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CO: Tell us about the Issei, prewar, at least in Seattle or that area.

JH: Yeah, I don't remember too much of Seattle. Again, being about fifteen and before that, we rarely went into Seattle. I think it's only about 20-25 miles, but in those days, that took considerably longer. And it was always, to take a day off of work to go into town was something that we rarely did. So that it was a big occasion. We had some relatives in Seattle, and so I remember going in once in a while to visit my uncle, aunt and cousin, cousins, particularly the ones that had a hotel on First Avenue. And so on occasion we'd go and visit them, but otherwise, we didn't know the people in Seattle at all. Gordon, and my brother, Ed, were older so that by then they were relating to people in Seattle. Gordon, of course, was going to the university and Ed, who was in high school, I think they would have basketball games and things like that in town. So my connections were really in the rural area and with the people in the community.

As far as Isseis are concerned, I guess the main thing I remember except for my parents and the friends that lived right close to the, our farm, the times that we would see them would be on special occasions, like a kenjinkai picnic. Or we would have affairs at the local Japanese school. I don't know where the term comes from but we used to call it "Tip School." And it's the Japanese language school that we used to go to right after finishing regular school. So about 2 or 3 o'clock or so we would walk from our grade school over to the Japanese school that the community people had sponsored and had put together. They would hire young men from Japan to teach the school. And so we would have language school affairs. Every once in a while they would put on an annual event that the parents were invited to and we'd put on skits and things like that. Other than that, my connection with the Issei around with, was with my parents. I guess you would call it a church group. They said it was a small mukyokai gathering that would get together in each other's houses on Sundays, read the scripture and things like that. As I recall, there were many more Buddhists in the community rather than Christians, particularly this particular small sect. So that I don't remember very many just regular Christians, you know. My father later on became a Methodist but in those days all I remember is these small groups of families getting together on Sundays to do their scriptures and things like that.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1992, 2003 Densho and Emiko Omori. All Rights Reserved.