Densho Digital Archive - Fred Y. Hoshiyama Interview (denshovh-hfred

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TI: And this is right at, in '45?

FH: This is '45, exactly.

TI: So the war is still going on?

FH: And the war was on until August, and finally, on September, I got a passage to Hawaii. I think it was September 10th. And then I finally got knocked off several times on both plane and ship. But finally, one ship, a freighter, I got on, and it took us nine days doing zigzagging and blackouts at night yet, 'cause they didn't know if there's submarines around. And then I arrived at the Aloha Towers, ship. And as we docked, who meets me with a lei? Lorne Bell that I worked with in Topaz. Same Lorne Bell now is my boss. And the reason I didn't have to do an interview was he knew me, he says, "Fred, we'll take him." And so I started my YMCA career in Honolulu, 1945, and I loved it. I loved the Aloha culture, I loved the people, and I just wanted to stay there until a guy named Roy Sorenson, who was eighteen years on the national staff, decided to see if what he'd been advising works or not at the local scene. And he came to San Francisco, took over the job, and now he wants Fred Hoshiyama to come back to San Francisco and open up the Japanese YMCA that we padlocked. Well, the upshot of all this is that I turned the job down twice, but Roy Sorenson was a very persuasive man, and he kept, the third time he says, "Fred, if you don't come back to open up the Japanese YMCA, where will the kids go when they're coming back from all over, disbursement?" I wasn't thinking about the kids. I was a single man, I'm having great time in Honolulu, and I didn't want to leave and go back into the ghetto. But what I thought, I was thinking about the wrong agenda. I was ashamed. I said, "I never even thought about the kids. If that's the case, I will immediately return as soon as I can give my resignation." He says, "Fred, this circumstance, you don't have to wait a month. You could leave as soon as you get passage." So I got a plane to take me back to San Francisco on January 10, 1947, and I returned to San Francisco. Now, the question is, how do I open up a YMCA that was dormant for, since we padlocked April 28, 1942. This was 1947.

TI: So almost five years it was...

FH: Oh, yes. They used it for USO or something, but not as a YMCA. And they used it for colored troops, but that's okay. So finally we talked, I tried to reach as many people that returned from all over to San Francisco, maybe half the former group returned. So these are former board people and volunteers, leaders. I talked to them, and we decided that maybe, at this time, 1947, because of what happened to all of us, we should open this up not as a segregated Japanese YMCA, but as a community-based family YMCA, which they agreed, "Yes, I don't think we could support it just by ourselves. We need to enlarge it, bigger audience." And so that's how the decision was made, and I feel kind of good that we were able to do that, and made it the Buchanan Street -- 'cause the Y is located on Buchanan Street -- the Buchanan Street YMCA. We invited the YWCA, they had a, also, YWCA building just two blocks away. So they decided to come in, and so we did a YM and YWCA center. And so that started January 1947, and I was there until 1957, ten years. And then I was asked --

TI: But, you know, going back to that decision, so that was actually a pretty big decision for the community to go from --

FH: It was a big decision for the Japanese community people. And I'd like to share some of my heartbreaks. There were some young Japanese American colleagues younger than me, some of them, some of them my age. The word they used like this: "Fred, you gave away the YMCA to the kuro-chan." Well, the upshot of all this is that the Japanese have difficulty working together and being together with Afro Americans. Because in Japan, there may be some feelings about Afro Americans, I don't know that. But this certainly is reflected among the Niseis. They consider themselves -- us Niseis -- considered ourselves in a little different category. And I try to look at it scientifically. The culture of Afro Americans is more closer to the mainstream culture, 'cause that's the only culture they really... three hundred years of slavery, it's American culture. Well, the Nisei knows the Japanese culture, which is different, estranged with this other culture. So that may affect their feelings. But no question about it, there is an innate prejudice among the Niseis towards others. They like to be more Nisei-Nisei. And so I don't want to put what I call a character judgment on this, but I just felt that the community decided to boycott the Japanese YCMA that became Buchanan Street Y. So ninety percent of the program were all Afro Americans and Filipinos, and not too many Nisei, which I kind of felt very bad about, but that's life.