<Begin Segment 4>

KN: Can you tell us the names of your family members? Your father and your mother, brothers and sisters?

EK: Okay. Well, my dad's name is Seiichi Higashide, my mother is Angelica Yoshinaga Higashide, and then I was the firstborn, and then my brother Carlos and my sister Irma and my brother Arthur, who has since passed. And then my sister Martha, then later... so five were born in Peru and three in the U.S.

KN: So you grew up with a large family.

EK: Yes.

KN: How was that for you? Because you don't see that anymore.

EK: No, not too many.

KN: It's wonderful to have so many siblings. It's automatic playmates...

EK: But because they had taken everything, it was a time of -- which I didn't realize 'til later, I never felt very poor because I knew there were others, even American Niseis and Sanseis who went to Seabrook who had nothing. [Interruption] But in our case, we had lost everything, so I never really felt poor other than, I don't know, later I realized how poor we were. Because one Christmas in Seabrook, 1946 or '7, that Christmas, my dad made a big deal out of Christmas day with pomp and circumstance, and what we received was a bar of chocolate.

KN: Wow.

EK: But we thanked him, you know, because it was something. And he wanted to make sure that he remembered that it was Christmas for us. But looking back, I said, "Oh my goodness, bar of chocolate?" [Laughs]

KN: For each child?

EK: Yeah, for, well that that time, I don't think the little ones got it. I think just the oldest three or four got that as presents.

KN: So your father presented it to you?

EK: Yeah.

KN: Do you still remember his expression?

EK: I remember. Yeah, "Merry Christmas, this is your present this year." So we didn't grumble or anything because we knew -- I think we just knew even as children, are very intuitive, so we kind of knew he couldn't get what we really would have liked, like in Peru. But luckily, in Peru, too, it's not like now where one child gets so many presents. I know seeing my grandchildren, I said, "My gosh, they could open up a store, practically." [Laughs] But in Peru at that time, I don't know if it was the custom that my father started for his family or something that some of the families did, was children had to do something to earn this gift from San Nicolas, they called it. And it was to shine the dirtiest shoes. So the night before, you clean it, you put the polish and you shine it as best as you could and you put it under the bed. And if the San Nicolas was pleased with your work, then he'd leave the present you were wishing for. It was just one present from Santa, not from parents and grandparents and aunties and uncles, no, it's just one. So we cherished that very much.

KN: And so you still remember that.

EK: I still remember that, yeah.

KN: Do you remember the kinds of gifts that you were given?

EK: Yeah. My father, because he had to go buy for inventory of the store, he would go into Lima, and each time he'll bring something, little gift. One that I remember that I was so delighted with, with my sister, who then was about three or four, was this little box of furniture. Like one, I remember, had a bathtub. I don't know if it was plastic or ceramic or anything like that, I don't remember that. But it was a bathtub and a little sink and a little piece of sofa maybe, that was one of my favorites. My little sister, at that Christmas, received a clucking chicken.

KN: A real...

EK: No. [Laughs] It was made of, like, metal, but, you know, you don't see those toys anymore. But you push it down, and it would cluck, and then it will squirt out little white marbles to be the eggs. Yeah, so that was some. The others were handmade wooden toys that people would come and sell it, and he'd buy those. So I used to have that.

KN: So you had a very loving and a very happy childhood.

EK: Yeah. I never, I never ever thought I was unhappy. There were some scary moments in a sense because in Peru at that time -- and I still hear some people still have it -- is by the doorway entry, the front of... remember this is a long building. So the front is the store, the middle was my dad's office and where we were taught, a little classroom, and then there were like a heavy drapes going into a long hallway leading to the living quarters, the living room, the bedrooms, the kitchen and so forth, dining room. And so they, in front of the entry to the living quarters, they put this long leather... what are those things called? Yeah, whips. Whips, and it's called chicote. And all we had to do was look at it and say, "Oh, we don't want to be naughty and get that on our backs." Of course, they were never used. But that, and then at that time, people were called gitanas, or gypsies, would come shopping. And they'd wear all these bangles just like in the movies, of long ago. Now I think you're not supposed to even say "gypsies," I don't know. But they were gypsies and they had all these loopy earrings and bandanas and full skirts, many layers. And they said, "If you're not good, they will hide you under the skirt and take you away and then we'll never see you." So when they used to come, then we'd hide behind the counters. [Laughs] So, I mean, that was the only scary thing, if you can call it scary. Didn't last very long. But yeah, it was a very happy, joyful time for us.

KN: I think that's just wonderful because you think of the Issei generation as very stern and austere and never necessarily interacting with their children, but your dad was a very prominent figure in your life.

EK: Yes, he was. But you know, this is because we had enough economically. I think it does change when you have nothing. So that's a lesson in life, too, about what is poverty, what it does to a family interaction. Because if you have to work all the time, and you're tired all the time, you had no time to interact. So that was a big lesson that I learned, 'cause later it did change, 'cause he had to work so hard. Sometimes he would have three jobs. Remember, there was nothing. I mean, people say, "Oh, yeah, we had nothing, too," but no, you still have a little money. No, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, and they had to survive this.

KN: Can you explain how you came to that process where you had enough, and then suddenly there was nothing? Can you explain when it happened?

EK: Well, in a way, I'm thankful that I was little enough not to really realize it until later, how much my parents must have suffered, but they didn't show it. And my mother was very creative. She loved to cook, so she would make a very simple cabbage and the cheapest frankfurters, a meal, by putting spices and things like that that made it tasty. And yeah, and also, with our clothes, by the time we were released from camp, it's that age where you start to grow physically also. And there was no money to go buy at a store, so she would, like, bleach the diaper. In those days, there were no paper diaper, everything was cloth. And it was that flannel one, on the inside was flannel, on the outside was like broadcloth. So she bleached those and made part of our clothes, like bodice part. And the one that shows in the book, she made that. She made the pattern...

KN: So that's why you have all of that. Your sister, she had the same one. [Laughs]

EK: Oh, yeah, all the time, she would do that to cut down on expense. And she would knit and re-knit. Take it apart and re-knit for someone who needs it more.

KN: This is a woman who grew up with a very loving family, too.

EK: Yes, yes.

KN: So she also never lacked for...

EK: Never lacked for anything because Grandma, who was from Kyushu, was a very proud woman. My grandpa was very handsome, I mean, I went to see the museum in Lima, and I said, "Wow, he was, when he was younger, too, he was so good-looking." And my grandma is what people would call a "handsome woman." But she was very smart, and she didn't want... because they lived in Canete, which is a very little town, I don't know if... I think it is in some maps, but she would -- and she had three daughters -- so she always made sure they were dressed in the latest style from Lima, so they would not call them country bumpkins.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.