<Begin Segment 15>

LH: What have you told your family, your children about your experiences?

AH: I haven't. From what I hear, most of the Niseis never did talk to their kids very much about the evacuation and such.

LH: Why do you think that was?

AH: I wonder... I don't know. It that an old Japanese attitude? You don't talk about yourself. I don't know whether it will carry on into the Sanseis now, I'm curious. But it seems like a lot of the Sanseis were not told very much by their parents until they heard about it through schools and different things.

LH: Are you surprised at the lack of information in the textbooks about the Japanese American experience?

AH: Well, here again I felt that that's the standard for Japanese, that you weren't important. I mean, important enough to be in the textbooks as to what they did. I understand there's only one or two paragraphs about the evacuation of Japanese during the war -- citizens or non-citizens. And so many people that come through Wing Luke Museum are surprised that such a thing could have happened in this country. That the mass evacuation without court order, U.S. citizens being herded by armed American soldiers to camps, and placed under guard behind barbed wires. They can't believe it could have happened. It doesn't happen in a democracy. And there was two or three persons who pointed their finger at me and said, "You guys are just making this up." They won't believe it. That it happened. And there's some of those people still here. There's one -- I forget her name, everybody seems to know her name, but I forget, from California -- that would come up to every meeting, during, especially during the redress hearings, and really speak up against this. That we were all, we were all "Japs," and that "look how they treated Americans back in Japan," is her point of view, all the time. They forget the fact that we're citizens. To her we we're still "Japs." That's all there was to it.

LH: So, to this day, how do you view your own status?

AH: My status? I feel that my rights will be upheld now in this society as it is now. And...

LH: I heard you mention before, several times, the word, the words, 'third class citizen.' Does that feeling, somewhat, still persist?

AH: Yes, it does. I don't know. I don't think it's an official status anymore. It's a social status of society itself. I don't know whether they'll give me equal ranking. With the younger generations, I think, although we look Asian, we are American citizens. And will be given equal status. But discrimination, you just can't get rid of, easily. I think it's a long step. After the war, I had to find a place to live and went out with a realtor to -- right in, on Broadway district -- went to the house that was up for rent, and the lady next door came barging out yelling all kind of obscenities. She wasn't going to have any Jap living next to her house. And she stormed and yelled around the neighborhood, and the realtor was so embarrassed, he didn't know what to do. I said, "Just forget it." And I went back to the car and sat, and he tried to talk her down, and she just wouldn't quit. And, discrimination is something that's gonna take time. Take time to really get -- you know, Hawaii is a good place where you don't dare discriminate, because you don't know what mix you're talking to. So they're Hawaiians. And we're gonna have, all become Americans. Just Americans. Then discrimination will slow down. But, I don't know whether it should be tolerated, but I don't know whether... how far you can fight the thing.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.