<Begin Segment 1>

AH: This is an interview for Densho. The interviewee or narrator for the interview is Shyoko Toda Hiraga. The interviewers are Art Hansen and Frank Abe. The videographer is Dana Hoshide. The location for the interview is the Densho recording studio, which is located at 1416 South Jackson Street in Seattle, Washington, 98144. The date of the interview is September 28, 2012, and the time of the interview is 9:40 a.m. Good morning, Shyoko, how are you?

SH: Good morning. I'm just fine, thank you.

AH: I'm very happy to meet you. We had a nice email correspondence, and I'm glad to put a face to an articulate sort of pen.

SH: Yes, I'm happy to meet you too and find out more about what's going on.

AH: Well, we're going to start the interview today with some biographical questions, and your life is central to this interview. We'll be encompassing things about your family, World War II, about Denver, about Seattle, schoolteaching and everything, but your life is central to it. So what we want to start out with is a biographical overview of your life from your birth in 1927, I think that's right, isn't it?

SH: Right.

AH: Up until World War II and the beginning of World War II and December 7, 1941, basically. So could you just talk about that, whatever direction you want to go and to whatever extent you want to deal with it?

SH: All right. I was born in Denver, my father was a tailor, and we lived in the quarters above his shop. There were many, many shops that were on the street, and it was Larimer Street. And we had very comfortable quarters. The upstairs part was bedrooms and sort of a living room, and then the downstairs part was the kitchen and dining room, and then in the front of the shop was his work area. As a child, when I was born, all of the children would be upstairs. My father would be downstairs working, but then we were all up there and having a good time. But because I was the second child, evidently I was somehow not as healthy as the others in the family. So the parents, my parents worried about me a lot. They said that I was often sickly. But as I grew older, I became very healthy. But I do remember that my mother once said that because I was ill a lot, that my oldest sister, who was twelve at the time, had to go out and do a lot of shopping and doing things. And as a result of that, she said that she had been killed by, in an accident. And I always felt a little guilty about that, because I had been a baby that cried a lot, I guess.

Anyway, as I grew older, I realized that my parents were really caring about us, and my father especially had that room set up in a way that as I learned to recognize things, that it was different from the other homes in the neighborhood. When I grew up enough to see they had the Book of Knowledge, he had a whole set in nice glass cases. And he had the Harvard Classics, and in any of the homes around there were not books, but he had books. They had a piano and pictures, and objects that were art objects. So I felt that, in the whole living room part was with a nice rug, and I thought, "Wow, this is different from other homes." So I knew that my parents had a pretty good life. But it was a busy life. But my mother, because she had the older child who had died the year I was born, and then my sister, who was three years older than I was, she was mostly busy just taking care of us.

And as I was growing up as a child, I remembered my sister and I, when we got so that we could play together and all, then she and I would be playing the old record player, that you had to have a wind-up record player. And we'd listen to songs, and they were both in Japanese and in English. But I didn't really understand too much English, but some of it came through hearing the records, I think. It was interesting because the language spoken in our home was Japanese, and so Japanese was the spoken language when I went to school. And in the kindergarten I had to repeat a year because I just didn't understand everything that was going on. And also we were not taught the skills that others had like using scissors and following directions and all. But caught on pretty quickly, and I always enjoyed school. But my parents always seemed to give us a very happy home life.

When I was in elementary school, there were many Hispanics in our, in the school. Our neighborhood didn't have any. The neighborhood, the immediate neighborhood had all stores, and so there were, like the mercantile store and a grocery, and furniture, used furniture places. And there was the Salvation Army on the corner of the block, and our playground, we didn't have much of a yard to play in. But my father had a swingset out there, and he tried to what he could to... and it was fenced in. Very small area, but it was to keep us there without getting hurt. But as we grew older, we were able to go skating around the block, and that was the means of exercise, I guess, and having fun.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 2>

AH: Let me take a break right now and ask you a couple of questions, because otherwise I won't remember the ones I wanted to ask you. [Interruption] When you mentioned the sister that died and then you mentioned that the sister was older than you by three years, can we put a name to those sisters?

SH: Yes. My sister who died was Misao, and my older sister was Tetsuko. But somehow she came by the name, she decided I think that Mary would be a better name, so she went by Mary.

AH: Yes, I noticed that was even on her obituary, it said Mary.

SH: Yes. But she was given the name Tetsuko. And my father had certain ideas about which characters he used for it, and so Tetsuko was supposed to be "a child of philosophy." [Laughs]

AH: Then another question I had for you that came up was you were talking about your father having the Harvard Classics in the household, but then you were talking about the language that was spoken largely in the household was Japanese.

SH: Yes.

AH: Your father apparently knew English, then, or at least had a reading knowledge of it.

SH: Yes, yes. He was not only able to read English, but he had customers that came in. Most of the customers were Americans, and, in fact, because he was a tailor, the biggest customers were businessmen that came in and had him do the tailor-made suits.

AH: Then another question is, was the Larimer address 1941 that you were brought up in?

SH: Yes, yes. And as we grew older, then... we always lived in the back of that shop, but as we grew older we had to go to Japanese school, too.

AH: Uh-huh. Now, the final question I have at this stage is a little bit about the demography of the Larimer Street area where you lived. You talked about the businesses being in there, and you talked about your school that you went to having Hispanics and others there. But what was, this prewar Larimer Street area, to what extent was that Japanese Americans living there?

SH: Let's see. I would say that probably half of that block was Japanese businesses. There were cafes, two cafes, there were two mercantile shops where they sold not only art objects in one of the stores, more arty sort of things, the other store was one where there were... they sold rice and shoyu and different things like that. And then there was a pool hall, and then down the block there was... let's see. There were two restaurants, oh, a Japanese store where they had like a fish market and they sold tofu there.

AH: Do you remember the names of the restaurants?

SH: One was the Continental Cafe, and the other was George's Cafe.

AH: Okay, okay. And those were both Japanese-run restaurants?

SH: Yes.

AH: Okay.

SH: And then the pool hall next door, I don't remember exactly the name of it, but there was a pool hall. And then a couple of doors down, I don't remember whether it was right at the beginning or not, there was a sort of a Mexican tavern.

AH: And was the population heavily bachelor Issei there or was it mostly families at that time?

SH: Well, they were families.

AH: And so that transformation had already taken place then by that time, when you were coming of age, right?

SH: Yes, yes. We had friends to go to school with and all.

AH: And so you had a lot of cohorts, people your age, that you could play with and things that were Japanese?

SH: I wouldn't say a lot, but we had several that we could play with. Maybe not quite a dozen in my age group, maybe four or five.

AH: Okay, Frank, questions?

FA: So families with kids, what kind of things did you do? Did you play games, get in trouble?

SH: Well, we would have games like... well, the roller skating was the best for my girlfriends and I. But we also went out and played marbles and Kick the Can, and hiding games like that. And it was kind of fun. We looked forward to those days when we could go out and play because it was fun. We didn't like staying in our own yard.

FA: Did you get in trouble?

SH: Not so much. I think I was pretty obedient, so I didn't do things to get in trouble. My brothers did, though.

FA: What did they do?

SH: Oh, I think they would go around and look for things that they could do that weren't supposed to be, like going a little further than they were supposed to be and all. But it was sort of a fun neighborhood. And, you know, we would make up games, like there was a hotel above us and the rails, stairs that went down, then it was not only fun to jump the stairs and do different things, but then we learned to hang on to those stairs to see if we could go down and exercise without knowing, you know, it was fun. And learning to jump off the roof of little places and things like that, using that little tiny roof that was actually a basement, I think, going below, as a stage. And we would have fun playing up there and playing make believe as we grew older. [Laughs] It was very inventive now when you think of it.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 3>

FA: In 1941 you were about fourteen years old.

SH: Yes.

FA: And you were then starting in high school?

SH: I was already in high school, yes. I believe I was already in high school.

FA: So you had been in an elementary school that was outside of the Larimer district?

SH: Right, it was called the Twenty-fourth Street School. And I was in the Twenty-fourth Street School until about the fourth grade, I believe, and then our area was overcrowded they said, so they moved us to Garden Place School which was, we had to take a bus and go there. And the Twenty-fourth Street School had many Hispanics and all in it, but then the Garden Place School was all Caucasians, and it seemed like it was a little bit different. But when I was there, I think I learned a lot more. In fact, while I was there, I skipped a grade. So even if I had been behind in school, I skipped and caught up.

AH: And where was the high school?

SH: The high school was about a mile and a half or two miles away, and we had to walk there every day. It was called Manual High, and there were many, many black people there, and so it was all kinds of groups. But it was interesting because when I went to junior high, we were placed into what they called a core class. And as I was in the class I learned that the core class was a little different because it seemed to be according to how well you do in school. And so we were supposedly in the number one core class, so our teacher and the second one, who had number two core class, would have little matches where we had to work against each other to see which room had the better students. And so it was an interesting class, but because of that, later on, the courses we took were more, what would you say, planned for us. And we had to take the algebra and the higher classes, and we went all together through the whole three grades until we got to high school. And so I had to take not only algebra, but Latin class. And our social studies was a little different from others. And others could take, people that were not in our class could take typing and classes like that, business classes, but we were not in those classes because we didn't have the time. It was sort of determined, predetermined what we would have each year.

