<Begin Segment 8>

FA: Let's go back to December 7, 1941. What was your experience?

SH: You know, I don't remember much about it. I think I was so much involved in just our own world that I don't remember, except that we knew that it was Japan that had attacked. And other than that, and we were just kind of surprised, and I wonder why, but then not really knowing much about it.

FA: Your father or your mother, what did they say? What was their reaction?

SH: I think they just told us in a matter-of-fact way that Japan had attacked. But then I don't think they told us any reason why or what, they didn't say much about it. Maybe they talked about it among themselves, but they didn't talk about things like that with us.

FA: Were they worried, were they happy?

SH: No, I think they were worried because I think like my dad still had relatives in Japan, and I think he was more worried about it. I don't remember much about that.

AH: And then you weren't living on the Pacific Coast, either.

SH: Right, right.

FA: You were excited at the influx of Japanese Americans, but the U.S. was at war. Was there any, did you feel any looks from the hakujins in Denver about the U.S. being at war with Japan, you being Japanese?

SH: I don't remember much about that because we were in such a close-knit community that I think we were mostly around in that area and we didn't go out much.

FA: So you had no experience at all with any kind of hostility from the Denver community.

SH: No. And then in school, the only incident I remember is that the DAR, there was a representative from the DAR that came, and they had been trying to recruit people, I think it was in my high school, to help out. And so I never speak out in a group but I wanted to know how they would speak to me if I asked. And I said, "Could I also volunteer?" And they said, "No, we can't accept your race." So I remember that very well. But other than that, I don't think there was any hostility as far as kids were concerned, and I didn't feel any resentment. Maybe because we were also in the school classroom with mostly the same kids that I had gone through from seventh grade, all through the twelfth. And then around that time I was already thinking about college, and my dad -- not my mother so much -- they were interested that I go to college. And so they said to me that I had to think about going to school, and so I said, "Could I go to CU and stay in Boulder?" And they said, no, you had to go to the local school. So then I went to the University of Denver.

AH: Now I had read somewhere, and I have been driving myself a little mad because I can't find the documentation for it, but I believe I read someplace in my research that there were more people, students of Japanese ancestry, at the University of Denver than any other college in the United States during World War II. Now you must have been there about that time, weren't you?

SH: Yes. Yes, I was.

AH: And was there a substantial population?

SH: Yes, there was. There was quite a group there.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.