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-01-0031

<Begin Segment 31>

TI: So how long did you stay in Tacoma before you returned to Seattle?

HH: No, I just stayed that one day and then came back.

TI: So when you came back to Seattle, and at this time you were working at the Japanese American Courier with James Sakamoto, what was it like at the office? Did people talk about what was going on?

HH: Of course, and Jimmy was getting very active with the press and whatever, to try to... especially when they talked about maybe evacuation and things like that, that Jimmy was more or less a spokesman for the community.

TI: So you have this kind of interesting place, where you would see Jimmy in a more informal setting like in the office.

HH: Yes.

TI: Because we can go through the papers, and he has all these more formal statements of how, what he thought. I'm curious, when he was just in the office and you guys are sitting around and he's talking about this, what was he saying? What was he thinking that he needed to do to help the community?

HH: Well, I was really never in the office all the time, except the, just to bring the, write an article or something like that. But I had a typewriter so I would be writing in my own home where I was staying, batching. Because I had to bring the articles down to set it up on the linotype machine.

TI: But at this point, did you continue writing stories about sports, or did Jimmy want you to start writing other things?

HH: No, I just continued, because I had some problems with getting the facilities and whatever, I had to continue doing, but we were trying to keep the sports program going.

TI: So you were trying to keep some normalcy, some normal things happening in the community. But you said you had problems with getting facilities? Was it because of the war that that was getting harder, or what happened?

HH: Well, this was before the war. You see, we were using Parks Department, especially across from here, Buddhist Church.

TI: So the Collins Playfield?

HH: Collins Playfield, and I had to deal with Mr. Evans, I think, was the Parks Department head, the department that I had to request for facility use like basketball, Collins Playfield, and baseball, maybe like Columbia field, which is on Rainier Avenue, but south part of Seattle.

TI: And so after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, did your relationship change at all with the Parks Department, or did it stay the same? I mean, was it easier or harder to get facilities for...

HH: No, I think by that time, we kind of had to cancel the program as far as, because it was December, and then the next year it was only, basketball season would be just about over and baseball won't be started yet. So I think we did disband the Courier League as a sports program.

TI: So you had to deal with a lot of the organizational issues, sort of stopping lots of the programs, and people were probably unsure what was going on, are there going to be basketball games and everything. When this was all happening, what do you think the -- because you had an opportunity probably to see and talk to other people -- what was the mood of people sort of in this December/January timeframe?

HH: Well, right after the beginning, it was more the, some of the leaders, families that had their father taken away and everything else. And so I think by that time, the JACL would more or less be the center part of the... and a lot of information would be coming from the JACL office.

TI: Now, I'm curious, so Jimmy Sakamoto was involved with the JACL as well as running the Japanese American Courier. Was there like an overlap? Did a lot of the JACL sort of people come over to the Courier a lot to talk to Jimmy, and was there a lot of sort of overlap there?

HH: I don't know whether they came directly to, but it's hard to say what happened in the office, 'cause I was, now I was already graduated, so I wasn't in school. And so I would go every day down there and many of the things that, we had to keep the business going, so I had to assume some of the business portion of, like, keeping the advertising and all that, I had to help out. Jimmy asked me to do certain things and I'll do other things besides just writing.

TI: Now, I'm thinking that after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, you were still able to publish information.

HH: Yes.

TI: The other Japanese community newspapers, they were shut down, though, at this point, weren't they? The Japanese dailies?

HH: I have no idea about that. I just can't...

TI: I think they were. I'd have to go back and check, but so I'm thinking that the Japanese American Courier probably became an important source of information.

HH: I think the editors or publisher, I think Mr. Arima might have been one of the ones, because they naturally, I think those are the people who were more or less considered as the leaders of the community.

TI: So within the, especially the Nisei community, in terms of getting information about what was happening within the Japanese American community, the Japanese American Courier must have been an important source of information.

HH: Yes, it was, because Jimmy has contacts with the downtown newspapers, the Times and P-I, and Tribune, I think it was at the time, or Star or something. There was another small, three newspapers.

<End Segment 31> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.