<Begin Segment 12>

TI: So how large was your class in 1936?

HH: I think it's, at the time, I think it was about 400 or so graduates.

TI: And of those 400, how many other Japanese Americans were in your class?

HH: I think at the time we went there, I believe there were only about seven or eight, both boys and girls.

TI: So where did most of the Japanese Americans, which high school did they attend?

HH: They went to Stadium High School.

TI: So like on the wrestling team then, were you the only Japanese American, or were there others?

HH: No, there were several others.

TI: And by having just a few of you at Lincoln, how in general were Japanese Americans accepted at the school?

HH: Well, most of the others did not participate in any of these extra-curricular type, but I was, being on the wrestling team and being team captain, I was very popular in a way. I was in the letterman's club and everything else. So really, I didn't feel discriminated or anything like that. I had several black fellows, they were athletes, football players and in swimming I had a very good swimmer that was also on varsity wrestling. So I was with the more ethnic or minority group anyway in Lincoln High School. But I did not feel any discrimination to really speak of.

[Interruption]

TI: So we finished the first tape just talking about your wrestling, and the thing that was interesting to me was how there were few Japanese Americans, so you had to be around other races: whites, blacks. And I just wanted to get a sense of, or other ethnic groups, when you were with the other ethnic groups, did you guys ever talk about the, like, blacks being discriminated against and things like that in Tacoma?

HH: Well, mostly it was Italians, because they were farmers also.

TI: And so were Italians viewed as kind of a minority group?

HH: Well, Italians also had, when they first came from Europe, around the Chicago area and such, coal-mining areas, I think they had... but most of the Italians were farmers in Seattle. And even the Rainier valley, it was Italian farmers, and in Columbia City and all the area, mostly were Italians. But we did not have any connection with the Jewish people until I came to Seattle, because Tacoma didn't have as many. But they do have a Jewish synagogue, but we didn't know if they were Jewish or whatever, they all looked like whites.

TI: But so, I'm thinking, though, like, on the wrestling team, you got to know, say, some of the black football players.

HH: Yes.

TI: And I'm just curious, when you talked with them, did they ever talk about the discrimination they felt?

HH: No, no. In those days, when I was wrestling, it was more a matter of the weight and size, that only kind of contact we have was maybe like boxing or wrestling or some individual type, not the team type. Although wrestling was a team effort, but it was more, meets were individual basis.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.