<Begin Segment 18>

DG: Let's talk now about back to your early years once more and talk about your brother going back to Japan with your grandparents.

TS: My youngest brother, Hideo, was about three years old when my mother's parents, my maternal grandparents, went back to Japan to Kumamoto. At that time, we understood that they were going back to Japan for a visit and they just wanted to bring Hideo for company. But my grandparents never did return to the United States. Ultimately, since my mother was the only child in the family, the Hattori family, my brother Hideo was adopted into the Hattori family in Kumamoto and became the heir of the Hattori property in Japan. We have called Hideo (to the U.S. for a visit) after about thirty years of separation. One time during the summer vacation, because he was principal of a grade school in Japan, and he spent the summer having a reunion with us, with the family, and traveling all over the United States. Many, many times Hideo would mention that he felt very, very lonely, because he was the only one of seven children, or six brothers and sisters living in Japan during the war. He was all alone, so he felt that he had a very lonely existence. But he's doing all right.

DG: Tell us a little bit about your family and their intentions about staying here or leaving or going back to Japan.

TS: I don't recall either of my parents mentioning anything about their life in Japan, who they played with, any intention of going back to Japan. I think that my dad was the third son of Yasumatsu and Yoshino, therefore he had no claim to inheritance to property in Japan. As I understand it, the oldest in the family inherits the property and the debts, and the younger brothers have to shift for themselves. Either get jobs or go into the army, and I believe that many, many Japanese that came to the United States were in similar circumstances. If they happened to be the oldest son, they tried to make as much money as they can and they went back to claim their inheritance. I could remember clients of mine, one man who became a millionaire, who told me that he went to Alaska. The first job he had was to deliver pails of water at twenty five cents a bucket. Ultimately, he owned half of the town in which he lived in Alaska. Then he later moved to Seattle. But other wealthy clients of mine had successful businesses and they expanded and they did very well. And they may have had some notion about going back to Japan when they first came to the United States, but after they got married and started businesses and accumulated wealth, they decided they would stay. There's a certain number that went back to Japan with a big pile of loot, but mostly they established families and properties in the United States.

DG: Do you, are there other reasons, besides the fact they had families here? Was there any philosophical or political reasons that they might have chosen to stay here?

TS: I really don't know, but I suspect that every person just lives from day to day and doesn't make real plans to move unless he's highly motivated either to stay or to go back to Japan. These highly motivated individuals follow what they plan regardless of how many years, but most of us, I think, we just drift.

DG: There's a sense that there's freedom here.

TS: I think over a period of time they get to like the freedom that they had in this country.

DG: From social obligations?

TS: But nevertheless, the older generation had a high degree of sense of responsibility to the family and to the community and to their own people because they were very, very sensitive to morality and ethics. I could always remember my dad and the principal of the language school lecturing about morality and ethics and feeling of obligation to your community and family.

DG: Was there any political views as far as the United States itself goes you could think of?

TS: Only thing I could remember is that there was no definite urging of loyalty to Japan, but there definitely was a program of celebrating the Emperor's Birthday and certain traditional Japanese special days. But there was no urging, like you say, you should be loyal to the Emperor of Japan or if war should start, you should think of your country of national birth.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.