<Begin Segment 4>

BY: Another story that you have told me about, I think it was at Tule Lake, is how you got... the conflict between Hawaiians -- I'm not sure I'm getting this right, so I want you to explain -- that there was a group of Hawaiians in Tule Lake, and how you got challenged to a knife fight or something? Can you tell that story, please?

HY: Not a knife, fight. [Laughs]

BY: Okay, okay.

HY: Well, okay. The Hawaiian boy on the West Coast were almost all students, they were college students. So they're from the islands and they're going to UC Berkeley or whatever, UC California or University of Oregon. And so when the curfew order came, they didn't have the means to get back to the island or means of the time, I didn't know why. But a lot of them did not go back to the island. So, of course, come May, they were all, quote, "evacuated," the rest of them. And because they had no family, they hung together, the Hawaiian boys. I don't remember any Hawaiian girls. I'm sure there were some, but I never knew any. But the young Hawaiian men... I better be careful how I say it... are different from the Mainland Nisei. They act differently, their attitude is they were much more forward and outgoing and more likely to say what they're thinking and do what they think. As contrasted with the Mainland Nikkei, in those days -- now, I don't know about today -- but in those days, that was absolutely true. So the Hawaiian boys, let's say, would gang together. When they evacuated, the group, they hung together because, they roomed together, too, because they had no family. I had a family, most of the others did, but the Hawaiian boys didn't, so they all bunked together in the bachelor quarters. So they traveled together and worked as gangs. The other thing that, to me, they always hung together, tied together, and then this is including in fights. They never fought one-on-one, as far as I know. If anybody got in a fight, it was a gang fight. Because one of the Hawaiian boys get in a fight, the rest of them are going to help, two, three or four. So that's what happened. I went to a dance, camp dance, and I'm a hell of a poor dancer. But anyway, that's neither here or there. While I'm dancing, somebody tapped me on the shoulder, that's the signal to want to cut in. So I looked at my dance partner, and Naomi Namba, she was. And she says, "No," so I said, "Well, hey, what am I supposed to do?" She says, "No, I don't want to." So I refused to let him cut in. And this happened to be a young Hawaiian fellow whom I never knew, met before. So he was kind of upset about that. But anyway, after the dances ended, now we're going home, I was going home to my barracks, I had a good friend named Bob Okumura who was, fortunately he was a judoka, he was a black belt in judo. But he was my friend, and he was walking home with his date. And then this Hawaiian guy came up behind me and said, "Hey, how come you don't let me cut in?" He was with four guys. I said, "Well, my date didn't want to dance with you." "That's no reason," and bang, he hit me on the chin. I've got a scar, maybe it's still there. He hit me like that. But that's the first and only time I've ever had a physical fight anytime in my whole life including with my brother. And he hit me on the chin. First thing, I didn't know how to act in that. But anyway, he wanted to duke it out right then. I said, "I don't want to fight," and he said, "Come on, you got to fight." And one of his friends grabbed me, took me by the shoulder, said, "Come on over, let's go down and talk this thing over." He led me down to try to lead me -- this is nighttime now, after the dance, and he's trying to lead me down between a couple of barracks. He was probably going to beat the hell out of me. But my friend Bob Okumura said, "Hey, don't go, Homer, don't go with him." So he pulled me away. And so the fight ended. Because Bob was with me, and another guy, I can't remember who it was, but Bob was a big guy and he kind of was a referee, and we didn't fight.

But the next evening, this guy, a yogore, we called him yogore, you know why? Because yogore means "dirty." [Laughs] We called them yogores, everybody did, the Hawaiian boys. So he and his friend came to my apartment, 74-C, knocked on the door and my mother answered. He said, "I want to talk to your boy. I want to find out why he didn't let my friend dance with his partner." And my mother said, no, no... because my mom knew I was in this so-called fight, which was really a one-sided fight. I never fought back. And she said, "No, you can't come in. You go home. Be nice boys." And then one of the Hawaiian boys said, "Obasan, anata no kodomo, miso shiru yarinasai." You know what that means? "Lady, feed your son miso shiru." Because that's supposed to give him courage. "Miso shiru yarinasai." And then they left. But I never heard her... or heard the last of it. But that's been the one and only fight my entire life. Even with my brothers, I never had a fight.

BY: So I know you were not in Tule Lake for very long, but was that sort of tension between the Hawaiian students, was that pretty common?

HY: It was almost palpable. Because... and then when you look at it from the Hawaiian point of view, they were isolated, they had no friends, they had no family, so they had to really depend upon themselves. So of course they would hang together because that's their friends, that's their support. Whereas we had family, we had friends, our community growing up. But they didn't have that. So when I stopped to think about it, said, "Of course. If I was like that, I'd probably be a bastard, too." [Laughs]

BY: Okay, all right.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.