he was my former principal and administrator. He was assistant superintendent at Ogden School District. We were very careful about how we did it. It was amazing. We actually got rid of a lot of teachers because of sexual assault. In my day there, we actually instituted the background check, which was never instituted in the state of Utah. We went to the legislature and convinced them that they needed a background check on all teachers. So to this day, everybody in education has to have a background check. As a matter of fact, all of the teacher education candidates have to have background checks. Obviously, they’re with the children and so the safety of the children was the most important thing. When I was at the state, we instituted that. It was amazing because now everyone who applied for a teaching certificate actually had to go through a background check. KH: What year did they start doing background checks? LO: I can’t remember that far back. I would have to say that because I was an administrator in the school district, it had to be like 2003-2007, around that area. The state board would know because they would have records, but I was a school district administrator in—no, that was Davis District, so it had to have been earlier than that. It probably had to be when I was with Ogden School District. So it had to have been awhile. Think about that, around 1987; maybe in 1985-1987. 68 When I was administrator, I was appointed to this committee and so I would go there with a really auspicious group of educators. One of which was actually a superintendent of Salt Lake School District at the time. They were pretty high-powered people on that committee. Getting back to Kathryn MacKay, she actually instituted the teaching and learning, and she actually dealt with those kinds of things. I’m hopeful that that has continued, because I think our professors need to be scrutinized. I’m sorry, but I’m a professor and I’m a real believer of quality teaching I’ve seen that in Ogden School District, Weber State University, Davis School District; those three in particular. When I went to the Utah State Office of Education, I was with the Office of Ethnic Affairs. It’s important that we have quality teachers. I don’t care where you are, professors, as well as teachers teaching kindergarten; they all have to be quality teachers. So Kathryn MacKay was going in the right direction with teaching and learning. She would bring these professors; assistant professors and associate professors. They came together and learned different kinds of techniques about being a good teacher. So anyway, I wanted to talk about Kathryn MacKay; also Kathleen Lukken. She has since retired, but she was a real leader of different things going on at Weber State. I actually can’t site exactly the program she did. But as I observed her, she was definitely a leader in moving in the right direction to make us better. KH: Wasn’t she the dean of students? Or something like that? LO: She really was kept on moving up, but she made the determination to leave us. I was sad because I felt like she could have kept us in quality teaching, quality 69 delivery of university… whatever it was that was on her plate, she made us better. I think she went as high as a vice-president. I’m trying to think of, here in this library, there was a Joan. What was her name? MT: Joan Hubbard. KH: Yes. LO: No, there was another one. KH: I don’t know the other Joan. LO: Okay she actually went to a foreign country and she was revolutionizing things in a foreign country. I can’t come up with her name. But maybe you can research and find out because she was in my era between 1989-2003. She also was a real leader as far as quality teaching; promoting programs that made us better. She was a young gal that came here, and I think she had two or three children. She actually went out of the country, I think it was Malaysia, and instituted things in that country. Then she came back for a little while and then I think she retired or something happened. The other person is Ann Millner. She is a role model for leadership and I’ve had the occasion to work with Ann since she became president, then she retired and now she’s a senator. One example of Ann Millner was when I as at the office of ethnic affairs and I was the Asian American or Asian director. There was an occasion when I would be hearing a lot about educating disadvantaged students; diverse students. Parents were not happy with what we were doing in the public schools and in the universities. I took that on as the Director of the 70 Office of Asian affairs, and I decided that I needed to get parents together. I did a lot of preparation before that. I actually tapped all of the ethnic minorities; the federal recognized minorities. That’s the African Americans, the Hispanic Latinos, the Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islander, those five. I would talk to the community members and ask them to suggest parents that are going to speak up; they’re vocal but they’re not agitators. And so they all submitted names. I got my secretary to call them all up and see if they were willing to come on a Saturday and the theme was, “How to educate ethnic minority students.” So one Saturday, I had this conference at the Hilton Hotel in Salt Lake. I was actually stationed in Salt Lake because the Office of Ethnic Affairs was part of the governor’s office, and so they housed us in