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TI: And so let's talk about growing up in Hilo. What are some of the early memories that you have, growing up in Hilo as a young girl? What are, what are some of the things you can remember?

HH: We just stuck to the neighborhood as a whole. But they did have, what you call, a civic center like, where you could go and join to learn some things, you know, like they had tap dancing and stuff like that.

TI: So you remember things like tap dancing? So did you take tap dancing classes?

HH: No, no, no. I didn't have rhythm. [Laughs]

TI: What kind of classes did you...

HH: But you went there for recreation, and to meet other people.

TI: And so do recall any of the, did you take, like, singing, dancing...

HH: Oh, no, no.

TI: How about Japanese cultural things, like Japanese language?

HH: Oh, yes. That was important. My father was a Japanese language newsman, so you know... we all had, after schools we had Japanese school. After English school you go down to the Japanese school. You had most of the Japanese schools, the Buddhists had their own language, I mean, language school, and the, we had a Japanese school. It was all segregated, so it would be clustered in areas, so all over had...

TI: But the Buddhist had their own language school?

HH: Yeah.

TI: And then the other ones were just clustered by area.

HH: Yeah, area.

TI: So which one did you go to?

HH: I went to the Japanese Independent School.

TI: And where was that located?

HH: Right in central Hilo. Kukuau and Kinoole. Where you could walk to, you know. Every place you'd walk. You walk to school, which is about a mile.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.