<Begin Segment 6>

LD: When you got married, there was a little problem on her family's part and your family part. You were at Savage.

HF: Yes. Going back to our marriage, at first, when we used to date each other, her mother -- because we were at the time in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and I was at Camp Savage -- her mother did not take kindly to the association and tried to discourage her daughter in particular from seeing me. But, of course, that was to no avail. On the other hand, my parents were approximately two thousand miles across the ocean, did not have direct contact with me. Nevertheless, in their letters, indicated their disappointment.

LD: What did they say to you?

HF: Especially when they found out that we were serious about getting married, and when we did get married, they expressed disappointment that we were getting into an international, interracial marriage situation.

LD: What did your parents say? What were they afraid of?

HF: That there would be -- of course, you know, intermarriages back in those days, especially between white and Asian, were a rare occasion. We did not see very many of those, and in my particular community, that is, in the rural community, it was an unheard of thing, and I was the first across the racial lines to do this. And obviously because of their strong nationality traits, my parents were very disappointed that they did go this route. However, all of that did change after the arrival of our first son. And when he appeared on the scene, both parents, both Vi's mother, incidentally, Vi's father had died early in her teens, and obviously he was not around. But he happened to be a Methodist minister, and had been around, I suspect the complexion of the relationship might have been a little different, having had that religious background. I don't know, I'm just speculating. But going back to the relationship, then after Dale, our oldest son arrived, then Vi's mother changed her attitude towards me and I became accepted as a son-in-law, and of course, my professional career had begun to soar at that point in time, and that made somewhat of a difference, too. And my parents obviously were very happy to welcome the newborn into the family, and welcome their daughter-in-law also in turn.

LD: You were the first child in both families.

HF: Yes. I believe it all stems to the perpetuation of the species, the bloodline, so to speak. This is such an ingrained thought, feeling among Caucasians as well as among the Orientals. I believe this played a very heavy part, big part, in their acceptance.

LD: When the baby came.

HF: Yes.

LD: And there were other babies.

HF: And there were other babies. And as a follow up of this story --

LD: Why did you invite, what did you say to... when you decided you and Vi were going to go through this, what did you say, how did you explain yourself to your mother, to your parents? What did you say?

HF: Well, to override the objection on the part of Vi's mother, I said, "Well, it is true that we have to mount certain obstacles because of this racial difference, but we believe that our love for each other would overcome all of these obstacles." And we believe that very heartily, sincerely. And, of course, over the years, that has proven to be the case.

LD: How many kids do you have?

HF: Seven children. Vi came from a family of just one child, and while growing up, she sorely missed having brothers and sisters. So when we got married she said, "We're gonna have a big family."

LD: And you have seven kids.

HF: Right.

LD: Tell me about your kids.

HF: Well, they're kind of scattered throughout the United States. The oldest happens to be living just behind our house, and they two lovely girls ages six and four right now. And he works for the AGS, federal government. The second one happens to be a teacher musician, Wesley, he's on Maui, and he's in charge of the preschool children for the Maui Pineapple and Land Company. And when he has his weekends off and some spare time in the evening, he does do gigs at various places, including some of the nightclubs around Maui. Our third we talked about, Alice, she's still at Harvard. The husband is getting his degree, PhD from Harvard University in urban planning this may, and I believe he has several tenders right now to teach in one of the institutions, Michigan, Princeton or Yale. The fourth you have been exposed to, that's David, the person of varied interests, including bagpipe and kabuki, and he lives at home. The fourth is Nancy, who happens to be living by herself right now on this island, and she's a second year student at the medical school, John N. Burns Medical School, University of Hawaii Manoa. And she happens to like this particular profession, and happens to be, so far, the only one following in my footsteps in an similarity, similar role. She was a registered nurse in the cardiac care unit of Wakini Hospital, but after working in this area for about three years, she felt that that was kind of a dead end for her. In the beginning, her mother and I tried to convince her that if she were going to the medical field, that she should go into medicine instead of nursing because in the end, probably it'll be far more fulfilling to her, but of course, she had to try her wings first as a nurse, and she did find out that she had certain frustrations being a nurse, and therefore she changed her field.

LD: David was going into kabuki, he's got a lot of musical interests, David has a lot of musical interests. In fact, your whole family has a lot of musical interest. You used to play the ukulele, is this true, that you used to carry a ukulele everywhere with you?

HF: Yes, that's very true. I had bought an ukulele during my high school years, and had played it to some extent while in high school, but didn't take up ukulele seriously until I was in college after the war, when a group of Hawaii students, including a hula dancer, came to Kansas State University, and we formed a group of Hawaii students to play to neighboring communities and in Manhattan, Kansas.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 1985 The Center for Educational Telecommunications and Densho. All Rights Reserved.