AH: School can be a very enriching thing, cosmopolitan experiences, opening up different aspects of life and society and everything else, and cultures, but the home was also an important place where people get schooled. You mentioned that there were books and things there. Was there any guidance from your mother or your father in terms of learning different kinds of things that you carry with you even to this day?

SH: Right. My father was very much a person who believed in education, so he was the one who would be talking, and it wasn't except at dinnertime, usually, when he would talk to us. And he said it was very important to get a good education and to go on to college and to be able to have a profession where you didn't have to work under somebody. And so he always said it was important to do all your work, to study hard, and he talked about things like this, and he talked about professions like being a pharmacist or a doctor or something like that so that you can be on your own. He was not a person who, what would you say, played a lot with children. As younger children he did take us to the parks and all, but he didn't spend time playing with us because he was always busy. But he was always very pleasant, and when we came home from school, the first thing we saw was our dad and he was usually either standing up by his tailoring table, which was quite high, and he would stand there and do his tailoring. Or he would be on top, and he would be cross-legged and doing his work up there. And then we had a lower table on the other side, and my mom would be working there, and she was always his helper. And so she helped him doing certain, I guess, finer or different things, and then he would do the work that was expected.

AH: And your mom was comparatively young, I mean, in comparison with your dad.

SH: Yes.

AH: And what kinds of things would she bring to you, education, enrichment?

SH: She was sixteen years younger than my dad, and she was not very well-educated, I don't think. My dad was the one who was, had more education, and she was so young when she got married. I have a feeling that she was probably sixteen years old. And so, and she was an only child, and she was not only an only child, but she was brought up by her mother and a grandmother. And I think it was, I surmised that it was because in those days, the fathers came to the United States to work, so he was on a farm working. And then the mother stayed to take care of her husband's mother. And so my mother was spoiled, and she always said that her grandmother carried her around when she was six or seven years old still on her back, and just treated her so nicely. And so my mother didn't have much to give us in a lot of ways, I think.

AH: My own father was a general building contractor, but he provided disincentives for my brother and I to learn the manual trades and things, because he wanted us to go on to the university. Did you have that experience or did you learn to be pretty good in terms of what a tailor does? Do you sew things yourself these days?

SH: I do, but I didn't learn anything then. It was just very, very, maybe from junior high, high school on, a little bit that they gave us, but they didn't do much in sewing to teach us about things like that.

AH: So you didn't get impressed into working with the family business?

SH: Not in the tailoring, no. Because we were too busy going to school, and not only to our regular school during the day, but from four to six every day, we rushed home and we immediately went to Japanese school and studied Japanese for two hours a day. So much of the work that we had to study at home was in the Japanese language, where we had to learn to read and write Japanese.

AH: Now your mom got married at sixteen, and you actually ended up getting married about nineteen?

SH: Exactly.

AH: What was your interest in the opposite gender or whatever, sex, at that time when you were fourteen years old? What were your sort of social lives?

SH: We didn't have much of a social life. It was just where you would go to maybe church and you would see people, but there was not that kind of interest much. And then in the school, in the junior high and all, I was the only Japanese American person in the class. And so I had to come home every day and help, and by that time there were things to do in the printing shop. And so I didn't have a chance at all to get to know the kids in the class.

AH: So is it fair to say you did not have a boyfriend before the war?

SH: Not before the war, not at all. We weren't, we thought there was something in the family that said we weren't allowed to date. [Laughs] It was a different time period then.

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

<Begin Segment 4>

AH: You mentioned church, and I know that the Rocky Nippon, when it was started, was grounded in Buddhism.

SH: Yes.

AH: And so was there a Buddhist temple, church, near where you were growing up?

SH: Yes. The Buddhist church was right in back of, we ran out of our kitchen door, and there was an alley. And then went around the nash pit, and the next place there was the Buddhist church kitchen where you could go in. And then from the kitchen we always ran in to school, and then they had the regular place where they had the services, and that's where they had the school. So it was very, just two minutes away to the church.

AH: And what other churches were in the community?

SH: There was a Methodist church about half a mile away.

AH: Japanese Methodist?

SH: Japanese Methodist church. And even in, as we were growing up, it was kind of divided between Buddhists and Christians. And so the people who went to the Christian church, like there was a person next door, one of my good friends, she went to the Christian church, but she didn't go to Japanese school.

AH: Oftentimes it's said that some of the disagreements between the Buddhists and the Christians in the Japanese American community has been muffled, and the people don't talk about it very much, but it was real. Was it real in Denver?

SH: Yes, I think there was a complete difference or a break between the two, because when my father was starting the paper, I noticed that they were all the Buddhist people who came to the house. And they were the people not only from Denver, but the outlying areas like Arvada and Fort Lupton and all the close areas. And it seemed that, in the little things I've heard at home, at the dinner table, that the Christians had the Colorado Times and they wouldn't publish the news of the Japanese gatherings or what was going on. And so then the reverend would often come over, and he said to us that, I think that was why the discussion started about the importance of having a newspaper that would represent their viewpoint. And so then I don't know when it started except that I was still very young. I kind of always gauge by whether my little sisters were born or not. And it was during that time that the newspaper started to, I think, gather an interest. And the reverend was over at our house a lot, and then the two would be talking, and pretty soon I saw them working together to write things up and all.

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

<Begin Segment 5>

AH: Let's move into this second section dealing with the families of your father and your mother so that we can, we even have one of your daughters here at this interview, and so I'm sure she's curious about it, too. What did you pick up? You spoke the same language at that time for a while, too, Japanese, right?

SH: Yes.

AH: So your communication was better than a lot of, some of the later siblings, probably, or even other Nisei and things. What did you pick up about the background of your dad, first, and then we'll move to your mom.

SH: My father came from a very wealthy family. In fact, his father was a tailor, and I later found out, after I talked to my cousin and found out through some research she did for me, that the father had the largest tailor shop, first one that dealt in Western uniforms. And so during the First World War, he was already making the uniforms for the soldiers.

AH: And his tailor shop was where?

SH: It was in Osaka. And it was in a very good area, found out that it's in sort of a central area of Osaka. So he made lots of money during that time. And they had eight children, but my father is Shiro, and shi is the fourth, number four. So he was the fourth son. And above him there were, I believe, three brothers and a sister. And then he was born into that family, and he said he went to school and did very well, so he believed in school and thought it was important. But when he was nine or ten years old, his father died. And when he died, there were two younger ones. In fact, the mother was still pregnant with the youngest child then. And so she evidently had a hard time, but because they had enough money, they were able to live on the money they got through rentals and things like that. And then three years later she died.

And so here was my father, only ten years old, and when his father died, and then just later still his mother died, and then there were two older brothers who took over the business. But they didn't do well because we later found out that they were kind of like playboys and using up all the money. And so they didn't have enough to take care of the children, I think, the younger ones. So my father was sent to Hiroshima as a yoshi, and yoshi means that when they're going to be adopted into the family with the idea of carrying, marrying the daughter in the family and carrying on the family name. So he was in Hiroshima from the time, I think he was around fourteen, thirteen or fourteen, and he was there. And that's why I found out that his name had been Kageyama. And so then he was there, but the family also agreed to take his younger sister and one younger brother. And then youngest brother went to be with the oldest sister.

So my father was there for I don't know how many years, and then it was then that the oldest brother, who had been in America and had spent some time here and enjoyed the freedom here, had gone to Hiroshima and said he was going to take his going to take his two younger siblings with him to America, he would get the money from his older brothers. And then my father was left there because he was the yoshi, but then my father decided he was going to go, too. So he was old enough to make up his mind, and he just left the family and he went back to Osaka. And he stayed with them, the others, until he'd go on a boat and come to America. And that was around in, I think, about 1905.

AH: And then what about your mother's family?

SH: My mother's family, my father, her father was, I don't know how long he was in Colorado, but evidently he was in Colorado doing, like tenant farming, and he would just write to his family and every once in a while went back there to visit them. But I think it was around when she was sixteen, she came to visit her dad and her mother came with her. I have a feeling then, this is just my idea, that the father's, her husband's mother had died, and so they were free to travel to the United States. So my mother came then. And I think that that was when my father was probably looking for a bride and saw my mother and thought he'd like to marry her.

AH: Now her parents actually came to Colorado, your mother's parents?

SH: Just for that time. But he was there before that doing farming.

AH: And then did they stay there long enough for you to meet 'em or not?

SH: I only met my grandmother once when she came, and at that time when she came to visit us in Colorado, I don't remember the grandfather coming with her.

AH: So she was the one grandparent that you did have actually physical contact with.

