Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Hideo Hoshide Interview I
Narrator: Hideo Hoshide
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: January 26 & 27, 2006
Densho ID: denshovh-hhideo-01-0010

<Begin Segment 10>

TI: So you've been away from Tacoma for two and a half years. Describe what it was like when you came back to Tacoma. Did it seem different or the same?

HH: Well, the difference was that we had to start going to school. So we attended Central School, elementary school, which is not too close to the Japanese area.

TI: I'm sorry, you said not too close?

HH: No, not too close.

TI: So how, how far away?

HH: We had to walk. Well, I think that was, in a matter of blocks, I think we were, we were living around Thirteenth or Fifteenth, so it must have been about twelve or so blocks away.

TI: So did you and your brother just walk to school every day?

HH: Yes.

TI: So I'm curious, your brother was in Japan during the same time with you. So when he came back with you, did he start the same grade as you?

HH: Yes, he was older by two years. But we started in grade school together, and when we moved up to junior high school, and also high school. But at the high school, he went to another high school. There were three high schools in Tacoma. I went to Lincoln High School, which was southern, south of Tacoma, south side. And my brother went to more north school, Stadium High School.

TI: So let me make sure I understand. So you entered elementary school at the same time, you were the same grade?

HH: Yes.

TI: And then you went through elementary, junior high, and then at that point, he went to Stadium High School and you went to Lincoln High School?

HH: Yes. The reason for that is that we were on the, kind of like a border line as far as which schools that we can go. There was another one in between, Bellarmine...

TI: Bellarmine?

HH: Yeah, Bellarmine.

TI: Bellarmine, okay.

HH: Yeah, it was a Catholic school, so we didn't go to the Catholic school, and, but he went to Stadium because they had more business-type courses, like office work and all that. And being a south-side school, there was a lot more minorities, blacks. And at the Lincoln High School, they had more of a trade-type. But Lincoln High School was the largest high school in the state of Washington.

TI: So I'm curious, so here you had two different high schools, and Stadium High School, it's still there today. It's a beautiful high school in a...

HH: In the Stadium area.

TI: Yeah, the Stadium area, and it's a relatively higher-income neighborhood.

HH: Yes.

TI: And then you have Lincoln, which was more predominately minority, and it doesn't look like a nice, as nice a school as Stadium. And then, so you and your brother were coming out at the same time, your older brother goes to Stadium, you go to Lincoln. Did he have to, like, take special tests or anything to get into Stadium?

HH: No, no there wasn't.

TI: It was just that he just had to apply and go there.

HH: Yes.

TI: Now, didn't, it seems a little strange to me that they would split the two of you up and not send you to the same high school. It would just be, it seems like, more convenient to go to the same high school?

HH: No, because it was not a matter of transportation, we had to walk both ways. Because if we didn't have... well, we did have a car, a Liberty touring car, they called it. Anyway, we did have one of the few families that had a car, but my mother was not able to drive or anything like that, so it wasn't a means of transportation. We either took a streetcar or a walk.

TI: So was the choice of high schools pretty much up to you and your brother to decide which high school?

HH: Yes, yes.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.