<Begin Segment 20>

TI: Okay, so we're going to start the next part, and you're talking about, you know, so the war had started, they had taken your father away. I wanted to find out did the family have any communication with your father, like letters or anything?

HH: When he was at KMC, none, 'cause they wouldn't even let him use the phone. He's right in Hilo now and you could've easily used the phone, but they didn't, but somebody must have been friendly with him, who was a guard. And he called the house and say, "Your father will be coming on a certain day on a bus to be questioned," so we would all stand outside waiting, but we... the bus passed, but we didn't see him, by face. And then there was, he couldn't use the phone. After that we had nothing, so we didn't quite know how long he stayed at KMC, but according to that book they went to Sand Island by early March, so they must have stayed up there at KMC for about two months.

TI: And during this time, what was your, what was the, what was your mother like? I mean, did she...

HH: She was busy trying to raise vegetables and trying to maneuver so she could feed the large family and figure out all kinds of stuff.

TI: Did you ever get a sense that she was concerned about your father, or did she just not talk about it?

HH: She, I, she didn't talk to me, but she talked to my sister, I think. They talked a lot. Because when we went to school we were told not to speak Japanese, so, being kids, you're not going to speak Japanese, your mother can speak only Japanese, so you don't talk.

TI: Interesting. So who, who told you that you shouldn't...

HH: The teachers at school. It was all over: "Do not speak Japanese." Speak English, I think, it was more, I think.

TI: And before that rule came out, where would you speak Japanese? I mean, when you...

HH: My mother, she could speak only Japanese, she didn't speak English. It was, English was just broken kind, and just, you know, command kind.

TI: So you, when you heard that you said well, you can't speak Japanese even to your mother?

HH: Yeah, being a kid you don't, you listen to your teacher, so you don't speak, then you don't speak to her. She had to turn around and learn English.

TI: When, but then, other than speaking with your mother in Japanese, did you use Japanese anywhere else?

HH: Oh, no. Nothing.

TI: So with your friends you never spoke Japanese?

HH: No.

TI: Okay. So you heard your father left KMC, went to Sand Island --

HH: I didn't hear. I read it in the book. Two years ago.

TI: Oh, you read... so what did you know, then, about your father?

HH: Nothing. Nothing.

TI: So you thought he was at KMC all this time? Even, like, months later?

HH: Oh, no, no. We had rumors fly and then they try to get the rumor back to your house, so we knew he had gone to Sand Island.

TI: And then at what point did the family start getting letters from your father?

HH: I think mainland, or... I don't think you got anything from Sand Island.

TI: And so from, after Sand Island, where did he go?

HH: He went to four states, and it's in my book here. And ended up at Santa Fe, New Mexico. They did go to, what do you call that? Another place in New Mexico. In between he went to Louisiana. But he's, when he came back and he talked about his trip, he made it sound good. He said, "I got to see the United States at the expense of the U.S.," but, no, they were, they were all, the windows were all closed then, blackened, and they just passed through.

TI: So on the train you're talking, when he went from place to place.

HH: Yeah, place to place. So he didn't get to see any place, actually. [Laughs]

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.