Salt Lake. I had this gathering and there were at least 8-10 representatives from every ethnic group. I asked them to come and before they came, I asked them to respond to about five questions about how they think we can educate the disadvantaged students—ethnic minority students. So they came prepared. What I did prior to that, was to make sure that I had facilitators that were absolutely superb for each of those ethnic minorities. So I had to go out and beat the bushes and I found them. They were leaders as well as real good facilitators and so I schooled them on all of this. I also gave them the five questions. They all came ready. I remember Cindy Mia was one of them from Davis School District, and she had it all outlined; a lot of them did. They were prepared to meet with these parents. They had no idea what they were going to face because they had 8-10 parents coming in with the five questions, and they were 71 ready and prepared. But when I look at the representatives, they were amazing. And so they came and we had an amazing group getting back to Ann Millner. I called her up because she’s an acquaintance with me; she and I got our doctorates at the same time at Brigham Young University. We were somewhat colleagues, except for she was in education and leadership, and I was in curriculum instruction. There were sometimes when we got together, sometimes we did not. But I knew Ann Millner when she was getting her doctorate and I was getting a doctorate. She became president, and so I called her up and that’s my craziness. I called her up and she says, “Oh yeah, I remember you.” And I said, “Would you come and facilitate this meeting that I’m going to have.” I told her what our objective was and so on and so forth. She says, “Sure.” So on a snowy Saturday, and I swear it was hard to get to Salt Lake. I mean, we were knee deep in snow. I’ll never forget. I got to the Hilton Hotel at 7 o’clock and I’m serious, that snow was up to my knees. It was one of those big ole snowstorms. She came and all of these people came; it was just amazing. We went to the Hilton Hotel and we separated in all five groups. To start off the meeting President Millner said, “This is what we’re going to do.” She was truly amazing and I knew that she was a good facilitator because I have been in meetings with her. So she took over and I’m telling you, she was perfect. Then they all went into their own groups. We had lunch, then we came back, and she facilitated the whole group. At the end of that meeting, we had data that was incredible. What were they telling us was what they needed to educate ethnic minority kids. I had a whole passel of things. 72 As a matter of fact, I gathered all of that data, did statistical kinds of things, and then sent it out to every superintendent—I mean, as many people as I could. I’ll never forget because many of these parents said, “You know, we really believe in this process because you believe in it.” Subsequent to that, we can’t just let that data go because we have too much rich data that told us how to successfully educate ethnic minority students. I had this amazing information. After disseminating that, then I started on an 11-month trek on formulating a conference. Prior to the 11 months, and after the meeting with the parents, I got all of the leaders together that I had gathered and said, “Okay, now this is what we’re working on next.” And they said, “Okay.” I don’t know how they came along with me, but they came along with me. We formulated a committee and we started moving. 11 months later, in February, we had this conference, and it was amazing. You’ll find that Salt Lake, Granite, & Ogden, were probably the school districts that had the most minority students at that time. So they sent representatives to help us formulate this, although, there were all kinds of representatives from all over. As a matter of fact, there were some people from the community that volunteered to be part of this committee. I can’t even tell you how many times we met in that 11 months. But what happened was we had a conference in February, I think it was February. Anyway, we instituted this conference and we had around 500 people come. They were mostly parents, but there were administrators, superintendents, assistant superintendents, principals, teachers, I mean, you name it and we had them. We made sure that transportation was not 73 a problem. We actually had it at West High School. Do you know where West High School is? KH: In Salt Lake? LO: Uh huh. Okay. It’s by frontrunner, it also has—what’s the other transit? KH: The bus? MT: Trax? LO: Trax. It had that facility as well as the school district volunteered to go pick up parents and their kids. We also invited kids that were younger than 12, but there were kids that were older than that. We invited the older kids to come in and actually listen to the speakers. The younger ones we made provisions for them to be in a preschool setting. We contracted with West High School and they brought in their child development people. They fed them breakfast, lunch, and did activities with the kids; you’re talking about 11 to way little. I even think there was a baby there; they had cribs and they had things. They took care of them while their parents were in the conference. We also had a breakfast and a lunch for everybody. We had speakers that were from every ethnic group. The Native Americans chose to do their