SH: Yes.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 6>

AH: Okay. Now, you've kind of gotten into the next category pretty nicely, the pre-immigration lives of your father and mother, you've really sort of covered this, so why don't we talk a little bit about the changing nature of family life in your family here in Denver, not here in Denver, in the United States, in Denver. Because he's going to switch from being a tailor to all of a sudden being a newspaperman.

SH: Right.

AH: So why don't you talk a little bit about that transformation and how that changed the nature of family life for you.

SH: Right. When my father was working as a tailor he was completely busy all the time as a tailor. But then when the newspaper started, then whatever he was involved in, he always worked hard at it. And so the newspaper I think first started on a very small scale, and maybe was just occasionally they published the paper. I don't know too much about that, but we all had to start helping then, because there were things that my dad felt that we could do. What we had to do, my sister and I only, was to return the type. Every time the newspaper came out, the hiragana and katakana, which are the simpler characters, we already knew. And so we would take the type, and it's not like today's papers where everything was all set up. It's individual type. Everything was, each... and kanji was brought in, and they had a little, I don't know what you would call it, to put in all this type, and then all of it was put together and then the paper came out. Then every time the paper came out it had to all be separated and put back in its places according to the way it was. And we had to put all the hiragana and katakana back, and so then my father could use it again to do it. So our job was always to work and do that. And so we didn't have as much time to play. Of course, we had to do our studies, and went on with our studying, but it was a job that had to be done.

AH: And how would you compare your involvement in the paper with Tetsuko's involvement with the paper?

SH: Because she was the older one... at that time when my father was there, it was about the same. We both helped in whatever we could. And later on, as the newspaper grew bigger... what had happened was that the tailor shop was on one side and then they, I think they rented the house, the place next door. And so they opened up a door between the two storefronts, and the store next door became the printing part, and then my father's tailor shop gradually disappeared and all the things started going out, and he wasn't doing much tailoring. And it was, as the paper got bigger, all the big presses came in and all.

AH: My sense is that the 1941 continued to be the address for the newspaper even through the war. Is that right?

SH: Correct. But actually, the newspaper was in the 45 area. But that was the storefront where the office was, and so the part where my father had his tailoring shop became the office of the newspaper.

AH: I had sent you some things that talked about the origins of the newspaper, and they put the origin of the paper in 1933. And when you sent me some stuff, you said you thought it was 1938. Can you explain why there's this discrepancy?

SH: Right. I think that it could have started in '33 but it was very, very... what would you say? Maybe once a month or something like that. And we didn't have it printed in our shop. Instead, I think that what they did was... maybe it was a once page newspaper or maybe smaller at the beginning, and it was sent out and printed, and then it went to just mostly the Buddhist people who were paying to have it sent to them. And then as it grew, then the tailor shop completely disappeared.

AH: Is it fair to say that your father, by inheritance, got into tailoring, but actually by his own preferences got into newspaper work?

SH: Well, it may be that way, but it also is because I think that he was the only one who could do that kind of thing. Because he was a leader in the community, and I remember that when they were first starting to talk about building the new Buddhist church, he was the one that had the blueprints. Somebody had drawn those up, and I remember that the people would come to our house. And my father would get the blueprints out, and he'd spread 'em across the tailoring table, and then they would all look it and my father would explain things to them and then say how he felt about it. He was a quiet man but very forceful in the things he did. And he also was one that the people from the countryside would come and they'd ask him to be the one to go with them to the doctor to be the interpreter or translator for whatever they needed to ask the doctor about, then they would be very grateful to him. So I think he was kind of a leader in the church as well as in the community. And so they asked him to do it, I don't really know.

AH: Well, there was some sort of moral obligation he felt, then, to do this?

SH: I think that's what it was.

AH: Now, there was a tradeoff, though, wasn't there? Because economically his family is growing and he's got more kids, more mouths to feed and everything, and giving up the tailoring for this venture must have been tough on the family.

SH: I think it was, but then I think that's around the time that it started to become maybe economically to his benefit to transfer his interests into that part because he felt that he could make a living on it. I really don't know because he never talked about that sort of thing with us.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 7>

AH: Now we know that during World War II in the so-called "voluntary evacuation" of people, people who were leaving and coming from California and other places, Washington and Oregon, to Denver, that there was a swelling of the population. Was that starting to occur even before the outbreak of the war? Did you notice as you were getting older, as you were in high school, that there were more Japanese and Larimer Street was getting a little more crowded?

SH: No, not until the war.

AH: So the war was the watershed, right?

SH: Right, and it was around the time that people started to come in, it was after the war started.

AH: Okay. Well, you've talked a little bit about the founding of the paper, and then we can talk a little bit about the development of it because it later on became quite expansive in terms of its coverage.

SH: Yes, yes. I think that as the newspaper started to go out to more and more people, because I remember that in the beginning I don't think it was much. I have a feeling that they used to just mail a few to each of the big cities around there, or towns, but then as it got to be going out, not only to Colorado but to Wyoming and Nebraska and all, then that's when it just really started to grow. And this was right after, I believe it was right after the war started.

AH: Why don't you get into that a little bit about how the community changed with the war, the impact of the war on the community, but also, as you saw it, on your family and even your own life in that period of 1941 to 1943, the early years of the war.

SH: Well, it was a period when it was kind of exciting, because there were so many people of Japanese descent coming. So in our schools, too, there were many, many Nisei kids that came to the schools, and it became so that there was actually a table at lunch where all the Nisei kids would gather and eat together. It was quite exciting to see so many people, and we got to meet people from all over California. And they would tell us that they're from Fresno or whatever, Sacramento, and we started, "Wow, there is another place out there besides Denver." And so it was quite exciting. It was just a period when different shops started to come in, too. There were more Japanese people who started restaurants around there, there were probably three or four restaurants and barber shops and beauty shops and dentists and all kinds of people coming in. It was an exciting time.

AH: It was a very exciting time from what a lot of people say, but there was also reports that some of the old prewar Japanese American population in Denver was not necessarily hospitable to the new people coming from California, and they didn't use the word, "We're getting 'Californicated,'" but they did talk about California and sometimes even use a K instead of the C to indicate that there was some kind of problem.

SH: Well, I think that they were a little bit wilder than we were. [Laughs] I know that we would talk and they'd say, "Oh, there's a lot of chick sexers here." And they'd talk about these people, guys that would be going around on motorcycles or the little scooters, and they brought a kind of a different lifestyle, many of them. They were just not the people who followed the rules of the Japanese people.

AH: But you must have been in a situation where your family benefited by them coming, because they were more subscribers to the paper, advertisers and everything else, and yet at the same time, your family's got a lot of daughters, they're probably worried about some of these California guys, huh?

SH: Yes, because it was a different kind of a community then. And I don't think that they necessarily joined the churches, but they were more worldly. And so it was interesting to watch that growth. And so it was an interesting time because people were coming and taking all kinds of jobs, or if they didn't have jobs, they were on the streets. It just became like a real Japanese town then. The stores became just full of people, and they started to establish bigger grocery stores, and I think a lot of the others in the community moved out.

AH: If we were to have your high school yearbooks here, would we be able to look at the ones that were your earlier years and your later years and see a difference in the number of photos of people with Japanese faces?

SH: I think so. Sorry that I don't have any, but I think that it would be very definitely so.

AH: And how was your personal feelings about this growth? You were excited by it, or were you alarmed by it or a mixture?

SH: No, I was excited by it because there were so many people that were coming that I could talk to. And in the past, because I had just come home from school and would be at home going to, just studying and staying within a one-block area and just going to and from school. Then now we had friends that were coming in, so we met people, and it was a good time, I think.

AH: I noticed when I was in Denver that they have a number of ways to commemorate Governor Ralph Carr.

SH: Yes.

AH: And do you remember the buzz about him by your family and other people as to what his stand meant to the community, to the family?

SH: Yes. I remember people were very, very excited and happy because he was the only governor who stood up and said that the Japanese people were welcome to come. He said they were welcome to come. And so then many people who didn't know where to go decided to stop in Denver. And many of them said that they were afraid to even get in the car and go out because they had heard about cars being overturned and people picking on them and all. But then when he said that, then it just really was an influx of Japanese. And so then there were some, including one who later became my husband, who came to the newspaper then, and he had no... because he didn't know much in English, he saw "Japanese town" and he came and looked in. He came with several buddies from California. And they just were walking around, and when they saw a Japanese newspaper they were excited and came. Then he asked for a job and he started working.

AH: And he was Kibei?

SH: He was a Kibei, yes.

AH: And so how soon had he, how recently had he come back from Japan?

SH: The year before.

AH: The year before. So he had been fairly socialized in the language of Japanese, right, so that his English was not...

SH: He was not able to speak much English at all, so he could not go out and look for much of a job in the American community. And so he was very much interested in the Japanese people there.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<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.

<Begin Segment 9>

AH: And what was Denver University like at that time? That was not your choice, that was your parents' choice, right?

SH: [Laughs] It was the cheapest way to go. I could stay at home and go to school.

AH: And tell me about that school.

