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TI: So today is November 6, 2007. We're in Las Vegas for the Minidoka Reunion, the 2007 Minidoka Reunion, we're at the Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas, and on camera we have Dana Hoshide, and then I'm Tom Ikeda, the executive director of Densho doing the interview. And so I'm going to start off with sort of the beginning, and just ask you, what was the full name given to you at birth?

LH: At birth, Lucius Hiraku Horiuchi.

TI: Now, "Lucius" is an interesting name. How did you get the name Lucius?

LH: Well, when I was born at five o'clock in the morning on July 22, 1928, my grandfather was -- I'm sorry, my father was off hunting with the imperial household medical doctor, who was visiting Seattle at the time. And when they learned that I was born at five in the morning, he decided, in consultation with my father, that light, five o'clock in the morning, Hiraku and Lucius would be a good combination. And Lucius does also mean, besides "light," it means, like hiraku. I think my father was quite civic-minded, and remembered that the Father of Democracy in Rome was named Lucius. But actually, there are a number of emperors and actually manservants also mentioned in Shakespeare named Lucius, but that's how I got the name.

TI: How interesting. So 1928 you were born, where were you born?

LH: In Seattle.

TI: And do you recall, or has anyone told you, were you born in a hospital?

LH: Oh, no, I was born in the house that my father owned in, near Lake Washington, and it's very interesting, my uncle, the famous artist, Paul Horiuchi, was living with us at the time I was born. And if you know anything about Paul Horiuchi, also true name Chikamasa, the day after I was born is when the Suda family had their accident of most of the family dying in a ferryboat accident. And he, Paul Chikamasa married Bernadette Suda.

TI: So her family, so essentially your, your aunt, her family was -- and I'm not familiar with the --

LH: Oh, you're not familiar with that. It was in 1928, July 23rd. The father, the Suda family, the mother, father, several children, they went on to the ferry and the car didn't stop, and broke through the chain. And all the members of the family died except Bernadette, I think was -- not think, I know she's fifteen years older than I am, and still in excellent health in Seattle. I just saw her because my oldest sister Lillian, she died and I went up to give one of the eulogies. Her husband, John Ishii, was the first lay president of Saint Martin's University. And I think he may have been the first higher education president in the country, a Nikkei. But...

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.