<Begin Segment 11>

TI: I'm gonna do a little tangent here, because you're mentioning these names, and you say, like, Sodie and her real name was Sadako, I mean, just in terms of nicknames, one of the things that I find interesting about a lot of the Niseis is the use of nicknames. And oftentimes they are sort of variations off their Japanese names, and sometimes not.

LH: That's right.

TI: And I just wanted to ask you, were there any nicknames that sort of stand out in your mind that you find sort of interesting?

LH: Yes, well, there's a story I always tell which is not true even though the nicknames are true. I would ask Caucasian friends, "You know, some Nisei had these nicknames they picked up, so tell me which is the male and the female: Fleazy Okazaki marries Bugsy Ono." They did not marry each other, but Fleazy Okazaki was a Nisei from Seattle who I knew in camp who was much older than I was. In fact, I think he recently died. And Bugsy Ono was in high school in camp with us.

TI: So how did these nicknames come about?

LH: Well, there's one nickname that I recall, it was Utah. And people thought, well, his name was Yutaka, so they called him from the state of Utah, but his name was really George Yutaka Onodera, but they called him Utah. And my oldest brother I mentioned, Ed, Edwin Horiuchi, who lives up in Bellevue, he had finished Garfield, I believe, or was it Franklin? No, Garfield. And he was a teacher in camp for a while, and then worked for the supervisor of, Superintendent of Education of Minidoka. And he liked to give nicknames to people that stuck. I mean, Kaz Suyama was called Blots, Blots... but why "Blots," who's to say? And I've forgotten some guy with a Japanese name, and he ended up as Jake. And why is King Tamura "King," I don't know.

TI: But your brother --

LH: But there was Knuckles, and she's here at this, this reunion. Beautiful girl, my class, and "Knuckles" comes from Naoko. And why "Porky" for Porky Noritake? A beautiful girl, maybe because she was a little plump? I'm not sure.

TI: [Laughs] And so your brother, sort of, had... he liked to actually try to give people nicknames that would stick.

LH: They did stick.

TI: So it was almost like a contest of some type, or just sort of a...

LH: Well, I don't know. He was just one of these guys... like our current so-called president, because he wasn't really elected initially, was he, in 2000? Likes to give everybody nicknames and put people down. But my brother Ed, he wasn't putting people down when he gave them nicknames.

TI: Now, were you, did you ever have a nickname?

LH: I never did. It was always Lucius. They called me "Luscious Lucius," the girls did, anyway. But I belonged to a little group called the Ziros. Not the Zero fighter plane, but the Ziros. And my oldest brother organized it, and I remember we bought jackets through the mail order, and my name was Lucius. [Indicates lapel] And Kaz Suyama's had Blots, and Tom Tsutakawa, I guess his name was Tom.

TI: And how'd you spell "Ziro"? Z...

LH: Z-I-R-O-S, Ziros.

TI: Okay.

LH: But it was a club or a gang, but not the kind of gang you would consider in this day and age.

TI: And did, was Ziros sort from Zeros? Was it kind of a...

LH: I don't know. Again, and that's from my oldest brother who loved picking names or nicknames, and playing on words.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.