Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Takashi Hoshizaki Interview
Narrator: Takashi Hoshizaki
Interviewers: Tom Ikeda, Jim Gatewood
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: July 28, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-htakashi_2-01-0014

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TI: During the war, did you have much communication with the principal or the neighbor family?

TH: I didn't, no. Maybe... no, very little, except when we went into the Pomona Assembly Center (the black family, the Marshalls), came out and visited one, I think it was a Sunday, I guess, and we were able to speak to them, look through the old (wire) fence. But the thing was that (...) family did catering as their business, and so it was in a hot... I don't know if you've been to the fairgrounds during the summer. I mean, it gets blazing hot. So they brought out -- and I still can't believe it -- they brought out an apple pie and basically it was pie a la mode, where they bake the, there's a certain technique of baking the apple pies so that the crust now stands away from the apple, and they brought ice cream out, and so there we were. Kind of embarrassing sitting there eating the pie a la mode out along that fence in (front of the other inmates). With what we had, it was just a, it was a real pleasure, but you had kinda embarrassing (feeling) that here you had something that you couldn't share really with the other people.

TI: So this is your, your next door neighbors? This is the black family.

TH: Yes.

TI: And you said you were really good friends with their son, who is about your age.

TH: Son, yeah, about my age.

TI: I'm curious, did, as this was all going, when it was clear that you were gonna have to leave, did you ever have a discussion with your friend about what was happening? Did he ever, did you ever share with him about what was going on? How you felt, or did he share how he felt about this?

TH: No, I don't remember. I don't remember anything about that.

TI: Yet this family came and visited you at Pomona?

TH: (Yes), the family came and visited us, (yes).

TI: So tell me, since we're talking about this, tell me about that visit. What was it like when they came to visit you? How did it feel for you when they, when they came? Besides having pie a la mode. [Laughs]

TH: We suddenly got the word that it was the Marshalls and the Marshalls are here to see us. They come and see us? Oh my gosh. Okay, so gathered up the (family), and I don't know how we made contact along the fence, because the fence was quite long and you had literally, I would say, thousands of people along the fence. But somehow contact was made and so we were able to converse and then, and I guess they were asking how we were and so forth, but I don't remember any details except the, to me almost a shock, to see, wow, they had gone to the effort of, of bringing this apple pie, that pie a la mode, and bring it all the way up and having it still in the nice frozen state (...) and the effort that they had put out (...) to bring it to us.

TI: Yeah, that's what strikes me is the effort. They could've just visited and brought something else, but to bring sort of ice cream on a really hot day, they must've done a lot. And so it meant a lot to them to do something like that.

TH: Yeah, and then thinking today, well, how would they do it? And I can see block of the frozen ice and then they, with the catering business, they probably knew what, what would be required, but still, to drive all the way out from Los Angeles in those days to the Pomona Assembly Center. We didn't have freeways, so it was a long drive to come out. (Yes), thinking about that, it really, it really struck me. And it stuck in my mind.

TI: In terms of just neighbors, can you describe any, what kind of interaction your family had with this family, the Marshalls?

TH: It was, well, the kids, like myself, the boy was about my same age and so they also had a girl, two girls, but one was a little older, but (...) my oldest sister (...) knew each other and played, being next door neighbors. (...) The mother had moved into the neighborhood (...) before 1900, and watched the whole neighborhood change (...)... she was very friendly and, and the Japanese families around her really liked her, liked the family, so we were, as I said, very close little community. (...) The mother's brother (...) lived down the street (...). He would play with the kids in the neighborhood. So it was a very close knit little group there.

TI: Was it the type where, say, the kids from the, the Marshall kids would come over to your house and play and you would go to their house and play, or was it pretty much on the streets?

TH: It was mostly out on the streets, yeah. And that's, I guess in those days there wasn't much that, I don't remember, of going into other people's homes to play, was really mostly outside activities, and I think completely different from, I guess, today. Today, I think the kids, they move inside and watch TV or play computer games, along that line.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.