<Begin Segment 24>

MA: When your daughters were growing up, did you talk to them about your experiences during the war, about the internment?

GH: Uh-huh.

MA: And what did you tell them about it? And did they ask? Were they curious about it?

GH: Yes, that's why they know all about it. They know all about it. And now I'm trying to get my grandson, get my grandson to know more about it. I told him, "You're going to read about it in your history books one day," and he's fifteen now, so I don't know whether it'll be in by then, maybe not.

MA: I hope so.

GH: 'Cause he's only two more years. But he is aware of it already. But my two girls, I always did. I always did tell them about it. We talked about camp, I don't know how I explained it to them. I don't know how I did it. But it was just a gradual process, it was just out of our conversation. We used to talk about it. So they understood that a lot, and so they were very interested.

MA: 'Cause in Hawaii, it seems like, as opposed to the mainland where there was a mass internment of all Japanese, in Hawaii there was only...

GH: Fifteen hundred of us.

MA: Right, sort of a small number.

GH: So people didn't even know we were...

MA: I was gonna ask, yeah, it seems like there's not an awareness about that.

GH: People living here don't know, a lot of them don't know. In fact, when we had our first reunion, they interviewed us. And I tell you, they had this big article in the paper, people didn't even know about it. They were shocked when they found out what we were doing and we were in camp. And so I found out that there were people living here who didn't know what we were talking about. So it's something, when you think about it, that they were able to hush it up that much, you know. And like for us, when we went away, we just, like, we disappeared. And that's how I think most of the people were who went to camp. And they made it short notice, too, so you don't have a long time preparing and talking to people and all that, so I think they just packed their things and left. That's how most of us did.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.