<Begin Segment 10>

NI: When you were in Canada, though, Mr. Hashizume, what was the environment that you left before you went to Japan? Like do you remember, do you remember the people of Mission or B.C., do you remember a lot of hostility against Japanese?

BH: Well, there was, there was discrimination, but you know, it's something that I learned while researching my book for the history of Japanese in Mission. That the farther away you're from Vancouver, the less the discrimination. The closer to you get to thing, the more intense it was. Now, if you measure the intensity of Japanese discrimination in Vancouver as a hundred, probably it would be about fifty or forty percent there in Mission. People were more tolerant. Now, as you farther go away, there was hardly any.

NI: Right, right. What kind of discrimination do you remember?

BH: Well, during our school years, grade school years, our washroom facilities were segregated. Well, this is for Japanese, this is for thing. But in high school, it was all the same.

NI: So the, the washrooms were segregated?

BH: Yeah, yeah. I don't know about the girls' side, but the boys' side. And during the recess, during the rainy days, we all congregated in thing, and all the Japanese were on the, gathered. And of course, the only place you can do your business was segregated, one side of the basement is this, hakujin were on the other side.

NI: How about fighting?

BH: There, sure, there was fighting, but in any community there's fighting. There wasn't that fighting because you're a white or you're a hakujin or a Japanese. We all got along together.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2005 Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre and Densho. All Rights Reserved.