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-01-0002

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TI: Okay, so let's go to your father now. What was his name?

HH: My father's name was Kikuzo.

TI: And where in Japan was he from?

HH: He's from Yamaguchi-ken, which is the southernmost province or ken in the, on the main island of Honshu, and that's where he was born.

TI: And then in Yamaguchi-ken, he was actually born on, sort of on an island, Oshima?

HH: Oshima, yes.

TI: And do you remember the village on Oshima?

HH: Yes. They used to call it Agenosho, and now they call the whole area, expanded like a metropolitan area, but it's not that big of a city, Tachibana-cho. Cho is a city.

TI: And how big, do you know how big the island was?

HH: Oh, it's not that big, but it's one of the largest islands, just off the Inland Sea, which is what they call... I can't remember now. But anyway, just off of Hiroshima, closer to Hiroshima Bay.

TI: So how was it that your father, from this small village on this island in southern Japan, how was it that he came to the United States?

HH: Well, it goes into quite a long history, but really, he came to, when they were able to start coming, because in those days, Japan was closed, Japanese ports were closed for foreign ships and everything. And so they were able to come to U.S. He came in 1906, and he was sixteen years old, but he came to work when they were able to come to work.

TI: But why, but why did he come to work in the United States? Was it because he was excited about the opportunity, or what were the reasons why he, he came?

HH: Well, Japan has, didn't have much industry or anything else in those days. But he came because United States opened to the workers, they were not immigrants at that time, they came to work first in the Hawaii area, work in the plantations and things like that, and then, then they opened the West Coast to replace the Chinese coolie labor that were already here in the railroads and fishing and all this kind of thing.

TI: So your, your father came in 1906. What I'm hearing is so the plan was to go to the United States, the West Coast, make some money, and then go back to Japan?

HH: Yes, yes. This is the way, they were not immigrating at the time, they were just coming to work on a, under a contract-type system.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.