<Begin Segment 12>

TI: Before we go to the war years, is there anything else growing up -- well, actually, I wanted to ask you, when you're growing up, your oldest sister...

HH: She's gone.

TI: Yeah, she left. How did you feel about that when your oldest sister was sent to Japan?

HH: It was kind of accepted thing. A lot of families sent their oldest child to Japan to educate them there. The monetary exchange was very good. It was cheaper to send them to Japan than to the mainland.

[Interruption]

TI: Okay, so we were talking about your sister going to Japan, and you talked about how it was, because of the exchange rate, it was cheaper to be educated in Japan than in the United States.

HH: Yeah.

TI: But you also mentioned it was usually the oldest that would go, so if it were cheaper, why didn't more people get sent to Japan, like your other sisters?

HH: Then that would be expensive, right? [Laughs] One is enough. Usually one, but a lot of older child went to Japan to be educated. They say they had a whole bunch of people they called Kibei, born in Hawaii, educated in Japan.

TI: But in Hilo it was pretty common for families to do this.

HH: Oh, yeah.

TI: Now, so when they came back, were they... how were they viewed when they came back from Japan? After being educated, say a family sent someone and they, someone came back, how would that person be treated?

HH: Normal.

TI: The same. But then they would have more education, though. Their Japanese would be better...

HH: They would have Japanese education. A lot of them taught Japanese school.

TI: Okay, so they would get certain jobs like teaching Japanese school where they could use their Japanese ability. And generally, over time, were they the ones who developed into the community leaders?

HH: I think so.

TI: So they, so they... oftentimes that extra education in Japan helped them. Now, if people didn't go to Japan, where, what kind of education would they get?

HH: Then you would go to the short term business school or something. In Honolulu, you always had to leave Hilo. It's way later... by the time I graduated you could go to college, but otherwise you'd be short term.

TI: Okay, good.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.