<Begin Segment 23>

MA: And so after you came back to Hawaii, you got married, what did you, what type of work did you do?

GH: I was home.

MA: You were home. And did you have children?

GH: It was hard to go to work here in those days. You get all this guilt... well, I had my daughter one year later, and I had her pretty early. So I had her -- I mean, you don't go to work when you have a baby. It's just, in those days, that's the way it is.

MA: Guilt from...

GH: Being a working mother? No, you don't go to work when you have a baby. When she was four, I decided I'm going to go work part-time. Even then I had problems, he didn't like it. That's the way it used to be before. That when you get married, you have children and you stay home. And I said, "No, she need to be with other kids, so I need to get her in part-time at least, and then I'll go to work part-time." And I had a hard time already because she was so used to being with me. She followed me like a shadow. [Laughs] And so finally I got her into preschool, I had a real, real hard time. And then I went to work part-time and I was so happy to get out and go to work part-time. That's how I ended up going to work full-time later.

MA: And what work did you do at that point?

GH: Accounting again. Yeah, it was always in accounting work. So after that, from there on, I worked almost all through. And my husband, at that time, went into insurance afterwards, 'cause they had a family business, too. And the lease was up, we all had to move from there. And then he went into insurance. At that time, we needed the income, so I decided I'll go work full-time. And my daughter started kindergarten, so it wasn't so bad. So that's where I've worked ever since.

MA: And what's the name of your first daughter?

GH: Jill.

MA: That's Jill.

GH: That's Jill, uh-huh.

MA: And then you had a second daughter.

GH: Uh-huh, second daughter, Kim.

MA: Kim.

GH: She was ten years later. That's all.

MA: And your husband was, was he Japanese?

GH: Uh-huh. He was Nisei.

MA: He was Nisei, okay.

GH: That's why she says she's Yonsei, because she goes by my side. But if she follows the father's side, she's really only Sansei.

MA: And what are your, what are your daughters up to now? What are they...

GH: She's the, she has a dance company, I told you. And her dance company is for... I never can say it right. It's for... what does she call it? For women of color, women of... it's all minority-based, you know, that kind of thing. So she's, it's a kind of a unique company, and she attracts a lot of attention when she has her performances because she has such a mix of dancers. And she has a taiko, too, a group that comes out, and she has this... can't remember all of that. I usually go to her performances. Usually she does a big one once a year, but she's kind of gradually cutting back, and not as much. So this year's is this Berkeley one.

MA: And what about Kim? What does she...

GH: Kim, Kim used to... I used to be in real estate, and she used to work for me. And now, she wanted to, she was always good with her hands. She says she wants to go into bead jewelry and go on her own and do her own business. And so when I retired, she said she's gonna do that, she's gonna retire from real estate, too. 'Cause she didn't really care for it. And so she's been doing her own and she has one account, one account that she works for, she doesn't really work for them but she furnishes their jewelry and she doesn't do anything else now. She's really lucky. She doesn't go to craft fairs and she doesn't go peddling stores and all. Because she found this one shop that had locations in all the resort hotels, and so she furnishes their jewelry and that keeps her busy.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.