<Begin Segment 14>

TI: Let's go back, let's switch gears a little bit and talk about your, your home life now. Can you tell me, like, whereabouts in Tacoma you lived?

HH: We were living on Fawcett Avenue, which is about part way up the hill. Tacoma's very hilly. In fact, present-day Tacoma campus of the University of Washington is right on the borderline on the upper street of the limits of the campus, present-day campus, Fawcett Avenue. And that's where most of the Japanese were living, on Fawcett Avenue.

TI: And so how close was your home to the store?

HH: Well, the store was on Broadway, which is the main, main street. Tacoma's numbered the First Avenue, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, but they had names associated with it. Pacific Avenue, which is part of the main, well, it was the main business area, and then it was Commerce and then Broadway. And then went up the... so we were about five blocks up the hill on Fawcett Avenue. And my dad's store was on Fifteenth, and we were living, by that time we were living, usually all the time, we were living on Fawcett Avenue, but at one time we were living around Eleventh Avenue area. But we gradually moved closer to the Japanese community, Fifteenth Avenue, which was the same street down my dad's, Fifteenth Broadway.

TI: So it was a pretty short walk for your, your dad to go to work?

HH: Yes, but it's hilly.

TI: Okay. So describe your house. What was your house like when you were on Fifteenth?

HH: Well, Eleventh was a two-story building with, we had our own bedroom, my brother and I. And then, but it was about three bedrooms. And then all the houses were that way. It was always rented, because we weren't able to buy property at the time.

TI: When you say you weren't able to buy property, because you weren't able to afford it, or because you were talking about the alien land laws?

HH: Yes. I think, I know that some were able to buy, but I don't know if it came later. But at the time, I know we, I think we could have, we could have bought, I believe, but none of us were, age-wise, we were not of age. So I don't know, really, an answer for that.

TI: Okay. I'm curious, so you lived pretty much within the Japanese community.

HH: Yes.

TI: And yet, you went to school to a place where there weren't that many Japanese. I'm just curious, did your parents ever talk to you about being Japanese, Nihonjin, and what that meant? Or did you know that you were Japanese, or did they talk about that?

HH: Well, we always knew that we were discriminated. And so, but we never, never did mention to each other or anything like that about discrimination as such, because we were always playing around with each other anyway.

TI: But how about, on the flip side, was, did your parents ever talk about being Japanese in a proud way, that you're Japanese and there's a rich tradition with Japanese, or anything like that? Did they talk about it in those ways?

HH: Well, let's see... how can I answer this? We knew that Japanese were discriminated anyway, but I didn't see that really all through my school years. But one of the reasons was probably our speaking English. It wasn't really hard, but then it was just something that we didn't have a chance to use it too much -- except for at home, except for our friends and such, we would use English or pidgin English.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.