133 they were insistent upon regular attendance of their children in church and Sunday School. In the academic realm they encouraged them to excel in their studies, even though this-- ~~~~t , - t~ -- children would be limited in their help on the vegetable farm. Finally, they admonished their children to be model citizens who would not tarnish the image of the Japanese in America. Be- cause of these factors, Dr. Iwata was one of the early Japanese "Nisei" in the San Fernando Valley to join the Caucasian Boy Scout Troop and to move up through the ranks into a position of leadership. Dr. Iwata graduated from San Fernando High School in 1936, but the fin- ancial condition caused by the Depression forced him to work a year before entering college. In 1938, he entered the University of California at Los Angeles for one year, being forced to drop out and work again. In the mean- time, his sister and her husband, who was a minister, made plans to go to Japan and. establish a church in his native village. Knowing Dr. Iwata's keen interest in Japanese culture and his concern about the deteriorating relations between Japan and the United States, they invited him to accompany them and study in Japan, hoping his study might help to serve as a bridge to establish better understanding between the country of his birth and that of his parents . Dr. Iwata accepted this offer, and in 1940 he entered school in Tokyo . War between Japan and the United States began in December, 1941 . The War and Dr. Iwata ' s health problems separated him from his family in the United States seven years. During the War his parents and family , along with other Japanese living on the West Coast, were confined in the internment camps . During his stay in Japan, he contracted tuberculous pneumonia and spent several months in a hospital. Returning to the United States in 1947, aboard a United States hospital ship, still desperately ill with tuberculosi ! he was confined in a Sanitarium for another five years undergoing several operations, including a thoracophlosty.
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