<Begin Segment 6>

TI: So I'm wondering, so how did the family support itself? I mean, here he was the, the essentially the breadwinner, I mean, he was the farmer, he did everything. So what happened to the family after he was gone?

HU: Then my mother went to Japan, left Miharu-san (and) Yoshimi-san, two of my sisters, in Japan 'cause I guess in those days woman were useless. [Addressing videographer] No, no offense to you. [Laughs]

TI: Okay, so she brought your two sisters, or your, your sister, to Japan...

HU: And left them with a couple of (my mother's) sisters. She had a lot of sisters. And then...

TI: So that left Ben, Sam, and you.

HU: And myself, yeah. And then Ben had just graduated from grammar school. In those days, in our days we used to call the elementary school "grammar school," and it went from one to eighth grade, and in those days, say 1931 when he died, grammar school education, I would say, wasn't sufficient, but it was passable. I mean, you could get by with grammar school education, just like President Truman. So it was, I guess education wasn't that, it wasn't something that they had to have, so anyway, after he got out of grammar school, Ben took over the farm.

TI: And so grammar school, so he's about, what, fifteen?

HU: Sixteen, fifteen, sixteen. Yeah.

TI: Okay so Ben really, he took over.

HU: He had it rough, yeah.

TI: Okay, so he essentially drops out of school, or doesn't go on to high school, and runs the farm. And at that point you're, again, just an infant almost, you're two and a half, three years old, so probably don't even remember that much at that point?

HU: No, except that he was still plowing the field with, with the horses, and I remember after American school, English school, we had Japanese school for an hour, and I remember, it was first grade, and then my Japanese school teacher says, "Well, when you go home, say, 'Tadaima, kaerimashita,' greet your parents." So I went home and Ben was out, Ben was plowing, with that horses and thing, and I said, "Niisan, tadaima," and, oh, he just bawled me off. He said, "Bakatare," oh, he just cussed me out, 'cause I, he was so, he was tired and irritated and here I'm shouting at him and the horses got kind of excited, I think, so that was kind of, when I think of it right now, kind of funny. But so anyway, where were we before?

TI: I want to get a little more about your, your brother, 'cause he at such a young age had to take on so much. Was, do, do you ever get a sense that there were regrets on his side or anything that he had to take on so much at such a young age? Did it really change him?

HU: No. No, I think he was proud because his friends and neighbors would sort of, sort of honor him or say he's a good boy type of thing, so I guess, I guess he had, he was in an environment where he was sort of praised rather than -- so I don't think he had any regrets or he was, he didn't have any hard feelings about that.

TI: So I'm curious, so as you're growing up as a, as a boy, and there're probably times when, when you would do something to get in trouble, who would be the discipliner?

HU: My brother.

TI: So he would be the disciplinarian. He would, he would sort of play the father role.

HU: Yes, but he didn't say much. All he, all he said was, "Yakamashii," you know, "shut up," or "Bakatare," or something like that. Actually, he didn't, actually we didn't communicate that much.

TI: Now, would he, would he speak to you in Japanese or English?

HU: Half and half. Yeah. Yeah, my brothers, they taught me the bad words, like... so this was out in a farm and you're exposed, you're talking with your parents, communicating in Japanese, so when I went to school I didn't know very much English and only, so I remember, I remember the first day at school there was a, there was a guy named Paul. He was three, three years older than me and he was teasing me because I had a butterball, a candy in my mouth. He called me "Hundred Butterball" and things like that, he was teasing me, so I got mad and I said, "God damn son of a bitch," because that's about the only English words I knew because of my brother, and then bang, bang, bang, I got beat up. I still remember that. And then of course, there's a good side to that because there were older girls who were sympathetic and, "Oh, Shozo," patted me and you know. [Laughs]

TI: That's funny. So I'm, I'm curious, when you think about your childhood, how was your raising different than, say, the boys your age who had an, like an Issei father? Was there a difference having your brother kind of play that father role, an older Issei versus a Nisei? Do you know any difference?

HU: No, I, no, I didn't, I didn't feel any difference, but there were times when I, when I looked at a guy walking with their, with his father or something I would think, I used to think, "Oh, gee, I wonder how it's like to have a father," but it didn't bother me that much. I didn't think it was such a big deal because my, to me, my brother was sort of a father figure and I had my mother who was sort of, I was very attached to my mother.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.