<Begin Segment 23>

BF: It seems like your, your family, and you, yourself, that's the one thing that people mention time and time again that -- when I ask, "What would you ask Gordon Hirabayashi if you could talk to him?" They always ask the same thing. "What made him, what makes that family be willing to stick their necks out and be different?"

GH: Yeah. Well, when that question did come up in, were you at that lunch?

TI: No.

GH: Maybe you weren't -- you were at the lunch before. Yeah. That lunch, that question came up, and, and Frank, Frank Miyamoto, who has history of our society...

BF: Right.

GH: ...well, you know, he pointed out that there's more than just individual, it's cultural. But, it's not only cultural, it's distinctive to your family. There must be something in the family we have to dig out. And, and that may be, that may be so. It's hard for somebody in the family to be able to see all that. I do notice that, I do notice that I mentioned this, that they did have friends who visited them...

BF: Caucasian friends?

GH: Yeah. Just as part of the friendship. Nothing, nothing as a project or something.

BF: Right.

GH: You know, they weren't doing a project, they just had friends.

BF: And that's very different from the rest of the Isseis in that time period, right?

GH: Yeah, and, and they felt comfortable enough to do that.

BF: Right.

GH: And, and...

BF: Even though their English wasn't very good.

GH: Yeah, yeah, and they told, they spent a lot of time with me. That, "Look at this person. He came from Switzerland," he says, see? He doesn't have the education we have, and, and right across the street. And says, "Well you know the big difference in, some of those people, the Dutch farmer who was there before the Swiss, look at the difference between them." The Dutch farmer, you could've gone into the barn as to the, walking into their house. It was so clean. The Swiss farmer doesn't keep it like that. The big difference in operation. And I think to some extent you could say that on a kind of generalized basis, if you looked at the Swiss dairies versus Dutch dairies.

BF: What was he trying to point out? That culturally there was a big world out there and people did things differently, or...?

GH: Well, Mom was trying to point out to us that there are things that you could be proud of, your own heritage. And, and, and there are things that aren't as good in some others, as compared to us. So it varies. And, and, she was telling us, "You don't need to be, you don't need to be ashamed of your own heritage." And pointing out all the things that she was proud of. And so, and she, she always went ahead with that attitude. And she mixed with that. So they always met her, not as someone who was ashamed, but they got something out of that interaction with her. So, and she did more, 'cause she was more outgoing than Dad. So her English was better than Dad's, 'cause she used it more.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.