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BY: So what was it like living and growing up in Seattle in the late '40s, '50s?

HH: Those were the good years, you know. Kids never had problems, getting into trouble. Everybody felt safe, and we could go trick-or-treating without an escort and come back safely. What was your original question?

BY: Just what was it like growing up in Seattle? I mean, did you feel like you could just go wherever you wanted and you didn't have to... like you didn't have a certain time that you had to be home? I mean, what was it like just growing up in Seattle at that time?

HH: Yeah, exactly what you were saying. The freedom, the fun, happiness, all the kids seemed to be really happy with what they had.

BY: And did you continue to hang out with a very diverse group of friends, or did it become narrower?

HH: No, it was still diverse. In high school I still had Filipino, American Indian. I was the only Japanese in the classroom. Black.

BY: And did you continue to speak Japanese at home with your parents?

HH: No, not really, they spoke, my parents spoke Japanese to us, but we kind of mixed the two languages, but mostly it would be English. My mother would speak to us in English most of the time.

BY: And did you go to Japanese school?

HH: We had a tutor, our own tutor.

BY: Who would come to your house?

HH: No, we went to his house. He taught at the University of Washington, Matsushita-san.

BY: And how often would you go to his house for tutoring?

HH: I think it was once a week.

BY: And your sister would go with you?

HH: Yeah, both of us, uh-huh.

BY: And did you learn to read and write as well as speak?

HH: She learned really well. [Laughs] Yeah, we learned some kanji, I didn't learn katakana very well, but hiragana I learned. And then speaking. You kind of lose it when you don't use it.

BY: And so do you recall ever experiencing any kind of prejudice or racism or discrimination during the time you were in Spokane and all the time you were in Seattle?

HH: No, I never did. Well, I think I did once, some of my classmates in grade school were Girl Scouts, and they encouraged me to join their troop. And so I went to see what it was like, I must have been about nine or ten, but they wouldn't accept me, the troop leader. And I don't think they came out and said, "No, you can't come because you're Japanese," but I had that feeling, that I was not acceptable.

BY: So was this an all-white Girl Scout troop, do you remember?

HH: No. Let's see, one of my friends was Filipino. I think she was the only one, and then the rest were white.

BY: That's interesting. Anything else about that time period?

TI: I guess during that time period, were there ever any get-togethers with the extended family? You mentioned earlier that there was quite a contingent of Hirabayashis in the Auburn/Thomas area. After the war, did the Hirabayashi clan ever get together?

HH: Well, we were all spread out by then, except for Gordon's family, his mom and dad and brothers.

TI: Because they lived on, had a place on Fir or something? They were kind of not that far away.

HH: Well, Gordon's family, after the war, his dad and mom had the nursing home.

TI: Right. And so did your families ever get together?

HH: I don't think we all got together like a party or anything, but we'd go there to visit and just have tea or something, because he was always busy with the patients there, the residents. And after that, occasionally we would get together. Or whenever everybody was together, we'd all go to Gyokoken.

TI: Well, so you mentioned Gordon's parents, when did you become aware of Gordon and his stand against the government, that his case went all the way to the Supreme Court? Is that something that you knew as a kid?

HH: No, uh-uh. He was too much... older than I, and I just wasn't aware of him. I just knew he was Gordon, my cousin, who had twins. [Laughs]

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.