<Begin Segment 12>

SY: And it's curious to me that you then... maybe you can tell the story of how you met Norman Mineta?

HK: Oh, yeah, we... I knew of him because of the Herb Caen article and hearing about him. I guess he told me he heard about me too. So then we started UC Berkeley together in fall of '49, and interestingly enough, Norm was in a dormitory on the north side of campus, and was in the same dorm as my closest friend from San Leandro High School. So when I went to see my good friends from San Leandro who were in the same dorm as Norm, that's when I met Norm. I thought, "I know you, I've heard about you..." so we became friends at Berkeley so we actually got to know each other.

SY: And did you regard him as student leader at the time?

HK: Yeah, no doubt about it. I think he became a rep at large, he ran for that office and won. And so he was clearly a leader for high school and in college, so I can see he was on track to do some other things down the road which of course occurred.

SY: And how about yourself? Did you continue to take on a leadership role?

HK: Maybe to some degree I helped with the Nisei... it was called Nisei Student Club in those days, and I was elected president of the Nisei Student Club. Although most of the things we do were primarily social but we did some things too that were more community... for the community. But largely it was a social kind of thing.

SY: Again, I'm curious, did you have organizational skills? Did you have people skills?

HK: Probably a little bit of all those things. I'm sure as I took on some of these roles, you learn things from the experience so I think you just kind of build on the experience and then you develop better skills.

SY: And I also wanted to mention this sort of connection that you have with Norm through your sister.

HK: Oh yeah, it was curious. Now Norm and I are related through marriage. Our sisters, the sister above me, Sachi, and Norm's sister, they married Masaoka brothers. Etsu, Norman's older sister, her name is Etsu and she died several months ago. So Etsu married Mike Masaoka and my sister Sachi married Tad Masaoka, and Tad is the youngest of the Masaoka brothers. And of course Etsu being Mike's wife, and Etsu and Norman are brother-sister, so we became related through marriage because our sisters married brothers.

SY: Right, so that happened when you became related, was it way after the war?

HK: It was certainly after the war, but, see... '49.

SY: Because Mike Masaoka was the JACL leader.

HK: Yes, that's correct.

SY: And he must have married Etsu --

HK: I think it was right during the war.

SY: During the war.

HK: Yeah, I think so.

SY: And your sister then married his brother.

HK: After the war.

SY: After.

HK: Actually they were together at Berkeley, my sister Sachi went to Berkeley and Tad went to Berkeley, that's where they met and got married.

SY: That was before the war.

HK: This was just after the war.

SY: This is your younger sister?

HK: Yes, just after the war.

SY: I see, and did you ever talk to Norm about the fact that he's related to Mike Masaoka?

HK: You mean after?

SY: Right, when you met him.

HK: Well, after a while we would kid each other. "Hey, Norm we're related through marriage." He say, oh yeah, ha ha ha that's like a joke or something.

SY: But the fact that he was actually related to someone who was a leader in the JACL.

HK: Yeah, that's true. That's certainly true.

SY: But you never talked about that?

HK: I don't think it became a big topic of conversation for us.

SY: That was amazing. So you are still are fairly good friends?

HK: Yeah, we stay in contact. Whenever I get back to Washington I try to look him up.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.