SH: It was a very nice campus, and I remember it was very peaceful, it was a beautiful place. The only problem was that my father had these specific ideas about what we should do in going to school. And so he had decided that I should go into pre-med. So I had to take all the courses for pre-med, and so then that meant that I had to go into... and at the University of Denver they had a set course. And from the beginning, from the time you were a freshman, then you could only take certain things, and they were one science, one math, and biology and all this kind of thing. And because I had in high school done well, I had taken a test, and I was able to opt out of first-year English. And so I remember opting out of English, but still they had quite a set course for us. So I did it to please my father, but it was not what I wanted.

AH: Did you get your degree in that?

SH: I got my degree in it, but not very happily.

AH: Why?

SH: Because it was not, I was not that interested in it, and it was in my senior year that I was allowed to take electives, and I started to take liberal arts courses. And I thought, "This is what I really enjoy, the liberal arts courses." And so I had taken an education class at that time, too, knowing that we weren't allowed to teach, but I thought I'd just like to know about that. And so I took one, and then that was how I got into that field.

AH: Now Tetsuko was three years older than you. Did she go to school, college?

SH: She went to college, too, but I don't know how serious she was. I was the one in the family who always was the one who tried the hardest and really believed what my father said. If he said, "Work hard," I worked hard. My sister was more happy-go-lucky, and she would work a certain amount, but then she would go off and fool around and do things. And she was not that interested in studying. She took courses, but she was smart enough, she just didn't work very hard at it.

AH: What was her major, do you remember?

SH: I don't even remember what her major was, but I know she did it. And I was the one who won the awards and everything else; she never did anything.

AH: So she wasn't a role model for you in that sense?

SH: No, no. In fact, I often wonder why, even in the time I was in, I think it was in elementary school, my father, the Buddhist church, in the church we have certain celebrations, and then they had to have representatives from different... like one from the schoolchildren who would have to give a speech, and they would always, my teacher would tell me I had to do it. And then my father wrote a speech that I had to memorize in Japanese. I didn't know anything about what it said, but I had to memorize it and get up there and give it. That was several times. And then when I was about, I'd say about ten years old, nine or ten, my parents told me, I saw the reverend from Fort Lupton and his wife at our house, and they said... evidently they had told my father that they needed somebody that could come and take care of their children because they were both, the reverend and his wife were teaching Japanese school during the summertime in Fort Lupton. And here I was about ten or eleven. And for two years, they sent me away to live with the family, and I lived with the Reverend's family for two years.

AH: What were the two years?

SH: Just during the summer, two months during the summer.

AH: Oh, just during two summers.

SH: Two summers, yes. But I kind of felt lonely for my family, you know, coming from a big family. And I couldn't understand why I was the one who had to go.

AH: Let me ask you to talk a little bit about the Fort Lupton Japanese American community, because that figures a lot in the wartime story. What was that community like in comparison to, say, what you knew in Denver?

SH: Well, it was a farming community, and people were all friendly. I only know them in that they would come over once in a while to bring vegetables to the reverend's family. And then the school, the kids, the students I didn't get to talk with because I was there in their home taking care of the young children. In fact, I think there was only one, each time there were, I think there was only one because the older one went to school, and then the younger one was home and was maybe preschool age. And so I didn't get to go to the school to meet the kids except that I kind of felt a longing to go over there when I'd see them right across the way there. They were in school during the day and I was just taking care of the child and maybe running errands for the wives there.

AH: Did you get to go to the Buddhist church there in Fort Lupton? Because I think they did have a temple at that time.

SH: I think we only visited once or twice when we would have our special, like on the day of the Buddha's birth, then we would go and we had to do plays from our Denver church, we would go over there and we would present a play, and I would be in the play or in a dance or singing or something. So we went there maybe a few times, I can't remember really knowing much about it.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 10>

AH: Now in Denver, to get back from Fort Lupton to Denver, in Denver there was a very yeasty sort of period for journalism there, because all of a sudden you have Japanese Americans depending upon these papers in the free zone. And there's essentially the Colorado Times and the Rocky Nippon which became the Rocky Shimpo, then there's the Utah Nippo. And then there's the other paper in UCLA, the Pacific Citizen. So that is the press for Japanese America. And of course the expansion, the subscription rate has been estimated to be somewhere around ten thousand, which was huge in comparison...

SH: It was the largest newspaper.

AH: Yes, they put that on the banner, the largest newspaper.

SH: It was the largest newspaper; they were so proud of that.

AH: So in a sense you were attached to the "voice of Japanese Americans," and people do a lot of times believe what they read in the newspaper. So now you have a rivalry in your own time.

SH: Yes, the Colorado Times.

AH: Now, did your family know the Kaihara family that --

SH: Kaihara.

AH: Kaihara, yeah, K-A-I-H-A-R-A, right?

SH: Kaihara.

AH: Kaihara, yeah. Did you know them?

SH: I knew, in looking at him, I knew who it was, but I didn't really know him at all.

AH: And did you know the daughter, Bea?

SH: No.

AH: No, you didn't.

SH: She was much older than I was.

AH: Okay. But in the family, was there a sense of them being, for instance, the other, and something of a rivalry?

SH: Yes.

AH: And they were also much more attached to, like, the JACL than your paper, right?

SH: Yes, definitely.

AH: And so how did your family feel about that at the time?

SH: Well, I think that they kind of didn't like them, resented them. And they felt that they were the ones who were trying to get the people to get the newspaper, but then it was like a rivalry, I think.

AH: So they weren't part of the same social circle then?

SH: Not at all. I don't know if there was much of a social circle anyway.

AH: Well, I mean, poetic license, that kind of circle. But you didn't do things with them.

SH: No.

AH: You don't remember seeing them at events, community events?

SH: No.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 11>

AH: Okay. So, now, what happens is, of course, that a real watershed moment for your family is the fact that your father, when he's publisher for this Rocky Nippon, is then accused of having, not writing necessarily himself, but having in his paper seditious material.

SH: Right.

AH: So he gets taken away in 1943, and it's kind of unclear to me if he went to Old Raton Ranch or did he go to Santa Fe?

SH: No, no. We first went to Lowry Air Force Base, and he was detained there at Lowry Air Force Base for quite a while, and we knew he was there because we heard that he had been taken there by the FBI. And then when he was in that Lowry Air Force Base, by that time my sister was the one in our family who was the one who was sort of the one who took over the newspaper.

AH: Right, the acting publisher.

SH: And so she was the acting publisher, so she also took over the family business sort of, and I don't know how much she, I don't think she knew anything about the bookkeeping or anything. She was just three years older than I, and a happy-go-lucky person. So that was not her interest, but she worked hard at whatever she could do there. And we were also working in the office every day, my sister and I, and then by that time, the people who were coming in from other, California, had been hired to help in the office, and so then my sister was supposed to have been talking to a lawyer because we all kept on asking her what's going on, and she would call this Mr. Dunkley, Ed Dunkley. And so she said that he said he was working on the case, and he would do the best he could to get my father home. And so then evidently -- and I don't know if this is true or not, because this is only what I heard from my sister -- and she told the people in the office, too, that there was a hearing one day.

AH: At Fort Lowry?

SH: At Lowry Air Force Base, at Lowry Air Force Base. And at that time, they asked my dad if he was loyal to the United States. And he said, "Yes, I am loyal to the United States." He told them, "I've been here since the early 1900s, I have never been back to Japan. I expect to live and die here." And he said, "As a result of this, I could tell you that my grave site is already there with my name on the grave stone." And so he told them that he expected to live and die in the United States. And then the judge asked him -- and it was just some officer who was presiding over it -- if that were the case, why didn't he get citizenship? And my father said, "Don't you even know the rules of your own country? We can't have citizenship." And my father, not being a person who was, would be very humble, he said it in a very arrogant way. And then they said because of that, they decided he had to go, be detained. This is the story I heard. So I don't really know.

AH: Well, let me just back up a little bit because I'd be very derelict if I didn't ask you this question. The pivotal moment for a lot of people on the coast was when their father got picked up, and after Pearl Harbor. Now, you were inland, and so you're outside of this zone and everything, but the equivalency was when your father got picked up. So set the stage, you weren't able to remember that about the Pearl Harbor thing, but what about this? What do you recall about the fact of somebody coming and removing your father from the home and leaving without the rock of the family, the intellect and the leader and the sage older person?

SH: Well, it was a real surprise, but we thought it was just to take him for questioning. We didn't think that he was going to be put into anywhere. We said, "Nobody from Colorado is going. They haven't said that. In fact, they're inviting people to Colorado. Why would they take him?" So it was like, it was just something, disbelief that he would be taken, but they came and took him. And so we thought it was just to question him. We didn't know it was going to be for good.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 12>

AH: Now at that point, was the person that you eventually married, was he working for the Japanese section of the newspaper or not?

SH: Yes.

AH: Well, he probably talked about this over the years. What did he know about it?

SH: He never said much about it. I don't know if he knew about it either. Because he never did say anything about it.

AH: Did he get involved in any way as an intermediary? I know he didn't know English that well at the time, and he was working on the Japanese section, was he involved at all?

