<Begin Segment 26>

DH: What have you learned from the restoration experience?

JH: Well, I've learned that money means nothing. I think honor is more important than anything else, and when I say that I think through all the struggles that my parents went through the war and through their lives, I think that one thing that they did keep was their honor and their dignity. And they were poor, but they were rich because they had honor and dignity, and I think that's the one big lesson that I learned. I think the other thing is that if you have an honor and dignity, I think you can be very proud of yourself no matter what you are. It isn't a question of what ethnic group you're from, it's whether you have honor and dignity, and I think that will carry you further than any dollars will ever do.

DH: About the time that you were coming back to the site to restore it, the redress movement was really heating up. Did that have any effect on the restoration or the size?

JH: No. No, it did not. Redress had no -- it was actually after the fact anyway.

DH: So this was more of personal.

JH: That's right, yeah.

DH: Because you were very active in the Bainbridge Island Japanese community.

JH: Yes. But that was reactivated basically about fourteen years ago and so this decision necessarily, didn't necessarily, or this place didn't necessarily, or the changes I made to this place were decisions I made didn't necessarily reflect my thinking as far as the Japanese American community is concerned.

DH: What do you want other people to know about this restoration project? And when I ask that I'm thinking that a lot of the people who will get to see our interview will be other generations who are studying this time period and studying Japanese Americans. What do you want those people, younger generations, outsiders, to know about your work and what you've done?

JH: Well, I think I'm somewhat of a strong activist as far as racial discrimination is concerned. I put myself on the carpet several times making a stand, and sometimes that's not a very wise decision when you're in, when you're kind of a public figure. But I think you have to just believe and work for what you believe. The other thing is that -- and this may not quite answer your question -- but I believe that everybody in this world should search out their roots, and that was again one of the biggest values of this project was: I wasn't totally aware of my family history until I started to develop Bainbridge Gardens, then I said, "Wait a minute here. I got to learn more about my family," and I'm still learning. And those things have to be recorded quickly because the life period is very short. Before you know it, your information sources may be gone so I think people should, no matter what age or what period you're from, they should start recording their histories and finding out all the information. There is so much richness in the study of history. There's so many rewards in what you can find out about your family's life. There's some negative things you'll find too, but at least you know what the direction, where that direction came from. And it's invaluable to know about your personal history.

DH: In other interviews you talked a lot about legacy. What does that word mean to you?

JH: Well, legacy is basically something that your forbearers left behind. Basically it connotes positive things. I'm sure there are negative legacies too, but we don't seem so delve on negative legacies, we think about positive legacies. And those legacies add to the richness of your life and the richness of your history. And so they are very, very important and those need to be recorded. It is part of history. So each day you live you're building up your history and your legacies, and we hope that they'll help the generations to come.

DH: Do you have anything else you want to add to this interview?

JH: Well, for the most part I guess I want to reiterate that moral values are probably more important than anything else, and it will carry you farther than anything else. And I think success of any individual or business comes from a good family background, which I think my parents were.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.