Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: William Hohri Interview
Narrator: William Hohri
Interviewers: Tom Ikeda (primary); Gary Kawaguchi (secondary)
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: September 12, 1997
Densho ID: denshovh-hwilliam-01-0002

<Begin Segment 2>

TI: Okay, then how... what happened, or how did things change after the war broke out, after Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese?

WH: Well, I think we heard about that, I think on the way home from church. We went to church every Sunday. We rented an American Legion Hall and used it on Sunday. It was a small church, of maybe a dozen, two dozen people, Issei, Nisei kids. Certainly not enough to support a family. And the one thing, one of the families I know that came to our church was very poor. We distinguished being poor and dirt poor or hungry poor. They were hungry poor. We were poor, but they were hungry poor. And I think that's, it's important that Japanese Americans were not... they were right at the bottom of the economic ladder. At least many of us were at the bottom, not all. But dirt farmers, you know, they had farms on what are now parts of L.A., but they were just vacant lots. You know, they couldn't have been making very much. Of course, some people were successful as farmers, but I think a lot of them were just... they'd raise lima beans or something, and hock them. You know, it was real, real tough making a living. And gardening was one of the best ways, but you had to work hard. But it was a way of getting out of poverty.

TI: Did you feel a strong sense of community with these families when you think of this...

WH: No, we were... in North Hollywood, there were two families, we had a good friend, the Hiramis, who lived... we lived on Ventura Boulevard near Studio City. And there were some good family friends that lived down the street from us on Ventura Boulevard. And we lived in a real tiny storefront house, house storefront. And it didn't bother me a lot. Poverty didn't bother me very much as a kid. But one of the benefits of poverty -- sort of ironic -- is that when we went to camp, we didn't lose a lot, because we didn't have a lot to lose.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.