Densho Digital Repository - Jeff Furumura Interview I

Densho Digital Repository
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Jeff Furumura Interview I
Narrator: Jeff Furumura
Interviewer: Brian Niiya
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Date: March 22, 2023
Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-533-15

<Begin Segment 15>

BN: So the area you lived in, that area was one of the big Japanese American residential clusters at that time.

JF: Yeah, black and yellow. Bumblebee.

BN: So were most of your friends other Sansei?

JF: Yeah. When I got to sixth grade, I did well enough in sixth grade for Mr. Kilagore, our teacher, to assign me to flag duty. So that meant early in the morning, before school started, you had to be there attach the American flag and the California flag and then hoist them up on the flagpole. And then at the end of the day, though, that was the best part. Because you were excused from class early so that you could go back to the flagpole and pull it down, and then you had to fold it like that in a triangle. And so I remember being paired with Danny Uematsu. Danny, if you're out there, forgive me. [Laughs] But Danny later, he was kind of a rascally dude. He winds up becoming one of the Ministers later in high school, but that's another story. Anyway, Danny and I --

BN: "Ministers," the gang, not ministers the...

JF: Oh, no, nothing connected to religion whatsoever. [Laughs] Anyway, Danny and I used to be part of this, the two-man flag retrieving group. And so Danny taught me how to flick my tongue in order to spit little spitballs up in the air in a nice arc and land it right into the American flag, and it was like, "Huh? You're doing that?" And he would say, "Yeah." He was so funny. We were like the worst pair to be flag retrievers a teacher could possibly assign. But anyway, we folded it up and turned it in and that was our duty done. And we would go play kickball until they closed down the playground, kickball and softball.

BN: Did your parents make you go to Japanese language school?

JF: I think they tried. Because I know my sister went. This is only on Saturdays, though, and I think I went once, and that was... I don't think I had any say in it. I don't know what happened, why I didn't continue. I don't think my sister continued for very much longer either, and neither one of us know Nihongo.