<Begin Segment 3>

SY: So when your parents came to the United States, then they learned English?

HS: They must've, a little bit. [Laughs] But there was only two years after they, that they got married that John was born.

SY: And you spoke Japanese at home, then?

HS: Well, my mother tried to use English, but she didn't speak too much. [Laughs] I don't remember too much about... I listened to a lot of Japanese, but I never really spoke it until years later, I started learning it word by word.

SY: So you, so did you feel sort of that you had a problem communicating with your parents? I mean, was it --

HS: No, my mom used, I could understand some of the Japanese she was speaking with my father. You learned certain words and things, but never learned proper grammar or anything. [Laughs]

SY: Right. So where, what are your earliest memories of your childhood, then? Was it, was it growing up in the flower shop?

HS: I used to go to the... it wasn't until I turned sixteen that I really started helping out in the flower shop. I'd take my, I had to, well, when I was earlier I had to get up at five o'clock in the morning on every holiday and go with my father, and he would order the flowers and I'd be carrying 'em by the bundles and then go running to the car, then go run back for some more. So my association with the flower market was every holiday, would have to go with him. My older brother, I don't know why, but he never did anything around the shop. But I used to change the water, this big, like that [holds hands apart] full of water, and take it, carry it to the curb and things, change it, but every other day, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, because the water gets real stagnant and smelly. But I was the one that used to do that every time. I started doing that from the time I was big enough to carry those big pots. I just took it on myself.

SY: And was it a, so it was a fairly successful... I mean, how, I'm curious how he got the money to buy the flower shop, and was it successful enough that he...

HS: Well, we barely eked out a living, but when you're poor you never really know how poor things are. All you, just, my dad, whenever I wanted carfare or something, something for school, why, then cash register was there and he'd say, "Whenever you need something, just open -- you don't have to tell me, but you just take nickels and dimes out of the cash register." That's the way he was. He trusted his kids from the time we were small.

SY: That's amazing.

HS: We never got robbed. [Laughs] Cash register was just sitting right on the counter in the flower shop.

SY: That's amazing.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.