<Begin Segment 1>

MA: Today is June 3, 2008, I'm here with Alice Hirai. I'm Megan Asaka, and the cameraperson today is Dana Hoshide, and we're in Salt Lake City, Utah. So Alice, thanks so much for coming down here to do the interview, really appreciate it.

AH: I feel a great honor that I have this privilege of having this interview. I feel like it's really one of the important things that we have to do for future generations long after we're gone.

MA: So I wanted to start with some, just some basic questions. So when were you born?

AH: I was born in November 8, 1939.

MA: And where were you born?

AH: San Francisco, California.

MA: And I wanted to talk a little bit about your mother and father. So where was your father from in Japan?

AH: He was from Kanagawa-ken, a farming community fairly close to Tokyo.

MA: And do you know why he came to the U.S.?

AH: He came basically like the other Isseis. That Meiji era encouraged the young men, that occurred probably in the middle nineteenth century, but that same concept carried into the start of the twentieth century, to encourage young men to go to United States and learn about a new country, and also to make some money, earnings, and then send it back to the families back in Japan. And so basically that's what he did with some of his friends, they all came together.

MA: Do you know about how old he was when he came over to the U.S.?

AH: He was born in 1906, and he was, I think he came in 1923, so he must have been late teens, probably early twenties when he came.

MA: And he, did he end up in San Francisco?

AH: Yes, uh-huh.

MA: And what type of work did he do when he first got here?

AH: It was blue collar. He had a sponsor, Dr. Suzuki, and I don't know if he was a physician, but he was more, I think, like an osteopath or somebody who does acupuncture and alternative kinds of medicine. Anyway, he sponsored him coming here, and (Dad) started work, he found jobs in the cleaners, dry cleaners, because there's quite a few businesses in Japanese town right near San Francisco. And I know he at least worked in a couple of them most of his career in San Francisco.

MA: So let's talk about your mother. She was actually a Nisei, is that correct?

AH: Yes, uh-huh.

MA: Do you know a little bit about her parents, so your maternal grandparents, about their background?

AH: They came from Hiroshima, they came from a samurai family, and they were quite well-bred. My grandfather had a vision of coming here, and he bought a couple of apartments on Bush Street, which is right in the middle of Japanese town there.

MA: In San Francisco?

AH: In San Francisco. And he became quite successful, and so I know that... and this is something I just learned recently. You know how you grow up and you take things for granted and everything? Yeah, there was an apartment and all that. But I found out that our family on the maternal side was considered one of the wealthy families in San Francisco. I never thought of myself as wealthy, you know, I grew up in even middle income, lower income, because my father worked really hard and everything. But (my grandfather) did quite well in the apartments. He had two, two buildings, and probably one of them housed a lot of Japanese families. Even on one floor, maybe there were maybe two or three (families), there were three floors, so one building had three floors, each of them maybe had about two or three Japanese families living in each, and then the second one, basically, the same. And we lived, our family lived in one floor, on the second floor, I think we took up the whole floor.

MA: So your family, you grew up, basically, in one of the apartment buildings?

AH: Uh-huh, right.

MA: And was this in Japantown? In San Francisco's Japantown?

AH: Uh-huh, right there, yeah.

MA: So how did your, your parents meet? Do you know that story, how they met each other?

AH: Yeah, it was an arranged marriage, and... but I understand that my -- my mother was very beautiful, and, well, my father was very nice-looking. And when he first met my mom, it was just love at first sight, and that lasted a lifetime. Sometimes it's gonna be hard for me to talk, I get kinda tearful, but my mom had a, kind of a difficult childhood, but it was my dad that was the knight in shining armor that came and rescued her and made her life really a wonderful life. He passed away and she was lost for years after that.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.