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HM: You know, the social structure and the economic structures, you have the haves and the have-nots and then you have kind of the in-betweens and it's more that way now on Bainbridge than it ever, ever has been. Okay, well, let me speak to that a little bit more, if I could. Okay. As I said before, before the war everyone on Bainbridge was poor, and so everyone understood what each other family was going through. After, after the war there were some rich families who lived on Bainbridge, but not all year long. Maybe there was like the Peters and the Herbers, and just a few that you could count on your fingers. But most of the people, the rich people on the island just came in the summer. And so they had summer homes here and there. When the summer was over they'd go back to Seattle to wherever. And so you still had this year round community that was pretty much the same economically. Now when the bridge, the Agate Pass Bridge, came in and the ferry service got a lot more frequent and faster, that's when you had the influx of people discovering Bainbridge and saying, "Oh, my gosh, we can live out here in this country estate and just hop on the ferry, end up in Seattle, go to concerts, go to work. I mean, do this and that. You're right there." And so this is when you started getting this influx of shall we call them rich people or well-to-do people. And then the people who were still on the island were still kind of trying to eke out a living. Some of them got a little better economically and many of them didn't. You will see now a lot my classmates and a lot of people who used to live on the island have moved off the island to either Poulsbo or other places because they cannot make it here anymore. The taxes and things are so high. And so I think the dynamics of Bainbridge has changed. But fortunately, there are still many people who are very warmhearted and very open-minded. So it's still a very easy place to live. I don't think it's so much -- I taught in school here -- I don't think it's so much discrimination by race. It's more by "I have this, you don't. You have this, I don't." And that's sad to see. That's sad to see.

DG: Did you experience any prejudice after the war when you came back? Do you remember?

HM: I was too dumb to really realize it if I had. 'Cause I always thought that people are people all over the world and all over everything. So... I didn't really, per se, feel any prejudice. Only, I take that back, there was one substitute teacher when I was in high school who came over to teach like one of the classes, sub in one of the classes. Everyone was giving this one man a hard time. And so I put in my two cents. Then I went home that night and I felt so bad that I said, "Oh my gosh Hisa, you are just a jerk. You just treated that man so badly." Fortunately, the next day he came back to that same class. I went up to him. I said, "Mr. What's and Such, I want to apologize for the way..." And then out of his mouth came, "This is the first time I've seen a Japanese person who was, who acted this way." Or whatever... "I've never known a Japanese person to do this." And I thought, "Oh my god, he's not accepting my apology. He's not looking at me as a person. He's looking at me as a Japanese." Even if his standards of Japanese or Nikkei is high, why should it fit me because I'm a person. See, that's... even if it's a good prejudice or something, you know, it's still, it's still a bias. Whether it's good or bad, it shouldn't be slapped on to an individual because he is of a, or she is of a certain race or certain religion or a certain family. I think that kind of helped me when I was teaching too. I'd get siblings from different families. So I'd never want to look back on their older sisters or brothers or look into their family thing until I got to know that person, because one child from another, one family can be so different from another child from that child. Each person is an individual. It's... there are things that you can draw out from your life.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.