SH: No. I don't think so, because at that time, I didn't know him well at all. He was just one of the people working in the newspaper.

AH: What I'm getting at is Toshiko sounds comparatively, at least, irresponsible. I mean, not a person that is serious about school and does her own sort of thing and everything, and then she's plunged into this role. And I know that James Omura felt that she was like a kid.

SH: She was.

AH: And so he was assuming all the responsibility because that was part of his job, he was the public relations person for the newspaper. But then your husband-to-be was actually running the Japanese section.

SH: There were others with him, too.

AH: Okay, he wasn't the editor of the Japanese section?

SH: Oh, he probably was. I think that when he came to my dad's place and asked him for a job, then my father just kind of felt sorry for him and took him on. And then there were others that came with him who were also working in the newspaper, and they were doing other things. One was working in the office and another was working in the printing shop printing the papers and all. And so there were others who came with him or around that time who were friends of his, who were all Kibei Nisei, and they were all working in the newspaper. So I didn't know him very well at all. And so even if he was the editor -- I didn't know exactly that he was the editor except that I think maybe my father thought that among the ones who came to ask him for a job, he was the one who was most capable or had the most education that could do the Japanese or what, I don't know. But I knew that he was in the writing part.

AH: Now I know Omura says that -- in that oral history -- that it was Tetsuko and your husband-to-be who knocked on the door of his house and basically offered this position to him, which his wife didn't want him to take because she felt he was giving up a job where he was making some money in a foundry and stuff, and this was kind of an unreliable sort of thing, but he took it anyway. And, of course, it ended up with him being bounced and your husband bounced at the same time. But your husband probably was looking for somebody to do this because it would have required an English-language capability and a very Americanized presence, which he wouldn't have been able to present.

SH: Well, I don't know... so when I read that I was wondering if it had been my husband. Because I can't imagine him going and talking to Jimmy, 'cause he probably wouldn't have been able to converse that well. Because he had only been there since, I think just the year before that he had come to the United States.

AH: Well, let's go back to your dad, and now his arrogance, allegedly, does him in because of the way he said, "Don't you even know the rules of this country, your country?" So then what happens to him? How long was at Lowry before he got removed from there?

SH: I think it was just a couple of months, two or three months. Anyway, it was, the time period was in months, I would say.

AH: And then he goes to where from there? Is that where he goes to Santa Fe?

SH: And then it was, right, Santa Fe.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 13>

AH: Now, this period you know he's not just coming back right away, right? So how does it impact the family in terms of the family socials? You're going to college. Do you drop out?

SH: No.

AH: So you continued to go to college.

SH: I kept on continuing and then still working every day, would come home and worked at the newspaper in the office, and helping with whatever we could do. And so I kept on working all the time until I got married.

AH: And how did your mother handle this? The sixteen year old bride.

SH: I know. My mother was also one who was just helping there. She would do whatever she could do, and I remember that she would help wherever she was needed. And she was not real capable of doing things, but she even went to help with where the newspapers were folded and coming out of the press, then they had to take 'em out of the machine and send them off to different places. And you have to take them out of the machine, and she was doing that one day and her thumb was chopped off. And so I remember that. And so my mother helped wherever she could, but she was not one who had any word in saying how it should be run, or nobody talked to her about it. And she was just trying to run a family, and she had two children. My youngest sister was a baby when my father was taken. She was a real baby still.

AH: Well, who helped out? I mean Tetsuko has got this responsibility nominally anyway for the paper and everything, and she's working with Dunkley, who was the lawyer for the paper. But then I'm trying to figure out, did the Buddhist group that originally...

SH: Nobody helped that way. So this is why it was hard on my mother, because she's trying to be a mother. So I remember that in those days, that my two sisters, you know shop windows, how they are, they have a little ledge where the window goes up. And my two sisters, they painted that completely dark so you couldn't see. And the two sisters, so they won't be near the machines, were put up in that window and played in the window.

AH: So you're in a position where you've got this rudderless ship almost.

SH: It was; it really was.

AH: But it's also a ship that's got a cargo of gold, because you're starting to actually, economically, make quite a bit of money. So you could afford to stay at school then instead of coming home.

SH: Right.

AH: But what an anomaly that was. And then this is what Omura came into then.

SH: Yes.

AH: [Addressing FA] Do you have any questions before we move on to Omura?

FA: Emotionally, how was your mother dealing with your father's absence? Her husband, I'm sorry.

AH: My husband or my dad?

FA: Your dad.

AH: My dad...

FA: How did your mother deal with your father's being taken away?

SH: She was just upset because she didn't know how to deal with the children in the family, what to do about trying to help in the shop, and also take care of children. So we stuck them in the window, and everybody's trying to do their job working. And then as they were growing older, then my sister was one who really cared about little kids, and so she would be trying to take them around, and if she's going out shopping or anything, she took them along with her. So she had a lot to do with helping them out. And then my two brothers were still in, I think, junior high. And they were the ones that suffered a lot, too, because they were on their own then. And in the beginning when my father was there, they were delivering the newspaper because it didn't come out very often and they had a job to do. And so they did that for a while, but then besides that, it was not the direction. And the older one who was just two years younger than myself, he was fine. He kept on going to school, but the younger one started to get in trouble. He was not going to school, and he got in trouble with the truant officer and then he finally had to go to court. And my mother is just completely...

AH: Beleaguered.

SH: She didn't know what to do. And so she's just so lost, she didn't know what to do. And we're trying to console her and help her out, too, because she feels she's let my dad down, and everybody down, so she's talking about suicidal things. So that was a difficult time.

AH: Did you ever travel over to Santa Fe, were you allowed to see your father?

SH: Yes.

AH: Can you talk a little bit about those experiences?

SH: I went to Santa Fe once with my mom, she wanted to go and talk to him. And so we went, and when we went to Santa Fe, there were guards there all around with rifles, and then when we went into this little area where we were supposed to go and talk to them, then they said they would go and get him, and he came. And then there was a table, and my mom and I sat on one side and he was on the other. And then she talked to him and told him things, and he was like a different person. He just had tears in his eyes, but he didn't say much, and he didn't talk very much. And then the guard was standing there with his rifle while he was being interrogated, or he thought we were talking. And so anyway, I don't know what she got out of it, but it was not a pleasant experience.

AH: So it was one visit?

SH: Just one time.

AH: Tetsuko wasn't there, it was just you and your mom?

SH: No, just one time.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 14>

AH: Okay, so the newspaper has to carry on, and Tetsuko is the nominal publisher. But you're old enough and you're bright enough, etcetera, but you're also very busy with taking this horrendously hard science major and everything, trying to squeeze in some education courses and stuff. But did you ever write any articles for the newspaper, for the English? Because they started an English language section in 1941.

SH: No, no. My sister and I both knew these fellows who had the DX Radio Shop, and it was just around the corner. And they came in, I think around the time of the war, maybe one year before the war. And Harry and his brother Chuckie had this shop where they would fix radios, and I don't think they had televisions in those days. Anyway, it was called the DX Radio Shop.

AH: Is the Matsunagas?

SH: Yes, uh-huh. And they were both very, very friendly guys, and here was somebody we could speak to in English and kind of laugh and joke around, so we would stop in there. But my sister more often than I did. I would stop in with her sometimes, so I got to know Harry, too, and Chuckie. And so she got to know Harry and she thought that he was really a nice person. Then he found out that we had the newspaper, and I think that he became interested in the newspaper, and since he was very friendly, he came to talk to my dad. And I think he said to him that it would be a good thing to start a newspaper with an English section in it. So I remember my father talking to him, and then they decided to take a chance on it and see how it worked. So that's when Harry started writing for the newspaper, and he was the one who completely did all the paperwork for him.

AH: I think that was kind of a smart move, because they got the English section before the Colorado Times did, and they built this subscription based out of these Nisei networks, and they could actually read it.

SH: In the camps, yes.

AH: In the camps and stuff.

SH: And so the numbers grew. It was just a wonderful time for us.

AH: And did you remember the English-language section at all?

SH: Not much. I didn't read it; I didn't have time for things like that. All I remember is working in the newspaper and taking, sending out billing or working in the office and doing whatever I could in the office. I could type real well, so I did typing in the office and billing and things like that with subscriptions, completely. And then when the paper came out, we also had to go and help to wrap up the papers and send them out.

AH: In late January of 1944, you get a new English-language editor and publicity director for the paper, Jimmie Omura. And of course Jimmie Omura is very heavily identified now with the Rocky Shimpo, and the editorials that he wrote in there has really had a big impact that Frank has captured very well in his film Conscience and the Constitution and everything, the relationship with the Fair Play Committee, it's a major topic in Japanese American history. Now, Jimmie Omura, you're one of the last people that can talk about actually having met him. And whether your memories are shadowy or whatever, we want to have 'em. So what do you recall about Jimmie?

SH: It's very strange. I should know more about him because he was working there, but the offices were in one part, and then the people who wrote were in the other building and they were upstairs writing and all. And I don't remember him very well except that he was, just loved to talk, and he would talk and talk and talk. And so I would kind of listen to what he was talking about, but I didn't really know what he believed in or how he was. It was very interesting in that I don't have much of a recollection except that he was a real talker.