own session. Our intention was to get everybody together and they could go to all of these sessions. But the Native Americans wanted to talk about sovereignty because that’s a real big issue with the Native Americans. They actually had special sessions for sovereignty. The other sessions I insisted that they have was a Spanish speaking section and an English speaking section. Parents could choose to go 74 to either session; the topics were identical. The two facilitators who actually presented actually collaborated with their content. They had to look at the topics that we had gathered; dealing with certain things that parents were concerned about. Then we had it all outlined. We also got high school students from West High School to show them where the rooms were; because it’s hard to find rooms in a high school. They were all stationed at particular places, would meet and greet the parents, and take them to their room. I’ll never forget that Ogden School District actually sent a whole bus full of parents and children. At the end of the session, parents and everybody were told that they are going to get a backpack. Every child was going to get a backpack but they could not get the backpack until the end of the whole conference, and they had to fill out an evaluation. They dutifully did that, and handed in their evaluation. We had two packets, one backpack with Spanish language literature; the other backpack had English language literature. And with the help of Granite, Salt Lake, and Ogden school districts, we actually got pads of paper, pencils, and energy bars. We just packed it all into the backpacks. It was very helpful because the school districts were amazing. So we packed it up and when they came and presented the evaluation, then they were each given one; each child was given one. I’ll never forget Ogden School District’s bus. The facilitator there, when she got on the bus, said, “You would not believe how excited the kids were. They were all unpacking their things, ‘Oh guess what? I got this, I got that, and I got this.’” It was just amazing. 75 I have to say that there is a program in Salt Lake that gives away books, and we tapped their resources. They actually gave us free books; Spanish ones and English ones. Also, Granite School District bought gift cards for every presenter that was there; Barnes & Noble $25 gift certificate, as a thank you. We had a little ancillary room where they had refreshments and everything. That was all done by the school district because they really believed in the process. So we had this conference and it was amazing. Governor Huntsman was the governor at the time, and he was my boss. He actually wrote me a personal letter. He said that he wasn’t able to come, but his representative was there and he said he had heard that it was amazing. That was one of the proudest things that I did for the Office of Ethnic affairs. Interestingly enough, my director told me I couldn’t do it next year, the following year. I asked him why, and he said, “Because it’s too expensive.” Well I want just want to go on record that we actually paid every penny of that conference without using state money. It was the school districts and some non-profit organization that thought it was important. They gave us money and we paid for all of the bills. We didn’t even have any bills for the state. So that perplexed me because it didn’t cost a thing. Our director could have gone to the legislature and reported our progress, but he never did. The only one who recognized it was Governor Huntsman. Anyway, I just wanted to cite Ann Millner because she helped us with the process. She started something that was valuable, and then we didn’t get to do it the following year. I also want to recognize Janice Fauske, Shannon Butler, and 76 Kathleen Hurden; they are leaders extraordinaire. Janice Fauske applied for the deanship of the college of education and did not get it. Which was unfortunate because she left us. She went to Westminster as their dean and then to Florida and as their dean. I guess I’m kind of making a statement that we missed out; Weber State missed out. And I’m not sure it’s because she wasn’t a white male. Excuse me, but maybe that’s one of the reasons why she didn’t get there. Anyway, Janice Fauske, Shannon Butler, Kathleen Hurden, Gary Door, Jim Young, and I instituted what we called the, “Onsite student teaching program.” It’s no longer in existence as far as I know, but it was the six of us that instituted that. That’s one of the things I said on the first day that I was most proud of because we made a difference in that area. It was actually English education; we were in the junior high and high schools, and we were working with excellent student teachers. They did some amazing things and they’re still doing amazing things in the schools now because they are still there. I just wanted to cite that those three women were instrumental in doing something like that. I’d also like to cite Robert Smith, the provost; he made such a difference for us. He was able to find the money. We got a Hemingway Grant, and we are able to institute it. It was an amazing project. KH: Do you remember what year that started? LO: It had to have been between 1989 and 2003, when I was here. And during that time, there were three of us that were working on our tenure and promotion. We did make a difference, and we took some of that information to national