<Begin Segment 13>

PJH: So never having traveled outside the U.S. ever before, after I graduated I went to Hawaii first. I had friends that I met as students at Berkeley and told me, "Just stay with us," so I stayed there for, like, maybe about a week before going to see my parents in Saipan. But it was kind of like this cultural shock just going to Hawaii.

TI: So Honolulu?

PJH: Yeah, look at all those Asians. I never saw that ever before, all these Asians.

TI: And how did that feel for you, seeing all those Asians?

PJH: Strange. It was really strange. But there was something very comforting, like wanting to identify, 'cause I already got my feet wet. Yeah, but then there was, like, a really different sense of Asian culture that it, wow, this is really different. I remember my Hawaii friends would say at Berkeley, "What are you guys always talkin' about identity, community?" I says, "Don't you get it?" So I go there and I go, oh, that's why they're asking, asking me that. [Laughs] Then from there, going to Saipan was like a whole, another... Saipan just pocked with all these, from bombs and artillery against the mountains and even seeing tanks immersed in the ocean. This is where "paradise" was, where people from Japan were coming as their holidays, and I just thought, wow, this is such a, a weird juxtaposition of things. Swimming in the ocean and still feeling, like, artillery shells in the sand. It's just weird. Coming out of being anti war, going, wow, that's amazing. That's where all the Japanese prisoners, I mean, Japanese, when they knew that they could not hold out the island, they, they committed suicide by jumping off the cliff, they had a suicide cliff. So there, there's all these things that kind of like started to come in, really flash, flashback, a flash of historical information for me to process.

TI: And when you're there and your parents are there, did you ever have any conversations about war with your father during this time?

PJH: No. No, I was just too hot. It was really, extremely hot. I mean, just breathing, I would be sweating. I was miserable. I was there for about a week.

TI: Did your parents give you any advice or thoughts during this week? Here you had just graduated from college, what were their, their hopes for you?

PJH: They were, they were actually looking more forward to my going to Japan, 'cause they knew that they would have to support me some way and, and help me, so they were a little bit concerned about where I was gonna be going, what I would be doing, so there was more of that kind of concern. Not so much about... what kind of job. [Laughs]

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.