Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Charles Oihe Hamasaki Interview
Narrator: Charles Oihe Hamasaki
Interviewers: Martha Nakagawa (primary); Tom Ikeda (secondary)
Location: Culver City, California
Date: February 24, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-hcharles-01-0001

<Begin Segment 1>

MN: Okay. Today is Wednesday, February 24, 2010, we're at the Courtyard Marriott. Dana Hoshide is on video, we're gonna be interviewing Charlie Hamasaki, and interviewer will be Tom Ikeda and myself, Martha Nakagawa.

CH: Very good.

MN: Charlie, let's start with your father's name.

CH: Tahe Hamasaki. You know what Tahe means, T-A-H-E.

MN: What is his original last name?

CH: Jo-h, J-O-H with a hyphen. American people, they go, "Jow." No, that's not it. J-O-H. J-O-hyphen-H.

MN: What is your mother's name?

CH: Mother's Hamasaki.

MN: First name?

CH: Oh, Kikue.

MN: Now, why did your father take on the Hamasaki name?

CH: Okay. My grandmother had five, five sisters, and five sister, and my grandmother had four daughters. And so they, no son. So somebody have to take over that name of the family. So my father came from, Jo-h, came from Hamasaki. That's what happened. See, our family in Japan was pretty well-off, see, in Japan. So they had to get a son, want a son to take after the name and all the things they owned in Japan, the property and everything.

MN: What prefecture are they from?

CH: Okay. Wakayama-ken, Higashi-mura-gun, Kozacho, Tawara-mura. That I know.

MN: Okay, you're the youngest of six children. Can you name your siblings from oldest to youngest?

CH: My brothers and sisters?

MN: Yes.

CH: Emiko Hamasaki, Emiko and Tamikazu, and Futomi, and Shizuka, and Uzuhiko, and me.

MN: Now, Emiko and Tamikazu were born in Pasadena, is that correct?

CH: Yeah, yeah.

MN: Futomi, Shizuka, Uruhiko were born in Long Beach.

CH: Long Beach, exactly.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.