<Begin Segment 17>

TI: So this last part is I just want to talk about your perceptions of the Japanese American community in Chicago, right after the war it was pretty large. I mean, there were a lot of Japanese that came from primarily the West Coast, they went to the camps and then to Chicago, similar to your story. And so did you have much contact with other Japanese Americans during this time?

RH: Oh, yeah, we had a lot of Japanese Americans that lived in our area where we were, where we started the business, Clark and Division. There was, oh, maybe 20,000 Japanese in all of Chicago, but Clark and Division, there must have been five, ten thousand right there. Every other person was a Japanese American for a while.

TI: And so what was that like for you to be around so many Japanese Americans?

RH: Oh, it was a fun time, and discrimination was practically nil. Even now you don't see much discrimination but when we go up to Wisconsin, someplace else, that's when you see it.

TI: So within Chicago it was pretty good.

RH: Yeah.

TI: So what were some, you said it was fun, what were some of the activities?

RH: Well, that's when we had a lot of the groups. We had not gangs but groups of guys that get together and they called themselves a name and then they'd have a basketball team and then we had a league. It was pretty strong at that time and then there was a lot of girls so we had girls' league and then we had young kids that wanted to play so we had the... we call it the D league sort of speak, kids that could hardly carry a ball and trying to teach them to play. So we had a lot of fun at that time.

TI: And how about things like dances or social things like that?

RH: Yeah, we would have, every weekend practically we'd have some kind of a party and this group is throwing a party. They were fundraisers for the team so to speak so they could buy uniforms and entry fees and so forth. Yeah, so they would advertise and we'd have something going on every weekend.

TI: And where would these parties happen?

RH: Different places, wherever we could get a place for a dance. They would have record players and we'd have a lot of fun.

TI: Well, then eventually many of the Japanese Americans who were in Chicago just started going back to the coast. Not all of them but some of them did. So why were they going back to the coast?

RH: That was home, okay, now this was a short stop because we couldn't go home in the beginning, right and so we went to different places Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, wherever and people felt that they wanted to go home. And so they went home. My dad might have felt that way but there was nothing in Modesto, it was too small. You go there now, it's a big town, but it's altogether different.

TI: How about for you? Why did you stay? I mean, after you got older and were more on your own.

RH: Well, I went back on a visit a couple of times. The first time I think it was in '68 or '69 and... no, it had to be earlier than that. It had to be in the '50s and I couldn't find any of my old friends, nobody was there. It was so foreign to me, all the places that I'd been and went to, I said, "Nah, this is not for me," so I went back to Chicago and I felt more at home there.

TI: And so now when you think of home does Chicago feel like home to you?

RH: Yeah.

TI: And do you see any differences in terms of the people who decided to stay in Chicago and those who returned to the West Coast?

RH: No, I don't see any difference, no. Some of my friends came out here for a short while. Like I said, they made a short stop out here and then went home. They're just like they usually were. Says, "You made some good friends out here," he says, "were they always like this? Were they out here when you went to camp?" I says, "Yeah, they seem like great people." He says, "They weren't always that way," he says, "they were... you can't trust 'em even now. When I leave for a while I try to get home that day so that they will know that I'm back."

TI: Because what would he be concerned about?

RH: They would ransack his place, they would go in there.

TI: And this is where again? Where would this be?

RH: This was a suburb of Modesto, Ceres. I says, "No, really?" He says, "Yeah, I can't leave this place."

TI: And so very different feeling.

RH: Yeah.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.