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MA: Okay, so there's five of you total. And can you describe a little bit about your house and the neighborhood you grew up in? This was before the war?

GH: Uh-huh. It was a residential area there, except that we had our cotton factory. And considering that, think about it, they're all houses, they're all houses. And as far as I knew, I just grew up, I must have been born there, because that's all we knew until we had to go to camp. And my grandfather had originally bought property for all his sons and for his... so we had cousins, and throughout the street and the next block, we had relatives. And what else can I say about growing up there?

MA: What about your mother? Did she work or was she at home?

GH: No, she stayed home, she was a housewife. She was... I don't know enough about her parents. We used to go there every Sunday, my dad would take us every Sunday and visit my grandmother. And my grandfather died in some period, can't remember exactly. And she died after that, I remember we had to go the hospital, 'cause she had a stroke, I think, she died. But when we were little, we used to go there every week and she would buy little presents for us. They lived in Manoa. And we used to have a lot of fun, 'cause we would stay there all day, all day. And she was really nice, she was a nice grandmother. Because on the other side, we didn't know our other grandmother too well because they were in, back and forth, Japan and here. They weren't always here. And she was very strict. I can't even remember her. But my mother's side, the grandmother, all the kids used to want to go with us. [Laughs]

MA: So your father's parents, then, sort of traveled back and forth in between Japan and Hawaii?

GH: To Japan and here, uh-huh.

MA: So your grandfather, then, never really intended to stay in Hawaii permanently?

GH: I don't think so, because he still, I don't know why it is that he couldn't stay put very long. It just seems like he goes, he gets tired and he goes back again, he wants to come back here and he moved back and forth. Somebody has to accompany him so my dad used to go with him. Because when he was interrogated they asked him why, but he said he had to take him, he couldn't let him go by himself. So that's why my dad went quite along, too.

MA: Did you ever go to Japan before the war?

GH: Uh-uh. Only my sister that one time before the war. He took my sister on that last trip before the war started. My brother, he didn't take my brother, either, only my one sister.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.