<Begin Segment 7>

TI: Were there, like, any special events at Japanese language school, like a celebration?

HL: Oh, we always had a graduation at Nippon Kan, and I still have my certificate saying I graduated from such and such a class and so on. But like, there was quite a, it was quite a big, it was quite a big school, because there was, like, for instance, maybe two or three first grades, two or three second grades, and so it...

TI: No, I mean, the building's there and I walk through it and there's so many classrooms and large classrooms.

HL: Yeah, and they were all full.

TI: Yeah, it's hard to imagine just being filled with --

HL: Japanese.

TI: -- Japanese kids learning Japanese, because the community's so much smaller now, it wouldn't support that, so it's interesting. You mentioned the Nippon Kan, so that's another landmark in Seattle.

HL: I have a graffiti on there, you know. [Laughs]

TI: So yeah, explain some of the functions and the...

HL: Well, Nihon Kan, we used to have graduations there. Also, like they would have judo exhibitions and kendo, and then, and different groups would put on, I guess you would call theatrical shows, and that was one way you raised money, to, for whatever thing you wanted to do. And for us it was raising money to go to Japan, so we used to put on these shows every year. I can't remember what we did. All I remember is we did it and then I remember one time we all went in the back and wrote our names on the back, on the wall. [Laughs]

TI: And so people would have to buy tickets and that's how they would raise money, and then from that you were consciously raising money because a group of you wanted to go to Japan?

HL: Uh-huh.

TI: So tell me about that. What was that group?

HL: It was a Taiyo kengakudan, girls kengakudan, and let's see, it ended up with about, how many of us went, about twenty? But that was in 1939 that we went. And my sister was supposed to go, but she didn't go 'cause she was in the middle of going to beauty school, so Mom and she decided that she could wait, and so I went, but she didn't. And that was the most interesting trip because it was right before the war, 1939, went and because we were a girls group we were not a threat to anybody. You know, in Yokosuka we were, we went aboard the Mutsu, which was a huge battleship that they had there, and in Tokyo we met Prince and Princess Takamatsu, which was the younger brother of Hirohito.

TI: Now, how did you get such, how'd you get such access? I mean, that's pretty amazing to have --

HL: I don't know who did, but it was all arranged for us, and I remember we were all given this okashi, which is in the form of a, the chrysanthemum, the mon. I had that for the longest time. I finally, I think it just kind of disintegrated.

TI: So someone in the Seattle community must have had some connections to get you to some of these, onto the battleships and the royal family and things like that.

HL: Yeah, somebody did. Yeah. And then, then at that time we went north to Sendai, to Matsushima, and then we came back down and, oh, we went, actually went all through Tokyo and Nagoya, Kyoto, and then down to Okayama, and then we crossed Okayama over to Shikoku and we went to Kagawa and then to Ehime, and then from there we went to Kyushu and went to, let's see, we never got to Kagoshima, that was too far south. But we went Kumamoto, Nagoya, and then we crossed over to Fukuoka and came up the peninsula, went to Hiroshima and back up to Tokyo, and then we disbanded and we all went our own way.

TI: And so when you're as a group doing a tour, about how long did you do that?

HL: It was about thirty days, little over thirty days it seems to me.

TI: And what was the, the purpose of those, the thirty day tour. I mean, what, was there a, a... yeah.

HL: Sightseeing and, and then to learn things about Japan. And oh, I've got to tell you an interesting thing that happened to me. We were going up to Matsushima and we were on the train. There was this young man sitting, I don't, I can't remember whether it was across or in back of me, all of a sudden he climbed up and climbed into his suitcase and got this bowl, and he told me his brother made it and it's a bowl that was made by taking a cross section of a cherry tree and it's carved out. I still have that bowl. He gave it to me and then I thought, gee, I've got to give him something. You know, you got to always return the, so then I got, got into my suitcase. I said, what do I have? I had a box of Hershey Kisses, so I gave him a box of Hershey Kisses. [Laughs]

TI: Interesting. So I'm curious, did he give it to you, I mean, was he, were people intrigued that you were from America?

HL: Yeah.

TI: And what kind of reaction was it?

HL: Just interested in...

TI: And how would people know that you were American?

HL: Oh, by the way you dressed and the way you talked. It's, our Japanese was not all that great, you know. Like we speak Japanese, but we do not speak... what shall I call it, the best Japanese. We weren't speaking like women's Japanese. We were just speaking ordinary Japanese, which is different. This I learned later on, too. [Laughs]

TI: So people could tell right away that there's something different.

HL: Yeah, that you were different.

TI: Now, you mentioned that, so you had the sort of group tour for thirty days and then you disbanded, so what, what did you do?

HL: I went back to, to Takamatsu actually, and then from there I went to Marugame and went to a girls' high school. And at the girls' high school they had this post graduate class, and so I enrolled in that with the understanding that I could go to the regular girls' history classes in, and the language classes, and in return I would go to their English classes and speak English so they could hear spoken English. And then the rest of the time I spent at what they call Senkoka, and then that's where I learned how to do silk embroidery, calligraphy, and things like that. It was very interesting.

TI: What was the thinking of your parents having you go to school in Japan at this point?

HL: Well, see, I always wanted to be a teacher, and so the idea was that I could go to, go to Japan and go to their teachers' college and could, you know, because at that time getting a teaching credential in the States was iffy, and so they said, well, that was a good place to go. And that's one of the reasons I went to Marugame, because that was known for a good jougakkou to be in, to get into, teachers' college. But of course I didn't stay long enough.

TI: But were, I mean, if the war hadn't broken out, if you received your teaching sort of degree or certificate from the school, would you have stayed then in Japan and taught, or would you have come back to the States?

HL: I probably would have come back to the States and probably I would've taught just like a Japanese school and at the same time gone on and gotten my teaching credential over here, hoping that by that time things would be...

TI: Okay. When you say, so earlier you said iffy, so I'm guessing that because of, I guess, discrimination it was harder to get a teaching job in the States.

HL: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, we weren't even allowed to go into the swimming pools. You know, when they built the Natatorium in Alki Point they wouldn't allow Japanese in there. It was a, we, when we were growing up there was a lot of things that, that just wasn't open to us.

TI: And, like you mentioned swimming pool at Alki Point, how did you know that you weren't allowed in there?

HL: 'Cause they told you.

TI: Oh, so, so...

HL: I mean, it was, it was just for whites kind of thing.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.