<Begin Segment 15>

BY: I just have gathered, from talking to you here at Lakeshore, your involvement in different activities and all that, that you take a lot of pride in being a Japanese American? Is that accurate, and if so, where do you think that comes from?

HH: Family.

BY: Can you talk about that a little bit, were your parents very proud?

HH: Oh, yeah, they were always proud, especially my dad. He was always, "Nihonjin is the best."

BY: And how about for your family in particular? Was it just proud of being Nihonjin or was it proud of being a Hirabayashi, or proud of from Nagano-ken?

HH: I don't know how to answer that either, because I never really have thought about it.

BY: So where does your sense of pride come from? Because I feel like I see it in you.

HH: Uh-huh. Well, of course, it would be family. And I was never raised in a Japanese neighborhood or Japanese atmosphere, hardly any Japanese friends, maybe one or two. And so it's more hakujin than anything else, I guess. But the pride is still there. I think the only time I denied the fact that I was Japanese was when we came out of the camps. I would say, "I'm Chinese."

BY: So how old were you then?

HH: I was in elementary school probably, third, fourth grade.

BY: And you remember actually saying...

HH: Saying, yeah. Maybe fifth, I don't know.

BY: So that was when you're going to, when you were at St. James?

HH: Yeah, so I don't know where that came from, because I didn't feel any discrimination. But I don't know where it came from, but I knew I was different when we came out of camp.

BY: And so when did you sort of outgrow that, saying that you were Chinese, do you recall?

HH: Didn't last long. Probably less than a year.

BY: So do you have any sort of words of wisdom, life lessons, anything that you would like to pass on to younger Japanese Americans?

HH: Be who you are, but be kind.

BY: Okay.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.