AH: What about his conjecture that one of the reasons that he was acceptable to take this position was because he was known for being anti-JACL, and your family had a strong suspicion that the JACL was behind him being, your father being picked up?

SH: Yes, and we did. We really felt that way. Because we felt that at that time, there were things that were, I don't know what it was. It was just the general feeling that the JACL was against our newspaper, and that they were the ones who were kind of like the people who plotted against us to have him taken. Otherwise, we didn't know what reason there was for my dad to be taken.

AH: It was probably silly for me to ask you this question, but were either you or Tetsuko in the JACL?

SH: No, never. [Laughs]

FA: Why would you think the JACL would be against your newspaper?

SH: It was just the general atmosphere. In fact, I think that even at the time when... maybe when Harry was putting out the newspaper, that something came out, and it seemed like the JACL wrote something about whatever he said, I don't know. Anyway, there were just, it was just a very strong feeling that the members of the JACL were against our newspaper and our family.

FA: What was your opinion or your view or your awareness of the JACL?

SH: I just, I don't remember well. I never attended their meetings, I just knew that they were sort of the leaders in the community. It's a strange thing about how one builds up these feelings, but I guess that it's just through... I have a feeling that maybe many Buddhists were against the JACL, too. I think that many Buddhists might have been against the JACL. They were not thought to be people who were interested in the Japanese Americans first as far as we were concerned, that it was a group that was sort of maybe anti-Buddhist, I don't know.

FA: I mean, they were the Japanese American Citizens League, and you thought they were not interested in Japanese Americans first?

SH: Well, I would think so. And maybe that's one of the reasons I didn't feel good about them, because I didn't think they were really working for the Japanese Americans, but that it was everything... like I had heard that they were not even against the evacuation, and things like that. And so I guess that's where I got the feeling about it, that I thought the evacuation was wrong, and it was so wrong, and yet the JACL didn't have any, they didn't take a stand against it. And I felt that it was wrong to put people into camps like that. The JACL didn't seem to think so, and that sort of thing I think made us feel that the JACL is against the Japanese Americans.

FA: In Jimmie Omura's many talks with you, did you ever about the JACL?

SH: I don't remember that we did. We could have talked sort of casually about it... I have a feeling that we could have talked, but he was very, very busy.

FA: What did he talk about in any talks that you remember? What did Jimmie talk about? The weather, sports, finances, girls?

SH: Oh, he asked me how I was doing in school and things like that, but I think it was more... I have a feeling that he may have talked about JACL. Yes, I think you're right, because Jimmie was really different. He was very, he would say what he felt, and I thought it was one of the most interesting people that were... because the Nisei don't usually talk out like that. That's what I felt, and he expressed himself. I think that maybe he was very much against the JACL, too. And I don't remember exactly what he said, but I have feelings that there were real anti-JACL feelings with him.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 15>

FA: How would you describe Jimmie as a person? How did he look, how did he dress?

SH: He was very thin, and I believe he had a mustache. And kind of talked fast. He was never a person who put on airs, he dressed very casually. But I thought he seemed smarter than a lot of people, and a nice guy.

FA: Not a nice guy?

SH: He was a nice guy.

AH: If you were a little bit older and he wasn't married, would he have been an attractive person to you in terms of the intellectual stuff and the frankness and the general interest in learning?

SH: I think so, yes. But I was a kid then. [Laughs]

AH: Yeah, I know. I know. I said "if."

SH: Right.

AH: Okay, so now, he starts to write these editorials, and they create a brouhaha of major proportions swirling around the newspaper. And even if you're over in Denver, you must have heard something about this. Do you recall that at all or not?

SH: Somewhat. In fact, I knew there was something going on with Heart Mountain. Because... and there might have been some talk between my husband, who was then the editor, and Jimmie. Because I remember the, I believe that they went together to Heart Mountain once.

AH: No, they never went to Heart Mountain. The only camp that Jimmie was ever in was Amache.

SH: Oh, he didn't go to Heart Mountain? My husband had gone to Heart Mountain, so I thought maybe Jimmie went with him then.

AH: No, Jimmie didn't. But, now, speaking about your husband -- and he became your husband a year after the war was over -- so when we're talking about this 1944 thing when you were still young, you were pretty young, too, when you got married. What was it about, what was the nature -- I had asked you in correspondence if that was a semi-arranged marriage and you said no, and neither was Tetsuko's, etcetera, so it was a romantic marriage and everything like this. What was the commonality that you found in your husband?

SH: Oh, I thought he was very, sort of a gentle person then who seemed to care about his family, and who was worried about his family in Japan because he had come right after his father died, and he had two younger brothers and a sister who were still very young. And he was quite worried about his mom and how she was getting along at that time and whether he'd ever see her again. And I guess I felt really sorry because he had lost his dad like that, and then my dad being gone like that, maybe we had a feeling about a commonality there. But anyway, and that he did help my dad when my dad was gone, he kind of kept it up for a while by working.

AH: And why did he get forced out? I know why Jimmie got forced out, why did your husband get forced out by the government over his position?

SH: I think they felt that the general feeling of the newspaper was not going along with what the government felt should be. I don't really know that either.

AH: Now they replaced Jimmie with a guy named Roy Takeno.

SH: Yes.

AH: Who was very pro-JACL.

SH: Exactly.

AH: And then who did they replace your husband with?

SH: I believe that was when Mr. Muronaka came in. Because Muronaka-san, I'm quite sure... but there were different people during that time. There was Takeuchi-san, and Kikunaga, so there were different people working around with my husband in all those years. So I don't know exactly, but I think it was Muronaka who came. And he had been in a paper in California before, and so he was used to running a newspaper. And Roy Takeno, I always felt like he was a government person who came, and that's almost like a...

AH: Spy.

SH: Spy. [Laughs]

FA: Why do you say that?

SH: Because he just was doing... I thought he was... oh, he was a War Relocation Authority who pointed him in, and he seemed to be just talking with, I don't know whether it was JACL or what, but it didn't seem to me that there was much of an interest in the newspaper doing better or doing anything. He never was talking to us, or I didn't talk to him much at all.

AH: I'm trying to understand how the paper limped along after both your husband and Jimmie were picked up, and how they put Takeno in, etcetera. Who was really, was your sister still staying with it for a few years?

SH: My sister was there all the years, yes.

AH: So even after the war? Because you weren't sure when your dad came back to Denver and when he got back involved with the newspaper.

SH: No, I'm not sure. Because my father, when he came back, was just sort of like a defeated man, and he didn't talk much, and he was not his kind of pompous self. He was just very quiet. And he didn't even want to go in the newspaper part, and he instead stayed in the other area. And he even went out to look to see if he could find tailoring jobs, and came back, and he was so disappointed he couldn't work in tailoring anymore. I think he worked for one day and he couldn't take that. And so he was trying to decide how he could support the family. And so I remember that he started to publish or print magazines where they would have Japanese magazines that he would copy. He bought a printing machine, a copy machine like, and then he would print copies of this Japanese magazine and he would try to put those together. I don't think that went through at all. And so he just was not very willing to try back in the newspaper.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 16>

AH: And when did you and your husband leave Denver?

SH: We left in '53.

AH: And the paper limped along for another seven or eight years or something after that before...

SH: See, that, I really don't know how long. I remember when my husband was already going to the University of Denver, that my father asked him to come by and talk to him, and my father was in the newspaper then. And he asked him if he would come back and help him with the newspaper. And my husband said no, he couldn't do it because he was involved in school and he had to go on with his life. And I know my father felt really terrible about it.

AH: A couple of things. One, there's a tragedy of fairly large proportions with Jimmie losing his position and going through the court cases and stuff, but there's also a tragedy involved with your dad. And to some degree your husband-to-be, because he loses his source of income at that time. But in 1947, Jimmie gets back in as the editor of the Rocky Shimpo for a half a year. And then, of course, he has a major war with the JACL and he ends up resigning. Now, he has some grievances at times with the Toda family and the newspaper, he didn't feel like he got his salary that was promised him, but then Tetsuko said that the government said, "You can't pay him this salary."

SH: And there was a government... I remember a head that was taking over the newspaper, and I think she had to run a lot of things by him.

AH: Yeah, it was an Alien Property Control...

SH: Right, 'cause they were in control and I think she had to report or tell them what was going on. And so I think there was a lot to do with it. Now, I just remember the name and I remember this big guy that came, but other than that, I don't know what kind of relationship it was, but I knew that they were in charge, and she had to go by their rules.

AH: Did you stay in touch with the paper after you got married in '46?

SH: No, not much at all.

AH: So you wouldn't have remembered Omura coming back as an editor and that stormy kind of period then, okay.

SH: No, because I was in school full time.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 17>

FA: Could you describe removal of James Omura as editor of the Rocky Shimpo, were you there when he was removed, what happened?

SH: I really don't remember that at all.

