My mother only had a fifth grade education in the American schools. When she wrote letters, she would pour over a termite eaten elementary school dictionary to spell the word correctly. If she couldn't find the word, she would write it in hiragana. Her letters were a mixture of English, Japanese, and Hawaiian pidgin. But she got her message across.
Mom would keep our letters in a little bag in her purse. She could dig up our notes from weeks, months past. Am not quite sure why she did this but guess that the letters were important to her. She kept her bankbooks in her purse and she would scrimp and save to put away money for her grandchildren...$5 here, $10 there. Her purse said much about her as an individual.
Despite not being educated by American standards, she was a businesswoman, a seamstress, a clothing designer, a teacher, and a sewing school principal. She was able to support our family when my father was disabled by a stroke when I was two years old. Her proudest moment was when she received her 8th grade graduation certificate from the adult school in Lahaina.
Although she might have been judged to be illiterate, her children were all college grads. Education was paramount and the only way to escape the poverty of our childhood. Ritsuko Okimoto Ah Sing, you did a great job in giving us, your children, the education of our lives.