conferences. We went to England, we went to Germany, we went to France, and 77 actually talked about our onsite. I think there was even someone from China that actually inquired about what we did with the onsite student teaching. We felt like that made a difference for others because we went and presented. They had lots of inquiries about how this worked and so on. Shannon reminded me that I really need to talk about, and I think it’s on your list, honors that I have received as well as something else…I don’t know. But anyway, and then I also wanted to cite Brenda Kowalewski who is here now. She also is an amazing leader. She did lots of things in CCEL, but she’s moving on to different things. CCEL is amazing, and I would have to say that CCEL actually is something that was just kind of germinating with working with communities. And she made it work. You’ll find on their website, and I haven’t looked at their website for a long time, but you’ll see organizations that are working with Weber State; one of which is actually the United Way. I was part of United Way for three years and we worked with CCEL. We worked on all kinds of different programs. As a matter of fact, Ann Millner was involved, and still is, the chair of the committee. I can’t remember what it’s called right now; maybe it will come back to me later. But she was the chair and also, Sandy Corollis, who was at that time the superintendent of Ogden School District. The two of them single handedly got all of the leaders in the community, like Mike Caldwell, health groups, and other different groups to start talking to each other. Because Ann Millner is such a leader and she’s well respected, these people came together. I think because she was involved, it made a difference. One of the things that they decided to do was to somehow work on preschool 78 education. I think I mentioned something about United Way having these satellites that are working on preparing preschool children for kindergarten. Part of that was because of that committee that Ann Millner and Sandy Corrolis were co-chairing. The two of them single handedly got that ball rolling. And that is continuing on. United Way is doing amazing things with preschool and they’re working with Ogden School District in particular. I know they are in contact with Davis and Weber. So anyway, Ann Millner again shows up some place else, and makes a difference. Brenda Kowalewski though, she’s one of the ones that I thought maybe was really important. Shannon reminded me of publications I did, and I have a few of them. I did a south study with my teacher education experience. I actually wrote papers on it, one of which was called, “Harmony, conflict, and respect-An Asian American’s self-study.” That article is published in a book. I did a lot of training on Asian perspectives; Japanese American perspectives at respecting ethnic and cultural heritage. I did a lot of that. When I was at Davis School District, the National Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles decided that they wanted to find out how the Japanese Americans survived during World War II, and how did it effect education and so on. They got five states that mostly had the relocation camps; Utah was one of them. Utah had Topaz, which was a relocation camp that had at least 10,000 people incarcerated there. So they came to Utah, and for some reason my name came up. They asked me to be part of this project. I recruited Shanna Fruitall who was the geography director at the time at Davis School 79 District. I was the Quality Teaching Director. They actually tapped me because I’m Japanese American. So the Japanese American National Museum had us come to Los Angeles, and come together in workshops and meetings and strategy meetings to figure out how to actually get that information. We met several times during the year, but Shanna and I—I think I would have to say that we are movers and shakers. The project was supposed to end in three years, and we did it in two because we’re “A” personalities. We went ahead, and we had curriculum developers who were teachers. There was an elementary and a secondary, which is junior high and high school; we had this contingency of people. Then we started working on curriculum, because we felt it wasn’t enough just having the knowledge of what was happening with the Japanese-Americans during World War II. The Japanese-American experience during World War II was the topic, but each of us in every state did it differently. I remember there was one project—it might have been Colorado—they took on women’s issues. We took on education; every project was different. We took it on, and Shanna and I tapped our teachers. They started developing curriculum. It was interesting because we were able to tap some of the historical things that were happening at that time. Syracuse, Utah was one of those that had a real concentration of Japanese. The Syracuse museum actually did a special exhibit on Japanese Americans. So, we went there and some of our teachers actually tapped their resources and started writing curriculum. We went to Topaz; we took our teachers as well as ourselves and met with Jane…it will 80 come to me. But anyway, she’s amazing. She actually was instrumental in buying the land in the Topaz area. There were farmers that took the land over. After the 10,000-15,000 people left the relocation camps, it made sense that the farmers would see that