FA: You weren't there.

SH: No. I was probably in school when it happened.

FA: What's your recollection of how you learned about it?

SH: I think that I just heard that he had been removed, and then I saw Roy Takeno there, and that was about it. But I didn't know much about it at all. And I had not been keeping in touch with all the things that were going on, so I didn't know about that very much at all.

FA: What did you think about James Omura? When you heard about this, what did you think about the fact that he was removed as editor?

SH: Well, I was kind of surprised because I thought that he did a real good job in helping the newspaper. And I thought that... I had kind of heard a little bit about what he believed in, and that if you're interned in somewhere, you shouldn't have to go to war, or you shouldn't...

AH: Be subject to the draft.

SH: Right. And I thought that makes sense to me. I don't know why they had to remove him. I had no idea. But I knew that the government was, had taken over our newspaper, I knew that. And so I didn't think that... and I don't think my sister had any idea of what was this or that, going along with that.

AH: How did you feel about the government taking over the newspaper?

SH: Well, I thought because my father was a Japanese citizen that... I didn't know why they would do it, but I just didn't think that there was any, we didn't have any right to fight it or anything. If I felt that there had been a right... if I had been older, maybe I would have felt it was really wrong. But I think that I didn't know enough about the government to know that there was "free speech."

AH: Were you aware of the fact that the OWI, the Office of War Information, which was a propagandistic group, subsidized both the Utah Nippo and the Colorado Times, but that the Rocky Shimpo didn't take money from them. They never took a propagandistic, they never took money from a propagandistic agency. Was the family proud of that?

SH: Well, I think that our newspaper felt that whatever we were publishing in the paper, that it was what the editors felt was right. And I know that the Colorado Times tried to say that they were a big newspaper and all, but I know all the time that we always kind of looked down on them and felt that whatever they did, they're probably connected with the JACL and the government, and we had no feelings about whatever they were doing. I didn't know about the money until I saw it in the article.

FA: With Roy Takeno taking over as editor, you said he wasn't much interested in running the paper. What did he do that made you feel he was a government person?

SH: Well, I knew that he was hired by the War Relocation Authority, so that immediately made me think that he's a government person. And so I knew he was getting paid by our newspaper, but I felt like this is like a government agent coming into our newspaper.

FA: If he wasn't interested in the paper, what did he show an interest in day-to-day in the direction of the writing and the production?

SH: I think that he was just maybe putting in things that he felt the JACL would be fine with, and everything that was kind of the general, what would you say... whatever went with the government and JACL, I think that Roy Takeno would go along with. There was a definite kind of a feeling about... I didn't feel like he was a friend or wanted to talk to him or anything.

AH: Would it be a fair appraisal to say that what was a newspaper, when Jimmie was editor, became a newsletter when Roy Takeno took over?

SH: I guess, yes. Maybe taking things from the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post and putting in little interesting articles and then what the JACL felt, then he was their kind of mouthpiece. I felt it was more that way. And so I think our subscription numbers went down, too, I don't know, but I have a feeling it did.

AH: Okay. Now I want to ask a little bit about your husband's removal and how he responded to it, because I know he went on to a prestigious academic career. But at this time he was a young guy, and he just got this job. So was it a blow for him at the time, and how did he get removed? What was the procedure when he got dumped out of the paper?

SH: I really don't know much about that except that I knew that he said that he had to, that he had left. And later on I found out that he was quite upset by it, but then he didn't think he did anything that was bad. But he did start looking for a job he said. And he worked as a houseboy, but he was very proud, so he had these people call him Taisho. [Laughs] Sounded like that.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 18>

AH: Now I want to get back to the period after the war, because it's shadowy in my mind of what went on. I mean I know about that interval of Omura being at the paper, but then after that, it sounds like it's a little shadowy in your mind, too, right?

SH: Yes.

AH: Because for one thing, you were removed from living where the paper was being put out, and then not too many years down the line, you were moving to Seattle.

SH: Right. But before that, our living quarters, too, we had to move in. We used to live in the back of the newspaper, and as the newspaper took over, then we had to move out of that house, that area, and we had to go to find places to live. And there were about two or three moves that were made before my father and mother settled in their last home. And so there was a period during which the family was quite transient going from one area to another, because we had a pretty large family. Then when my father came home they lived in another place, and then that was just a rental, and they had to go to, until they finally went into their final home. So they were not staying at the newspaper then, and we were not staying at the newspaper. So as far as it being like a home there, it became just like a workplace, I think. And so after school I would go over there and work and then go home.

AH: Did your husband ever say anything to you about allegedly subversive materials that were published in the Japanese section of the newspaper, things that really were purportedly the reason why your father was picked up and then interned? Was there anything that he ever said about that, that he suspected particular journalists were planting things in there or anything? No?

SH: No.

AH: And was that matter ever addressed within the family, if there really were these questionable things that were put in the newspaper?

SH: No, because we didn't know anything about that.

AH: How much did your dad have to do with editing of the Japanese section of the newspaper? Was he just the publisher, or was he an editor, too?

SH: I do think that in the beginning he was a publisher and editor. But then after the others came in from California, I think that it wasn't completely his role.

AH: And you're suggesting that he didn't have much to do with it after the war, then, when he got released.

SH: No. I don't think he had much to do with it. And if he did, after it started to lose money, I think, then they had to let people go. And I think then he started to work himself.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 19>

AH: When you think back about the Rocky Nippon and the Rocky Shimpo, do you have a sense of pride, or do you have a sense of just tragedy that you suffered as a result of that situation? How do you feel about it?

SH: I feel it's a mixed sense, because I feel very proud of the fact that it was the biggest newspaper, and I think that the newspaper did a real service in letting people know about the events. And yet, at the end, I feel that it was a tragedy that my father had to leave with that kind of a circumstance, because I know that last time when he asked my husband to work for him, he was very sad. And then after he left the newspaper and it went bankrupt, I heard that it had gone bankrupt, and he was just such a different person. And I think that it was sad because the way he brought up the rest of the children, the youngest two, especially, I think as I talked to them, it was such a difference in his attitude. He didn't talk about education, he didn't talk about pride, he didn't do all the things that he talked about in the beginning when we were growing up. It wasn't that way anymore. And so these two younger ones said that, "Papa never said anything to us." He just was reading these journals and watching ballgames and all that.

AH: You talked earlier about your mother -- [addressing FA] -- let me just ask this question. Your mother entertaining the thought of suicide. And what I'd like to know is did you feel that your father actually did, in a poetic sense, commit suicide in his life by the way in which he closed off things that were important to him before?

SH: Yes, yes. I think he kind of, inside, he died.

AH: Okay. I think we're in a position to --

FA: When you visited your father at Santa Fe and your mother was talking to them and you saw armed guard, and I think we touched a nerve, that memory touched a nerve today. How did you feel when you saw your father talking to your mother there at Santa Fe?

SH: It was very sad to see him like that, because of all the people in Denver and growing up, he was probably the proudest man I knew. He was a very, very proud man, and I remember with the church people and all that, if he said something, then they listened. And he had a very loud voice. He used to do utai, he sang these songs and everything, and he would perform and do these things. And he was very proud of himself always. And when he walked, he walked with his head up, always with his head way up. And then to come home like that, it was just the saddest thing to see him. But he was a very smart man. I thought he was very smart because he not only brought the three younger kids with him to America, but he was kind of the big brother to the brothers he brought, and I think they looked up to him. And he kept, I think, one of the ones, his grandfather was with my father for quite a while during the time before he got married. And because I found some postcards that... my father had one album of old postcards, and some were addressed to Harold. And so that was my father's younger brother. So he took care of them. And he was a very smart man, and whatever he said or did, he was proud of, and he let people know how he felt. There was no two ways about it. If we did something wrong, we heard about it, and it was just, boom, that was it. His word was law with us. Especially me, I was probably the most sensitive. I felt that way. And so I believed my father was very smart. But even in the end, I thought that, as I left home, I thought one day that he's really a smart guy. Because they didn't have enough money to buy their last house, and it was a tiny, tiny house. I don't know how many years it was after they got out and they didn't have a house, and he thought that he had to buy a house. And so they bought a house where you pay rent with the option to buy. And he had a chart that he made up of how much, from one month to the next, each year would go into the principal and the interest and how it changed. And he showed me at the very last, when I went to visit him once, he said, "Look, we're going to actually have the house as our own next month." And he was very proud of that. And I thought, "I don't know how to figure it out." I went to college, I don't know how to figure it out. But he knew how to do that, and he had it all charted out. He was a smart man, and he didn't go to school much, but he was a very, very intelligent man, I thought.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 20>

AH: It's very interesting to hear this about your father, because Jimmie and your father, I don't believe, ever met one another, in spite of the fact that they were associated with this Rocky Shimpo newspaper and they're both very smart people, both very proud people, and probably both very arrogant people.

SH: Right.

