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MA: And what was the focus of your research at that point, kind of when you were starting your M.A.?

JH: At that point, I was just, you know, going according to what the department was emphasizing. And of course, they were in the Pacific Northwest, so there was a lot of emphasis on the Northwest Coast Indians. And so I was just taking courses, and then someone told me, "If you want to go into anthropology, you might specialize on Asia." And they says, "Well, do you know some Japanese? So why don't you specialize in that area?" And I had gone to Japanese school when I was a kid, and that ended right when the war started, of course. And so I started taking Japanese courses, and that really helped me because I was way ahead of everybody else in the class. And so I didn't hardly study at all, but I get, five unit courses, and I get A's, and it really boosted my gradepoint. And so then I applied for a graduate program there, and I got my M.A. degree, and I sort of minored in Far Eastern Studies as well.

MA: Was there any work being done, at least in anthropology, on Japanese American stuff?

JH: No, there was, I think there was some work possibly being done -- well, you know, of course, Frank Miyamoto had done his study. And then before that, well, that was in 1920 that there was an exchange student from Japan, and he got his master's degree in sociology. And he did his master's thesis on Japanese farmers in the state of Washington, and he published, I mean, he submitted it in 1926. So there were things like that, I guess, happening, but it was, there's not much emphasis on ethnicity. It's only after the Ethnic Studies period that all this boom sort of... so anyway, I just decided to focus on Japan. And then I got a Fulbright Scholarship, and it was 1954 or so. I think I got my B.A. degree in '49. And then that year, I think there were six Fulbright Scholarships at the University of Washington, and three of them were in anthropology. And so I went to University of Tokyo. I figured that if I have to do a dissertation, I might as well find out about myself. So that I decided to do field work in Nagano-ken, where my parents are from. And I went up there and found a village in Nagano-ken, and lived up there for a year. And my wife and Lane, Lane was about two years old then, so we lived there for a year and I did my field work.

MA: And what was the focus of your field work? What types of things did you study?

JH: Well, my focus was on, you know, the social culture change in the village. This was after World War II, so there's a considerable amount of social change there. Where the village initially was very, kind of, isolated, it was in a real rural area, isolated, and then after the war, there was this big postwar economic change where industrialization kinds of things happened. And that affected the way in which the village articulated with the rest of the country. And all these social changes that were coming about is what I focused on.

MA: How were you accepted by people there as a Japanese American?

JH: Well, you know, Japanese are very, kind of, hierarchy conscious. And the thing was, however, is right after the war, and I came in as someone associated with the winners, I guess. So, you know, I think the Japanese attitude towards immigrants there, low-class immigrants that went off, so however, because of the nature of the war, I think I was treated more or less like an equal, I guess, and they knew I was in the university and all that. So that's the kind of feeling that I had. I thought there was some kind of, somewhat a kind of reserve, but anyway, they knew my parents had come from the region, and so I think it was as good as it could have been. But later on, I've noticed certain kinds of changes. I think that, sort of the attitude towards the overseas Nikkei, I think there's a kind of, I feel kind of a superior attitude amongst some of the people.

MA: Among people in Japan?

JH: Yes.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.