Growing up in California in the 1970s as the child of issei, William H. Saito recalls how his father imported math textbooks from Japan and insisted he study them extra hard to gain an edge over others.
Every night after a long day's work, Saito's father, a chemist, would look over the answers to the various problems he had assigned to his son in the morning. They were several grade levels above U.S. standards.
By the time Saito entered junior high school, his math teacher called his parents to tell them he was beyond the scope of their math curriculum.