Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Fred Hirasuna Interview
Narrator: Fred Hirasuna
Interviewers: Larry Hashima (primary), Cherry Kinoshita (secondary)
Location: University of California, Los Angeles
Date: September 12, 1997
Densho ID: denshovh-hfred-01-0012

<Begin Segment 12>

CK: Some of us have said that what will be remembered about JACL, say eventually it dissolves. What, in your opinion, would they remember? Would redress be something that would be remembered fifty years down the line, a hundred years down the line?

FH: I guess it would be one of the things, but I would like them to remember more the struggles that JACL went through to get established at all. You know, people like Saburo Kido, Dr. Yatabe, George Inagaki, Walter Tsukamoto, those people just worked their hearts out to establish the Japanese Americans Citizens League, because they believed that we had to have it, because there was so much discrimination in those days, that if we didn't have some kind of an organization we couldn't fight that. And that's why many of us joined JACL. 'Cause we knew, we went through terrific discrimination from childhood on. You know, before, I know in grammar school, why, you felt it every day that you're different and the other kids were trying to pick on you. High school wasn't so bad. But there are other things, they show that prejudice against Japanese, or I guess any people of color basically, but especially Japanese. In our area, part of that prejudice was made easy because the Armenians were taking a beating, people didn't like Armenians. But the Armenians fought that by becoming very successful farmers and businessmen, now nobody dares say anything bad about Armenians, they've got too much money. [Laughs] And I think -- and the Japanese, when they came back from evacuation, most of us, we started with nothing, you know, it was all gone, we had to start from the bottom and we built our ways up and some of us are fairly successful. And I think people admire us for that. And I think Japanese have, on the whole have done well in recovering from the evacuation.

CK: You mentioned that we all faced discrimination, can you remember the very first time you felt it? What incidence was it that...

FH: Well, the very first time I remember was I was in the third grade in grammar school. I was a little kid and there was a tree in the yard and the leaves were falling and I shook the tree to make the leaves fall faster. And a teacher came over and gave me a whack and said, "Quit shaking that tree." I guess to me that was prejudice, I don't know. But when I was working in Delano in produce, you couldn't go to the theater except to a certain section. In Lodi, when I was a kid, you couldn't go into a public swimming pool, they wouldn't let you in. And there's other countless little things that you feel that you're getting because your not white, 'cause I remember as a kid there were times when I cried and wished I were white. [Laughs]

CK: Do you remember being called a "Jap"?

FH: Oh yeah, many times, many times.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.