<Begin Segment 40>

LH: Now, does she have, does she have a daughter?

FH: She have, they adopted boy and a girl.

LH: I see, about how old would they be?

FH; The boy's just turned thirty, and the girl is twenty-eight or nine or some. They both live in an apartment now.

LH: And, do they ever have questions about your internment experience?

FH: Well, not too much, but... that's when my granddaughter learned in civil, civics book, she saw auntie's picture, and... we're the ones that found it, it was towards the end of the book. She had brought the book home to study. And we were just turning this book, and surprised to see my sister, and at the end of book they had about evacuation. And then so, she said, "Oh, that's auntie." She recognized it too. She went took the book back the next day, and show her teacher the book and told her that was her auntie, and the teacher didn't believe it. And, couple days later, again, she says -- oh, my daughter asked her what the teacher say -- and she said, "Oh, she didn't know anything, she didn't believe me, I don't think she believed me."

LH: Is that, do you mean to say that she didn't believe that the internment ever happened?

FH: Yeah. And then couple of days later, I guess she studied or something, she found out, and told Paula to come for me, and to come and talk about it in civics class. But, I didn't want to go, and my daughter said, "I'll go with you and help you." She's really outspoken, yeah. But, I think it must have been Thanksgiving or, it wasn't Christmas, holiday came along then school was out, so, I lucked out, I didn't have to go. [Laughs] Top of that, they said there was five or six civic class in a day, wanted me to come for every...

LH: It would have been a full schedule. If you were to speak to a class...

FH: Yeah, if my daughter help me I would have gone.

LH: So, so if you were to speak to a class, now, and, and these kids were asking you about what you have learned from the whole internment experience, what would you tell them?

FH: What would I tell them? Don't do that no more. [Laughs] Yeah, it's, I can't say too much against it either. We didn't like it. We were worried. But, that's part of the, I guess, the country have to protect themself, too. They were protecting us too, I think. 'Cause you hear of different incidents, you know, oh that never happened to us.

LH: Okay. My last question is, how do you think the Bainbridge Island Japanese community survived the whole internment experience?

FH: Oh yes, Bainbridge Island survived, sure. We all survived. But, not many farmers left. The young people went to school, higher school, lot of 'em professor, graduate. I think it was good for 'em, children to get away from, see the country. I think if we lived on the Island, I wouldn't be surprised if there were, you never know but, be still farming. They got education, and lot of 'em doing well.

LH: Okay. Is there anything else that you'd like to add?

FH: What?

LH: Is there anything else that you would like to add? Anything you would like to say?

FH: Thank you!

LH: We thank you. Today we've been interviewing Fumi Hayashida. The videographer is Matt Emery. The interviewer is Lori Hoshino. The second interviewer is Alice Ito. Thank you very much.

AI: Thanks very much.

FH: Thank you.

<End Segment 40> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.