<Begin Segment 16>

TI: Something that you mentioned that, growing up, you weren't around a lot of Japanese Americans. You're now living at Lakeshore where there's a sizeable Japanese American population. Does that feel different to you in any way?

HH: No. We don't... it doesn't seem to me that the Japanese don't mingle a whole lot, and so I don't really see many people, other than in passing. And I didn't know that there was such a large community of Japanese Americans here when I first came.

BY: When did you move here?

HH: Four years ago.

BY: Oh, because I was going to think, if you moved here two years ago, you wouldn't have seen anybody for two years. [Laughs]

TI: But then just noticing that because there are Japanese Americans here, there are programs, programming, kind of Japanese American themes.

HH: Thanks to Barbara.

BY: I mean, I've seen you at many, many of the Japanese American programs. You contributed for the display case, for example.

TI: Yeah. So when you, how does that feel to actually... it sounds like this is probably your first time where, in some cases, the Japanese American community is a little more front and center, some of these programs, and focus on the residents. I was just wondering if that felt any different to you.

HH: You know, when I first came, as I said, I didn't know there were that many here. And then one day there were about three or four of us, maybe four of us in the coffee shop. And I think there were about two or three Japanese Americans, and we were talking about camp. And after two of them left, there were two, maybe three hakujin people there. And they said, "Yeah, why don't they just move on and get over it?" And that kind of spurred me on to getting in contact with Lori Matsukawa and thinking about things and wanting maybe more emphasis on what to do here. And I got more, I guess you'd say, passionate about getting the hakujins to recognize us and not demean us. That's about it, yeah. And so I think I've made suggestions for enrichment throughout the years, and I think maybe it made some difference.

BY: Sounds like it, absolutely. And so did you contact Lori and say, "Can you come over here and talk to us?" I remember when she did that for DOR. So that was you who got her here. So you've become a little bit of an activist, it sounds like.

HH: Just a little, yeah.

BY: That's great, though.

HH: I get these ideas, but then I think, "Oh no, forget it."

TI: I can't remember. Did you, on Day of Remembrance, go to the Puyallup?

HH: Oh, camp?

TI: Yeah, they had that, I'm not sure what they called it.

BY: Commemoration of the... just a couple weeks ago?

HH: No, no.

BY: I think about ten people from Lakeshore went.

HH: Oh yeah, the bus?

BY: Yeah, yeah, right. Do you have anything else you want to add?

HH: Yeah. I wish I had gotten more involved with the Japanese American community, because I never have been. And so I'm not aware of a lot of things that have gone on, like the Minidoka pilgrimages and the Puyallup thing, the Day of Remembrance things. So I wasn't really aware of them until I came here. Minidoka I knew about because of my cousins. So I don't know where I was going with that. [Laughs]

BY: You still have time to do it now.

TI: You're in a good place. This is one of the, this is actually becoming one of the hubs for Japanese American community.

BY: Isn't that interesting? Yeah, it's very interesting, but it's great. And I definitely feel a sense of community when there's a program. Like that JACL program that was a couple days ago, or last week, I guess. But yeah, it's a very nice feeling of community here.

HH: I want more of the hakujins to come to those.

BY: I think there were quite a few.

HH: There were some, uh-huh.

BY: All right. Well, thank you very much, Hannah.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.