<Begin Segment 19>

TI: Okay, so you get this letter, and you come back, and I'm guessing that you were interested in going to the University of Washington.

HH: Well, I did, but, see, but I didn't know how my family would...

TI: Right, that's what I was going to ask you. How did your parents think about this?

HH: Well, when I came back and I told 'em about getting a letter from Bob, and anyway, he, my parents both, especially my dad, said, "Yes, you can." I mean, he didn't make any objection. "But," he says -- and when I mentioned that if I go, I won't be able to help the family. Like all the other people, other students, they, if they worked somewhere, all the money went into the family. So I said, "I won't be able to help." But he said, "No, that's okay, if you can find your way to go to school." So that was one of the reasons why...

TI: When you said "find your way," that means you would have to, it's okay for you to go school as long as you could pay for it.

HH: Yes, uh-huh. So I said, "Well, if I work the summer season in Alaska, I could pay for my school tuition," which was really, it was real cheap for us because 100 dollars was for three quarters, I mean, yeah, three quarters.

TI: So for the whole year of the school, it was 100 dollars.

HH: For a whole year, yes. In the summertime we would go to Alaska, so, but then I had to, I decided to "batch" my way, in other words, I would live away from the campus. So I lived in the Japanese community area, around Jackson Street or Washington Street or Yesler.

TI: I'm sorry, you used this term "batch." And that's like commuting, or what's "batch" mean?

HH: Well, you had to commute by streetcar, so you had to be somewhere close to the streetcar. Then I would cook and live off campus, so that's what I did.

TI: And that's called "batching"?

HH: Yes.

TI: So you're kind of living off campus where it's cheaper, you could find a cheaper place to stay, and you could work or do something, then you would then take the streetcar...

HH: And one of the reasons was that I was working, I was able to work at the Japanese American Courier, that newspaper, that I was able to, I had to be closer to the Japanese community.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.