Densho Digital Archive - Bill Hashizume Interview (denshovh-hbill

<Begin Segment 7>

NI: So when you were growing up then, Mr. Hashizume, you went to, what schools did you go to?

BH: Well, I went through grade school up to grade 8 public school, and then from grade 9, 10 and 11, I went through Mission High School. And it was during, while I was in Mission High School grade 11 from September to, September to December. And in September of 1938 my father died. And my father, before he died, he told my mother, he says, "You take," me, my younger sister, my two younger sisters to Japan. He says, "Give 'em a Japanese education." He says, "Now, once you did that, they'd be on their own, so no problem." So based on that, my mother took me and, took me and my two sisters after Christmas, I think, or just before Christmas.

NI: How old were you?

BH: I was sixteen then.

NI: Sixteen.

BH: Yeah, I was sixteen.

NI: And your sisters, how old were they? Your sisters?

BH: My sisters, younger sister was fourteen and my youngest one was thirteen.

NI: Why did your father want you to get a Japanese education?

BH: Well, it's like most Japanese parents, they came, they wanted their kids to know Japanese or things like that. And as a matter of fact, my eldest brother and elder brother, the two elder brothers, they were sent to Japan when they were kids. And my brother, he came back after, he came back after completing, graduating from middle school in Japan and that's why most of the conversation, he's more fluent in Japanese than in English. And of course, being, after coming back during the winter months, he attended high school to learn more English rather than other subjects as a courtesy of the principal there.

NI: When you were growing up, though, the language of your house was Japanese?

BH: Japanese, yeah. Japanese, I was, my father was an enthusiast, enthusiastic supporter of the Japanese school.

NI: In Mission?

BH: In Mission, yes. And he, he required, well, since he's a supporter, he had to send his kids to Japanese school. We did, we... there's a photo of myself going, and my sisters at the East school. This is the, this is the photo. And this is the East school, and this is the photo of the downtown, downtown school. There were two separate schools in Mission.