<Begin Segment 7>

TI: Now how frequently did you get off the island? So growing up as a child, did you go to, like, into Little Tokyo, like Los Angeles and other places like that?

HN: Yeah, it was a quite a distance in them days to have to go to Los Angeles. We couldn't, well, our parents had to take us there, so it wasn't that often. Maybe, maybe four or five times a year, going to Los Angeles.

TI: And what would be the occasion for you to go to Los Angeles?

HN: I remember a few times when relatives or friends were getting married. They had the wedding receptions and all that in Little Tokyo, so we used to, on those occasion, I remember, went to Little Tokyo.

TI: And how would you compare Terminal Island with Little Tokyo? What were the differences between those two communities?

HN: I thought the area was a place where they, and then there's nothing but concrete street and stores right next to each other, and those are the only memory I got. And one time when we went out my family was having a dinner at a Chinese restaurant, and my father was joined by a friend and they were talking and we were sitting, and I happened to sit on the end, so I sneaked off and I said, "Let me take a look at the outside." So I went to the door and it seemed interesting, so I pulled, I went out there and found the store and I was watching the, all go by, and a policeman came over, said, "What are you doing, kid?" [Laughs] I said, "Watching." "Where are you from?" I told him I'm from Terminal Island. "What? Terminal Island and you're here?" And I said, "No, no, my people, my dad is in there," so he took me in and found my dad, said, "You better watch the kid, because..." That's the thing I remember about Little Tokyo.

TI: Oh, so it's kind of like, where if you're on Terminal Island, for you to kind of go off and be on your own would be fine, but in the city, if you were alone then it was noticed.

HN: Yes, right.

TI: Interesting. Okay, good. Anything else about Terminal Island before we move on to the war? I'm trying to think, anything else that we want to talk about. Like, so school, how old, how far did you go before... so you're about fifteen when the war broke...

HN: Yeah, so I'm, as far as Japanese school is concerned, I must have been taking equivalent in, probably, fifth grade. And, as far as English, American school, I was, I was in ninth grade.

TI: Yeah, so middle school, or junior high school.

HN: Junior high school, yeah. In Los Angeles it was a three, three, six -- no, no, no, six, three, three. Grammar school from up to sixth grade --

TI: And grammar school was on Terminal Island?

HN: Yes, on Terminal Island.

TI: Was, and junior high school was...

HN: Junior high school was on San Pedro, across the ferry.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.