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-01-0051

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TI: Okay, so now I want to talk a little bit about your wife. During this period, you were working on the newspaper. What was she doing?

HH: She was working as a teacher in kindergarten. By that time, they started having classes in a recreation hall that they had, which was close to our area. We were on the far southern edge of the camp, and then there's a big moat separating our area. And we used to call our area, four blocks that was on the south side of the moat, we called it "Alaska."

TI: Why'd you call it Alaska?

HH: [Laughs] Because it's like Alaska. It wasn't because we had Alaskans, we were all from Tacoma.

TI: Because you thought you guys were so isolated from everyone else?

HH: Yes, I think so. Anyways, it was just on the other side of the moat, and she was working. And then shortly after, she became ill and she had to go to the base hospital. And at that time, the doctor found out that she was pregnant and they questioned about her health. So my wife said this is what she found out, that she'll have to stay in the hospital for the duration of the pregnancy until the baby's born.

TI: Well, in general, what was the health care like in camp? I mean...

HH: Well, the base camp was manned, all the doctors were from, civilians who were former doctors in San Francisco or Seattle or wherever. All the camps were that way. None of the people, workers, were... only the heads of the certain departments like recreation and our newspaper and everything, was headed by personnel from the administration. But everything else was like internal security and all that, patrol, and recreation department, they were all evacuees.

TI: Okay, so in the case of the healthcare, so I think what you're saying is there were a few positions that were administration or Caucasians who had those positions, but in the case of most other ones, they were Japanese Americans, from within camp. And that is also the, the health care staff was also Japanese American?

HH: Yes.

TI: Okay, got it.

HH: And the nurses, they all were from, evacuees.

TI: And these were all not only Japanese Americans, but they were trained to be doctors and nurses. That's what they were doing in their previous, before they were in the camps, they were doctors and nurses?

HH: Well, doctors. See, they had three classifications as far as the pay. There was a professional and then skilled, and then unskilled. So like doctors, they were all professional, nineteen dollars a month. And sixteen dollars for the skilled, and unskilled like working in the mess halls and such were twelve dollars. Newspaper editor and such was nineteen dollars. We're professionals. [Laughs] So in that way, the doctors were, fortunately for us, we had very good doctors from San Francisco. So that's, I knew one of the doctors that my wife was under care, he's the one that mentioned that, "You could continue, but for your health, that it would be better if you maybe consider abortion," so he left the decision to us. And so when I heard about it, I said, "No way." I'm worried about her health. I thought maybe pregnancy will be hard on her. So to this day, I still every once in a while think about that time, when I see my daughter, the oldest one, Janet Sachi, that I did make that decision. But my wife insisted, "No, I want to go through with it."

TI: So that must have been a very scary time for you to hear that your wife was so ill that with the pregnancy, one of the doctors said that it might be better for her to have an abortion. And you were concerned about your wife's health, so you really felt that perhaps you should go through with the abortion. But it was your wife who decided, no, that --

HH: Yes, we had a choice. I mean, he just said, "You can, but you have to stay in the base hospital all through the..." because I think some of it was that the food, I think the hospitals had better food than the mess hall. I think that was one of the things, because you couldn't get milk and things like that freely, and orange, fresh orange and things like that. So I think that that played a part, too, about better food in the hospital, base.

TI: So what's interesting to me, so when it comes to decisions that you as a couple have to make, you and your wife, how do you guys make decisions? I mean, if you think one thing and your wife thinks something else, how do you guys decide which way to go on decisions?

HH: Well, I was all for her health, really. So my decision, but I didn't say, "This is what I want you to do." We talked about it in the base hospital, but she said, "I want to go through, and I'll stay." And I thought about it, this may be six months or so, six months or seven months. And I just couldn't see her in a hospital. But it was more her health. So it wasn't hard for me, but it must have been hard for her, but she was willing to go through with staying. And later, after we came back to Seattle, she said, "Hey, I had a good time." [Laughs]

TI: Because she was in the hospital, in a bed all this time?

HH: Yes, the people that she had... in fact, when she left, they had a little autograph booklet that somebody carved on the, they made the little thing, some of the patients there that wrote something on it and gave it to my wife. And we still have that. And it sounded like she was really very popular and had a good time.

TI: She was there for a long time, so she really got to know everyone.

<End Segment 51> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.