<Begin Segment 9>

BN: So you had just started Punahou really when the war hit.

HM: Yes.

BN: So you mentioned wondering what...

HM: (Yes), I had just started in the fall, and then when the war started, the army engineers wanted to take over the Punahou campus. So no classes could be held there, so every class was held in different places, some at private homes. My class was held at Waioli Tea Room. So I had to, my particular class had to go to school there until later, they allowed us to use the Teacher's College at University of Hawaii for classrooms, so we had school there. And then I guess after the army moved out, we could go back to campus.

BN: But most of the war you were...

HM: (Yes), we were either at... I was either at Waioli Tea Room or after that Teacher's College at University of Hawaii.

BN: Earlier you were mentioning that there was kind of an informal or unwritten quota, ten percent quote/unquote "Oriental."

HM: Yes.

BN: So, but you were mentioning also that there were -- and I found this surprising -- that there were a lot of girls, Japanese, relative to boys.

HM: Oh. Just my class was unusually lots of girls. I don't know how that happened, but...

BN: When you say "a lot," how many are we talking about?

HM: Well, I can count them. [Laughs] I can count them on two hands. So that's a lot, because usually they would take, at that time, it was two Orientals to a classroom. That's either Japanese or Chinese. So we had two Japanese boys, and gosh, about ten Japanese girls. We had a lot. So to this day, we're very close friends. We have lunch together at least once a month or so.

BN: How did the other students accept you being Japanese, but also right after the war?

HM: The war? You know, I... I'm not sure. No one called me "Jap," but it's my own feeling. I'm just not sure, "Are they looking at me like a 'Jap'?" I was not, I was sort of shy anyway, so I guess maybe it was my own thinking. Maybe they think of me as an enemy or something. So I was not really close to any haole friends, but today it doesn't seem to matter. When we have reunions, they're all very friendly. But I don't remember being invited to any birthday parties at their homes. [Laughs] Not like my children when they were going to Punahou, they were invited by haoles. So I think, for that reason, I think we (Orientals) felt a kinship and very close to each other.

BN: In terms of what you were studying, today, expectation is everybody goes to college. Was it also that way and if so, what were you kind of preparing for?

HM: Oh. Nothing specific, but it was a college-orientated school, so everyone is expected to go to college. So I was... at that time, my sister had gone away already, and she was in New York 'cause she married a Nisei in New York and was living there. So I wanted to go to New York or someplace in that vicinity. So I did go away to college. And, well, a lot of my friends did, too. So we sort of, you know, met there, so every once in a while we would get together. But it was expected that we all kind of go to college.

BN: To go back to the wartime, other families that I've talked to have mentioned, kind of felt sometimes that families that the father was interned, there was almost a, they were kind of given a cold shoulder by other members of the community, because of this fear that...

HM: Association? Oh.

BN: Did you feel any sort of tension from other Japanese families?

HM: You know, I guess I was too young to even realize if that was going on at all. But as far as I know, I didn't feel anything.

BN: None of your friends...

HM: Were told not to play with me? No, I don't think so. I had the same friends... well, I was at Punahou already, and then we were close to each other because I think, because we were Japanese, I think we just felt... and then we knew, my parents knew their parents, so it worked out. We always were good friends.

BN: You mentioned that you were able to write, exchange letters with your father.

HM: No, I wasn't, but my mother was.

BN: So you knew where he was.

HM: Well, I didn't really realize. I was too young, but I guess she knew. And I guess... I don't know how she did it, but she had to send money away to my brother and sister, so I guess she corresponded with them.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.