<Begin Segment 2>

EO: Okay, so we're going to go back to Pearl Harbor.

JH: Well, okay, let me see now. When -- let me see -- when I was in about the sixth or seventh grade or so, we bought a grocery store right across the valley. It was only two or three miles from where the farm was so that we didn't move out of the community. And then my mother ran the grocery store, you know, it was like a dairy, you had to be there all the time, open all years, all days of the year. And, but my father kept working in farming. He started to work for a large farm owner in the neighborhood. And my mother ran the store with the help of us kids. And at that time, I think is when, just about that time, a little, few years after that, is when I started to go to the junior high school in the nearby town of Auburn. And then it was in the, in the sophomore year, at the end of the sophomore year, it was 1941, and that's when the war started. Now, if I can go back then and talk about the land...

EO: Why don't we continue... so what happened? What were you doing?

JH: Well, as I recall, it was on a Sunday, Sunday morning. So that, you know, it was a great shock to hear that. I guess at that time, I mostly worried about what would happen the next day when we had to go to school. And as a matter of fact, I don't remember too much of what happened. We were in an area where there were quite a few Japanese; as a matter of fact, my grade school class was over 50 percent Japanese Americans. And when we went to high school, of course, the percentage wasn't as great. But there was a considerable number and we had friends, and some of us as usual, the Niseis played sports so that we had a lot of friends. And so as I recall, it was more a situation of embarrassment than anything else when we attended the school.

EO: But did you... you were how old?

JH: I was fifteen at the time.

EO: At the age of fifteen, did you feel that it was your, some responsibility? I mean, like, didn't you feel, I mean... okay, two questions. Can you remember what you were doing when you heard the news? And then, your own immediate reaction, would that have been, "I'm Japanese so I'm responsible"? Or we're just at war?

JH: Well, I think it was more not an issue of was I responsible for this or not, but when we were growing up, of course, there's no question in my mind about my identity. There was racism practiced, so that we were made aware of the fact that we were Japanese Americans. And then we weren't, I guess, it was because the war had been going along between China and Japan, and then all the propaganda had Japan in a negative role. So that it was a question of us being identified with Japan was very clear in my mind, that we were Japanese. But I don't remember feeling particularly guilty; I just felt that we would be going into a period where we were going to have a rough time because of the way in which Japan was being perceived and the fact that the Americans didn't make any distinction between Japanese Americans and Japanese.

CO: And your parents' attitude? Do you have any memories?

JH: Well, I don't remember... of course when you're fifteen, you don't discuss a lot of politics with your parents. I think because they were never allowed to become citizens and things like that, their identity was fairly strong with Japan. And so I think in our case, you know, our parents would transmit the values, the Japanese values, and tell us that it was important to remember that you're Japanese, but I don't think, I don't ever recall them plying Japanese politics on us.

EO: Do you remember what you were doing when you heard the news?

JH: I can't remember. We must have been, you know, it was a day in which we would have opened the grocery store anyway. So that I must have been helping around the grocery store in the morning when it occurred.

EO: So then, your next thing was going to school on Monday. What happened?

JH: Well, I don't recall exactly what happened. I just remember that, you know, we knew that nothing good would be coming out of the fact that a war had started, and so that we went to school with some trepidation. But I don't recall any particular incidences at school that was one way or another. Everybody knew, of course, but nobody made such a particular issue out of it so that I don't recall anything particularly happening when I went to school.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 1992, 2003 Densho and Emiko Omori. All Rights Reserved.