<Begin Segment 19>

TI: So you talked about right after Pearl Harbor, the school was closed the next day, but eventually school started again. So how had things changed for you?

HH: Oh, it changed quite a bit. There was talk of, you didn't want a whole group of people anywhere, so they split up the school population, the students, so they would go within walking distance to wherever they could set up. So we had -- and then they closed the Japanese school so the English school could use the facility, and then those in Waikea could use some place in Waikea. So they were, we were split all over.

TI: Oh, so the big school was split into smaller schools.

HH: Very small, yeah.

TI: And the teachers would just go to the various smaller ones.

HH: Yeah.

TI: And that was done because why?

HH: They didn't want, they felt that a large group had a better chance of the enemy coming and, you know, targeting groups rather than individuals. So I even remember, and I can't remember how we got it, we had a gas mask that I slung over my shoulder. It was khaki colored and it was shaped, you know, so you... they were trying to protect the students, but I don't remember the community having that kind of equipment. But it was very short, a very short time, so probably only in the beginning of the war, and then I don't know how we returned the thing, but somehow we just never had to carry it after a while.

TI: And then you mentioned earlier that during the war you actually start working?

HH: Yes.

TI: So what kind of work?

HH: Well, no, but that was in high school, later part. We used to go to school only four days a week, and the fifth day, when you became sixteen, the plantation hired the sixteen-year-olds to do what they call hoe hana, which is hoeing the weeds around the newly planted cane so that you don't get overcome with the weeds. And they would truck us to various places and then we would all hoe hana, have our lunch and then go home. And then when that stopped -- I think these things are seasonal, you know, where you have to catch the weeds, early part, after that you don't have to. Then we had Friday, which was an off day, and we'd go find jobs. So I remember finding a job at a potato chip factory and then working, going to school four days and on the fifth day working.

TI: Okay. When martial law happened, what impact did that have on people? What changes?

HH: You had very few juvenile delinquency. [Laughs]

TI: Because there were a lot of military police everywhere, is that why?

HH: Because you were confined to home. There's no light, you're not supposed to be out, you don't have the gas.

TI: So at night everyone is in homes, there's no...

HH: I think that book said that there was a low criminal activity among the juveniles.

TI: And so how did that impact you when you think about your life? What were the big changes for you?

HH: You stayed home quite a bit. You just went to school, came home, and just never ventured far from home.

TI: So when you're in that one room with one light, what would the family do?

HH: I don't know. Mind your own business. [Laughs]

TI: So you'd just sit in that room and maybe read or, or...

HH: No, difficult to read.

TI: Would the radio be on?

HH: Yeah, radio would be on. That's the only thing. And lights are not fluorescent lights, you know, they're little bulbs.

TI: So it's hard to read, then?

HH: Oh, yeah. You had to go to bed early. Early to bed, early to rise.

TI: In terms of sacrifice, were there some things that you recall during the war that the family had to do without, because, one, your father was gone, maybe, or maybe they were rationing or...

HH: I don't know. I don't, you know, it's the mother who finagles all the income, but I know that those who worked had to give a large portion of their salary to the home pile, you know, the funding to feed the whole family, so they kept very little for their own spending.

TI: I see. And did that happen when you went, you know, did the plantation work, that the money you made was to help the family?

HH: I don't think I saw the money. [Laughs]

TI: So it just went to the family to help.

HH: Yeah.

TI: And how did you feel about that, was that just something --

HH: Accepted. You had to. There's nobody around to feed us.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.