<Begin Segment 29>

AI: Well, I wanted to fill in just a few gaps in-between what happened, the time that you were at UC Berkeley, and then, and then up from that time. Now you, you got married. You met your wife-to-be while you were living in Berkeley?

HK: In Berkeley, yes. Yes. I was... well, I was in Berkeley even after I had dropped out of school. I don't think I was attending classes, but I was still living in Berkeley because of my job situation, and she had moved to Berkeley because she got a job as a home economics teacher at a continuation high school in Berkeley. And one of her job was to, to prepare the lunch, the public as well as the staff and the faculty and the students and whoever, could come and have lunch. But she would have the students work on the lunch, and she would be in charge of that, as well as she, she had other classes to teach. But she was in Berkeley, and that's where I met her, and we were going to church service, and I knew that she was from my hometown, and so I knew the parents somewhat, and family. So, yeah, well, it was, I was thirty-four, I think, and she was about twenty-four, twenty-... twenty-four. And so were both ready to, to be married, and so we did. And then I got a job just before being married, in '56, early '57, we were married in August. So in early '57 I got a job, so that... [laughs]. Yeah. It was very simple, we had a, we didn't want to invite anyone, and so we had our two witnesses, my friend and her sister, and we had a friend who, who was a photographer, I mean, who took pictures, so he took all our photos and then the minister and his wife, they were our guests, actually. And then their children, they're all adults now, but they were children, there were three, two or three. Anyway, they kind of were in the background -- [laughs] -- being our guests or something. And then we went to lunch at this rather first-rate Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, and we had our wedding lunch, with all the... you know, it was a simple lunch. And in those days, it didn't cost very much. It was very... and on our limited budget, we managed. My wife bought her dress, I guess she had more money than I did. [Laughs] I bought her a ring, and it was, she liked it, but it was, didn't cost very much. [Laughs] And she bought me a ring, and this probably cost more than hers. And then we had our ceremony, very simple Buddhist ceremony, and then there happened to be a Buddhist meeting at, in Monterey, Asilomar. And so there was a guy who was driving over there, so we got a ride with him. And we spent our honeymoon in Monterey. [Laughs] And it was on, over the Labor Day weekend, so we married the 31st, we were there during the Labor Day weekend, we came home on the Greyhound bus, and that was our wedding. [Laughs]

AI: What's your wife's name?

HK: Sadako. "Sadako of the thousand cranes," yeah. And I didn't even... I went to see her parents, but I never, I forgot that, or didn't think to ask the father if I could marry her. [Laughs] Of course, they had checked on me, that I was okay. But I realized I should have done that. [Laughs]

AI: Well, also, in an earlier conversation, you mentioned that you knew of her father from earlier.

HK: Yes, because he was active in Tule Lake. He was a radical leader, very articulate, yeah, and a good speaker.

AI: So, when, when he would speak, what kinds of things would he, would he speak on?

HK: Well, anything political. I remember when the carpenters were about to strike, he was the leader. He was urging them to strike, and what was wrong with everything, the administration, this and that. So that he was, he had the whole group following him. And then during the registration, he said too much, that the administration figured he was a leader and he should be taken away, so he was sent to Santa Fe. And he spent many months there, he was the last to come out. But I liked him, he was a good father, father-in-law. I really liked him. And it was mutual, he, he liked me, and I just regret that I didn't ask him. [Laughs]

AI: But it sounds like in any case, that he wouldn't have objected to you on the basis of any of your decisions at Tule Lake, or at...

HK: Oh, no. No. And he had already kind of asked around, "How is he?" [Laughs] And he was given pretty good report, and so, yeah. So we, they didn't come, because they weren't invited, and I guess they, it would have been a hardship for them to come, on everyone. That's what we thought, so we didn't, and we couldn't afford anything elaborate. So we had a very simple wedding, and it's worked out well.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.