Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Hy Shishino Interview
Narrator: Hy Shishino
Interviewer: Sharon Yamato
Location: Cerritos, California
Date: January 31, 2012
Densho ID: denshovh-shy-01-0031

<Begin Segment 31>

SY: And you've also been long time involved with the Southeast Japanese Community Center. Can you talk a little bit about what you do, what you've done for them?

HS: Well, when my daughter was younger she got a job at Buena Park -- that's Valley View and [inaudible] -- and so she said, "Why don't I buy a house?" She says, "It'll be perfect when you retire." I says, "I don't have money to retire yet." 'Cause I was, what the heck was I? I was fifty years old or something, but anyway, I took a twenty thousand dollar second on my house in Inglewood 'cause it was almost paid off, and so then I bought the house we're living in now in Cerritos. She found it, and so it worked out just right for her because it was only about two miles, three miles where she was working. And so I lived in it, she lived in it four years and got married, so then her and her husband -- her husband is pretty handyman, so he built a house, nice house, and they moved to Bellflower. So then my son Rob said, well, he says, "I could use a place to live. How about I rent it?" So he rented it for four years, then when he got married he said, he and his wife were both CPAs, and so he said, "We're making too much money, so we're gonna have to buy a house." So he says, "Loan me some money." [Laughs] So the money that I had on the house in Inglewood, I loaned him twenty thousand dollars, then I moved into the Cerritos house where I'm living now.

SY: And how did you get involved with the community center here? It's, the area has its own community center, Japanese...

HS: Well, my son in law's father helped build that community center. There was thirteen guys that took out a two hundred thousand dollar loan, and the thirteen pledged, but it was, 1924, the farmers down in that area, they had the foresight to buy two and a quarter acres. And then they had three little white houses, wooden houses, on there. I think in 1924 one of the Isseis was a carpenter, so they built a twenty by sixty long, like, they used it like a judo and kendo, built it. Then it's in... I forget. I moved out here in 1997, 1987, and then that's when I started getting involved, I think, in there. They had a dance club, and so we, she and I started taking dance lessons, and then we had about a hundred and eighty people in the dance club, over a hundred and something regular, but in our monthly dances we had as many as hundred and eighty every month. We made a lot of friends in there. Everybody was learning how to dance in those days. Young people. [Laughs] Nobody takes dance lessons.

SY: So this was all, mainly Nisei that were taking these, were going, using the center.

HS: So that's when I started getting involved in the center, and the dance club. Then I became vice president, president of the dance club. And then two years in that, then I joined the seniors, then I got vice president of that, and then the next year I was president of that for two years. And as soon as I got out of the seniors, then they made me on the board of directors, and the following year I became president of the board of directors. I was there for ten years.

SY: And what kinds of things do they do, this community center, besides the dances?

HS: They have a Japanese school with twelve classes that was completed in 1994. That's just about when I started getting active in there. They have a kendo class with about forty-five, fifty people, and it's really well known in the United States. And they have judo, we have karate, and seniors meet there, and we have ikebana classes. We have all kind of activities there.

SY: Sounds wonderful. So I'm gonna ask again, though, now, how is it, why is that you get so involved with all these things?

HS: [Laughs] I don't know. First thing I know is I'm elected, I got elected to seniors when I wasn't there. I had that for two years. That was, the trick, they says the only way they can get a president is vote for anybody who's not there. Sneaky, these Japanese. [Laughs]

SY: But you've managed to take it on, and it's a lot, a lot of work, a lot of responsibility.

HS: Somebody's got to do it.

SY: So at one time you were probably involved in how many different organizations, pretty actively?

HS: Well, some toned down, but I've always been a member of that Gila Reunion Committee. We had a good treasury. Up until last month, we had twenty thousand dollars in our Gila treasury. And so between the treasury, I think we gave five thousand to the museum, five thousand to the Phoenix JACL, and five thousand to something else. And we, Ben kept five thousand, he said that's for future. It's an old concept because he and I are, whatever we decide, we're the ones that keep the Gila Committee alive. There's only ten members that are left out of the original forty-five.

SY: So you're not planning any more reunions?

HS: No way. Too much work.

SY: So, but the whole idea of preserving the story of the camps, is that something that you still are wanting to do?

HS: Yes, because, like all the ones I've been involved in, we always say, like even, we had ten camps reunion committee, and the thing is that those of us that experienced it, if we don't tell the stories of all the little things that happened and our feelings, he says it's got to be put down like this, because it gets watered down. It's only what the people who experienced it, those things that to be memorialized because a second generation, it's only hearsay. But then by the time the third generation, what the second generation heard isn't always down to the minute details. And so if we don't do it now while we're still alive, why then, it, we don't want it to die out, because that's something that ninety percent of the people in the United States have never heard about and they still don't know. And this is why I keep saying, I says I have to be a part of whatever happens to make sure that the future... because we don't want what happened to us to ever happen to anybody again. It almost happened to the Arabs as soon as the bombings.

SY: So is this, this feeling, you said it started when you joined the reunion committee, this... so did all these memories come back all at once?

HS: No. The incidents, you never forget what your daily life or some of the incidents that happened, but I think our spirit comes from our parents. You know, gambatte, and you just, it happened, it happened, but you don't cry over spilt milk. But you make sure that it's never gonna happen again. That's why when you said you wanted to do this, I says by all means, I says whatever part that I make sure, help make sure that this never happens to anybody again. They say America, things like this can't happen, but it did happen, and people don't know about that.

SY: Do you think that, looking back, that it really affected your parents a lot, or did they just, were they able to --

HS: The Issei never complained. You never heard them say a bad word or what happened, but to them it's just an incident that happened. But I've never heard my mom or my father ever complain about what happened to us in camp.

SY: So they just kept going. They never --

HS: Yeah, they just kept going. Gambare spirit.

<End Segment 31> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.