<Begin Segment 21>

TI: Okay, so let's go, now you're talking about this, this integration process with the, the Hawaiians and your group. Describe how that went.

FS: Well, the, they, of course, they outnumbered the mainlanders about two to one. [Laughs] And the thing about those Hawaiian kids in those days, they were mostly plantation kids, kids who worked, and they all, they talked to each -- well, their language was pidgin English, and I'm sure they didn't know any other language. That's, that's the way they talked so they could communicate with the Filipinos and the Portuguese and the Hawaiians or whatever, the Chinese. So it was just, at the point it was just, it was almost, you couldn't really understand it. You could listen carefully and pretty soon you'd get, get the message. But you'd, these guys were really, really sensitive about that, being... if you asked them about, about what'd they say about two times, you might get a knuckle sandwich or something. [Laughs] They, they really resented being questioned about it. They outnumbered us, so they were, they were, they did what they wanted to us. Most of us learned to talk a little pidgin just so we could get by. [Laughs]

TI: And so in those early days, was there quite a bit of fighting?

FS: There was, there was. The Hawaiian kids had a bad thing. If they were gonna beat up on you, he'd get about four or five of his friends, and if you were walking back from the theater or the PX, these guys would jump 'ya and then punch you and kick 'ya, and you'd really get beat up. There was very seldom anything that's a one-on-one confrontation. They, it was something I suppose they learned in their, their plantation camps or something. You use massive force. [Laughs]

TI: So did that ever happen to you? Did you ever get...

FS: No, no. A couple times I, I just backed down. And so that, no, it never did happen to me.

TI: And how was it when members of the 442 met, like, Caucasian soldiers? I mean, what was the interaction between that? Was there ever any problems between...

FS: Oh, I, I was never involved in it, but I, you would hear about it, and I'm sure that our guys had, would go get taken, they'd go out and pick up our guys at the PX. The Hawaiian kids were hard drinkers. They, they liked to drink beer and they would drink a lot of beer, and then they'd some of them would get belligerent. And so -- [laughs] -- anyway, being a good young Methodist young man, I avoided the PX, I avoided drinking beer, and so I really didn't get involved in that very often.

TI: Well, it must have been an eye-opening experience for you. Here you were from Spokane, Hillyard, actually, not that much exposure to other Japanese Americans, and then to be in this situation where there are thousands of Japanese American men and...

FS: Yeah, they were all, I had, I had never seen so many Japanese people in my life. [Laughs] It was, it was really an interesting thing.

TI: Now, do you recall, I mean, by being in that kind of group setting, how that felt for you? Was it, was it uncomfortable, or how would you describe that feeling you had?

FS: We were all in the same, in the army, we're all in the same boat, and lived in this, in this hutment, actually, it's not a tent, the building has a roof over it but the sides were open. It had storm sashes that you could close, but it was open. And you lived together, twelve or fifteen men. So you either got along or they, they got thrown out. So no, finally, you learned to get along. Like I say, I learned to talk a little bit of pidgin, and that made it just a hell of a lot easier. The thing is, the Hawaiian kids at the point, I think they resented the idea that you were talking pure English. Some of us had been in college, and so it, it was, it was, there was always this tension if you tried to, if you acted smarter than they would, you could end up getting a knuckle sandwich of some kind.

TI: So the, the language of the 442 became sort of this, this pidgin almost.

FS: Oh, yeah. It was, it was pidgin, yes. We were outnumbered, you had to talk a little pidgin or you'd just, you had problems. It was just a matter of learning how to get along.

TI: So I'm curious, to this day, you still visit Hawaii to visit some of your buddies. When you go to see them, do you slip back into pidgin?

FS: Oh, sure. I use, I use that... those, those guys have gotten older, and they, particularly those guys on Oahu. But I, I just hear myself getting that inflection, they have a different inflection, and I do that. I don't know what it is. It's not, it's not protective coloration anymore, it's just something that I hear these guys talking like this, and I do it, too.

TI: So I'm curious, what does your wife say when she hears you talking sort of in pidgin?

FS: Doesn't say anything. I think she, we've been doing this for so long that she doesn't pay any attention to it. [Laughs] But you go out on the outer islands, and there's much, there's still a lot of pidgin. And our guys, some of our guys over on Maui still talk pidgin.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.