<Begin Segment 28>

TI: Today is January 27, 2006, and we're in the second day of our interview with Mr. Hoshide. And yesterday we pretty much talked about that time period before the war, got to, I think, after you graduated in 1940. Before we go to Pearl Harbor, I wanted to actually talk about something that happened a few years earlier, in, like, 1938, having to do with your citizenship. And, because as an older Nisei, I believe you had dual citizenship; you had both citizenship, U.S. citizenship by the fact that you were born in the United States, but also you had Japanese citizenship. And can you, can you talk about what your father did?

HH: Well, in those days, anyone born of a Japanese or from a foreign country, especially Japan, China, whatever, I guess, but for Japanese, my father had to register me with the consul in Tacoma at the time, consul. And the idea was that because the Japanese government had, I guess, claim on anybody born in the United States, but the United States had, anyone born in the United States or whatever, that they are American citizens. So that's where dual citizenship came in.

TI: So let me, let me see if I understand this. So you, when you were born, you were registered with the Japanese consul, and that was probably something that happened because many Japanese were here to perhaps work, but then some thought they might go back to Japan, so they wanted to make sure that the children had Japanese citizenship in case they went back. And so that was happening, and so that was a way for, to be registered. But now in 1938, your father, after registering for Japanese, for Japanese citizenship, then did what? He renounced your citizenship, didn't he?

HH: That's about 1938, he did tell me that I have a kind of a Japanese citizenship also, because he had to register with the consul. But the reason was that when my parents or immigrants came from Japan, they only came to work, and they didn't intend to, or they weren't even thinking about staying there.

TI: Right, but in 1938, your father registered you, or he --

HH: No, no. I was already registered.

TI: You were already registered, but you took...

HH: And so he told me that he had cancelled my citizenship, my brother's and my citizenship.

TI: Got it.

HH: So that means that I did not have any dual, I was not a dual citizen.

TI: So what did that mean to you when he did that?

HH: Well, I was kind of surprised, but it didn't register with me, anything. That's okay, you know, because by that time, my father had already decided that their life is better here than going back, being the youngest in a Japanese family, he had no claim to the property and everything else under the Japanese system, heirs and such.

TI: So it was really a statement by your father in some ways, saying that, "We're going to stay here. This is our country."

HH: Yes.

TI: Okay. And was that a hard thing for him to do, to unregister you as a, as a citizen?

HH: I don't think so, because it was, whether they went through officially or not, I don't know whether the consul did, but my father told me that he did have me not become, not a Japanese citizen, so I don't have the dual citizenship.

TI: And he did this for his children, not for himself. Because he couldn't do that because he wasn't able to become a U.S. citizen, so he kept his Japanese citizenship, it was more for his children.

HH: Yes.

TI: Okay, good. The other thing you mentioned, so he did this for you and your brother.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.