Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: June M. Hoshida Honma Interview
Narrator: June M. Hoshida Honma
Interviewer: Megan Asaka
Location: Torrance, California
Date: July 9, 2009
Densho ID: denshovh-hjune-01-0006

<Begin Segment 6>

MA: And so you, when did you go to the mainland? That was '42?

JH: We reached there in January of '43.

MA: '43, okay.

JH: We were on the train, and I asked my mother, "Where are we?" every morning, because you had to keep the shades down. And I'm curious, so I looked. And I remember this picture in my head, there's snow, and there's this dried brush or whatever, it looked like twigs, branches. And I remember seeing that but I don't know what state that was in. But she said we traveled through seven states to get to Jerome.

MA: And then got off the train, you said, at midnight?

JH: Midnight. We got off the train, but the thing that I remember the most, and which someone who had gone at the same time that we had, came up to me in Little Rock and said, "Oh, I completely forgot about the big bonfire that was there." 'Cause I told them that, I told them that when I was in the panel, that when we got off, there was this huge bonfire, and there were, some women were around it. I had a coat on, but the coat was what my mother had made with no lining, no nothing. It was freezing. 'Cause it was January, and there was snow on the ground, slushy. But I remember getting off and the bonfire. And the guy that came to me, at least I know that I wasn't dreaming that, 'cause I was just six.

MA: And was your father at Jerome?

JH: No.

MA: He was still in Santa Fe?

JH: My father was in Santa Fe. He didn't come back 'til the end, almost in December.

MA: Of '43?

JH: Of '43. He helped a lot of the men in there get their furloughs, because those that could read could only write in Japanese. So he would translate for them and write it in English.

MA: And I'm sure he was one of the few people who could do that.

JH: Yeah, the very few. And his handwriting's gorgeous.

MA: And were you able to correspond with him when you were in Jerome and he was in Santa Fe?

JH: He kept all the letters that were sent to him from my mother, myself, and any relatives, including his letters. Now, I'm not sure if my mother had kept those letters or if he made copies. But sometimes the letters would come there with holes in them, censor, censor it. 'Cause they didn't have markers, so they censored it by cutting it out. But all of these are intact, including my letters. So I was very shocked to have, when he handed it to me... when was it? Back in the '80s, and he said he's giving that to me because my letters are in there.

MA: That you wrote him?

JH: That I wrote him, too. But he gave me all the letters. So those letters are now at the Japanese American National Museum.

MA: I think that's great, that they're able to be preserved.

JH: Yeah, but it was so... I think I told you that the East West Players decided to read letters that were sent to and from families, and that they chose mine, they chose my mother and my father's. So the actors went up and they were reading it. Well, the way they read it, you're living it. I don't think I stopped crying until the end of it. It was just, it just hit home. They read my letters, too.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.