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TI: So where in Seattle did you live? You mentioned near Lake Washington.

LH: Yes, well, I lived at 3104, also at 934, and so I was born and grew up in a Caucasian neighborhood, which was... I won't say unique, but the far majority of the Nikkei lived in and around, I guess, then called Japantown.

TI: So you say, so what neighborhood would that be, when you say, "3104"?

LH: Rainier Avenue.

TI: Okay, so a little further south.

LH: Yeah, near Franklin High School.

TI: Got it, okay, good. So the Mount Baker area. So, why do you, why do you think your family lived away from the rest of the community?

LH: Well, you know, being the fifth of six children, there are a lot of the family history I really don't know, but I guess it's no different than anybody else who felt we should be part of America, to be part of the community and not, you know, be exclusively with members of the Japanese community, even though they were members of the Japanese community.

TI: So growing up in Seattle before the war, do you recall going to, like, Japanese sort of community events like Obon or...

LH: On rare occasions I do remember things of that sort, even though that wasn't the primary focus of my life. And actually, later in life, I did attend the Japanese language school we called "Tip School," I think six months, because I hated the language so much. I remember my mother would say, "You're putting dirt on the face of the Horiuchi name by being such an irresponsible child in school, at Tip School." But I was such a bad child, she allowed me to quit.

TI: Okay. So let's talk about going to school. So eventually, in that Mount Baker area, or down there, you started going to school. Do you recall what, what school you attended?

LH: Actually, by then, we, I was living at 934, and went to Rainier School. Do you know Rainier School?

TI: Yeah, that's up around Seattle University?

LH: Above, above Rainier Avenue, up near, I think it's Twenty-seventh or Twenty-fifth.

TI: Okay, I think I know where it is.

LH: It became a trade school later. I think I may have been the last one to graduate that grade school, I think, in 1939. Maybe it might have been '41, '41, because... '39. Because then I went to the Washington Junior High School, well, I know a lot of Nikkei came from that part of town, and I came from this part of town, and so they allowed us all to graduate junior high school in May, you know, a month early, because we were all going into the camp.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.