AH: And so there is this kind of correspondence between them, and yet here you see they're both sacrificial lambs at this particular time. Now, you are a carrier of your father. Obviously you took seriously the kind of values that he had in education and learning and things. And you went on to become -- I thought it was your sister Tetsuko when I first read that "Miss Toda" was the first teacher of Japanese ancestry in the public schools of Denver, but it was you. Can you talk a little bit about how you got started in the teaching career in Denver?

SH: Well, it was during my last year in DU that I took that liberal arts course, and I took one in education. Because I always really liked the education field and studying and all, and so then I decided that... I knew there were no teachers... there were black teachers in Denver public schools, but none of Japanese ancestry. And I thought maybe it's because of the war, I don't know what. But anyway, before that, there had not been. So I decided that I would go into education and just test it. And so I went in, and it was after I was already married, and I had my degree from the university, that I decided to just take extra courses just in education. And so I went ahead and just took the courses in education, and I completed my courses. And then I applied to the Denver schools, and the Denver schools said I could come in but only as a substitute teacher. They would not give me a contract. I know for a fact that the people I graduated with at that time who finished their courses went in with a contract. But I was going to prove that I could do it. So I went in to the school, and from the very beginning I had a room down in the catacombs, we called it, because it was in the basement of this school at Wyatt, where the custodian lived in one of the rooms. And then my room was to the side. And it was cement floors and all that, and just a hallway between, and then there was this room. And they gave me a class where it was a very difficult class, and the teacher couldn't handle the children. And so they were having too much of a problem, and so they said, "Oh, substitute teacher, put her in," I guess. And so I took that class, and she was given the job of art coordinator for the building because she was very good in art. And so she got the art coordinator's job for the building, and I got the job teaching third grade. And from the beginning I just took over and loved the teaching and loved every bit of it. And the kids got in shape so well, and the principal would come by all the time to look, and he looked so happy. And I was very happy in that job. And so then the next time we were to renew, it came up for getting contracts, I got a contract. But it was just for one term, I think, that I had to go in as substitute teacher to prove myself. And that was why the paper came out, I think, that they wanted to know if a Japanese person could teach.

AH: Well, it actually had a picture in the paper, in the Denver Post, too.

SH: I remember they were taking pictures that day.

AH: And then you came to Seattle in what year?

SH: '53.

AH: And did you get a job here in the Seattle schools right away?

SH: Uh-huh. In fact, we were not going to leave Denver until... because my husband had wanted to go to graduate school, he had just finished at the University of Denver, and he wanted to go on and take a degree in international relations, something like that. So then we started to apply to anyplace where he could go into graduate school, a good graduate school, and I would get a job. And that was Seattle. And Seattle immediately gave me a job, and it was at a very poor school, Colman. And then my husband got into the University of Washington and he finished getting his degree there.

AH: And did you continue teaching after he died?

SH: I taught until '65.

AH: You did, okay. And when did he pass away?

SH: Twenty years ago.

AH: Okay, twenty years ago, okay.

SH: No, thirty years ago. Thirty years ago because Cam was born that year. So it's thirty years ago.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.

<Begin Segment 21>

AH: And tell me a little bit about your family.

SH: Now?

AH: Yeah, your family, yours and your husband's, Noboru and your family.

SH: We had four children. The first one was born the year we came to Seattle. In fact, I was probably pregnant then, and I didn't know. And I went into teaching at Colman school, and that was in the olden days, because it was in the days when I was teaching and really got along fine at Colman school. But the teachers there were all very older teachers and many, like, spinsters and all. And so I enjoyed it. There was only one other young teacher in the building. The supervisor came by one day and she saw that I was pregnant, and she just went ballistic. She said, "What are we going to do with this lady? She's pregnant." [Laughs] And I thought, "What's wrong with that?" And the principal was an old man, and he said, "She's been teaching, she's doing fine." And the supervisor said, "Yes, but we have a policy in the Seattle schools that at five months you're supposed to quit. You can't teach after five months." So they didn't give me any leave, but I was already about seven, eight months along. And so I had only until May... or it was around March until May. And I stayed home and I had my child, and then when Yoko was born, it was in '54. Then September came along and he was in school, and I had to go back to teaching, but I couldn't go back because the rule is that you can't go back to teaching until your child is a year old. And so I had to start looking for a job although she was a real baby, and it would have been nicer if I could have gotten in around there. But no, they wouldn't even give me a job. So I finally, the week before school started, a school in Highline, Normandy Park, they needed a teacher. And so the superintendent, assistant superintendent was packing and he said, "Will you come to my home for an interview? Because I'm leaving for a vacation before school starts." And so I went out there, and he looked at my records and he says, "You're hired," on the spot. And so he took me and I went out there and taught in Normandy Park for two years, but it was so far to go from Seattle. We lived in the Woodland Park area, which is...

AH: I know where it is.

SH: And then I had to go out to Normandy Park, which was by the airport, every day from about six in the morning. It was too much. And so I quit after two years, although that was probably the nicest group of people I ever met out there.

AH: So all together you had how many children?

SH: Four children.

AH: And what are their names and gender and what's happening with them?

SH: Yoko is... let's see, I have to think. She's fifty-eight now, okay. Fifty-eight, and she went to Smith College, and she got a degree there and then went to the University of Washington and got a degree in, her PhD in Psychology and did some work there during that time. But when her children were born, she decided to stay home. And then the second one is Jun, and he was born seven years later. Is that right, seven? Let's see, '54... '61. He was born in '61, seven years later. And then we decided we wanted more children, but he was born in Princeton because we had gone to Princeton so that Professor Janssen out there wanted to have, he's in Japanese history, and he wanted to have a Japanese library there and there was no Japanese library. And my husband had taken, gotten a master's in librarianship besides his graduate school. So Professor Janssen really wanted him to work with professor because he said that he, my husband had the knowledge in Japanese history, but he didn't want to teach because he didn't think his English was... he didn't think his English was adequate for that. And so he decided not to teach, so he had that librarianship degree. And so he set up the library there, and during the two years we were there, then the University of Washington asked him to come back. And they wanted him to, because they were starting the class in kanbun, and he was the only one that they could find who would be able to teach that kind of reading old documents and all. And so he was called back by the faculty in the Japanese department, and so he came back to the University of Washington and he got a position. But he never did get his PhD, because he did go to Japan to study after, and he felt that there were many, many people in Japan that were much more proficient than him that were teaching in that field, because his field is so specialized. But he said that he didn't feel right in asking for a PhD when none of those professors had a PhD. So he never got a PhD, and he just studied there on his own. And so when he came back, I think that Professor Janssen would have been glad to have had him with him, but he decided that it was better to come where he could work in a field he really enjoyed. And so he started teaching kanbun and the upper level courses until he died.

AH: And then you had two other children...

SH: Yes. [Laughs] Then I had two other children, but it was after my son was born. Then my son grew up, and he went to Brown, graduated from Brown, and he went into history but he worked for, in the investment banking field. He went to Japan for a while and he was there a while, and then he kind of got an interest in that. And he worked for Merrill Lynch until recently and then he retired at a young age. And then Amy was born, and she's two years younger, so she's forty-nine. And she was in music all her life. We started her at four and a half, and she did very well in music and went on to Julliard and graduated from there. And she got into, she was one of the youngest in the Met, Metropolitan Opera orchestra for quite a number of years, but she was married and they had children. So she and her husband both are musicians. He's a cellist, and they came back to San Francisco. And they have two children, and she's a violinist in the San Francisco Symphony and he's a cellist there. And then we had Yumi, and she's two years younger than that. And we had, while the three of them were growing up, I stayed home for maybe about eight or ten years, and then I went back to teaching and I worked the rest of my life. But Yumi is a psychologist, and she went to Harvard and got her PhD at University of Washington. And she's been the one who's been working all the time in psychology.

AH: So those Harvard series that your father had came to roost, didn't they?

SH: [Laughs] Right.

AH: Well, I know you also have a slew of very talented grandchildren, too, and I won't ask you to go through 'em all. But I would like to relate something, because you talk a lot in our correspondence about your family, and I know you're proud of 'em. And you also sent the headstone with "Toda" on there. And I wanted to ask you, what is the... we know that there was a lot to do about the Japanese spirit, etcetera, but what is the Toda spirit? When you think about being a Toda and being in that particular family line, etcetera, what are the things you take pride in? What do you conjure up?

SH: I would say probably "work hard and there's nothing that you would be unable to do." You can achieve whatever you wish to do if you work hard at it.

AH: You can dream the impossible dream, but it's not impossible if you work hard, right?

SH: Right. Never give up.

AH: Frank, do you have any other questions? I want to thank you very much. It's very rare that I get to talk to such a gracious, such an intelligent, cultured, sort of, frank speaking sort of person who's honest about what they've observed and presented in that way, and when they don't know something, to be honest about that. I think it's a tremendous thing. I'm glad that Frank asked you the question that was most affecting to you, because I think you needed the catharsis of being able to feel through that, which he allowed you to do. And I was glad that that was a very dignified and moving kind of experience. But on behalf of Densho and Frank and myself, really, thank you very, very much.

SH: And I thank you.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.