Densho Digital Archive - Alice Setsuko Sekino Hirai Interview

<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.

<Begin Segment 2>

MA: So you were very small when, when Pearl Harbor happened on December 7, 1941. I mean, do you have any -- I mean, you were two years old at that point. Do you have any memories of Pearl Harbor or anything about that?

AH: Nothing, nothing at all. The only thing I remembered is from Topaz, but before that, nothing.

MA: And your family was removed to Tanforan and then to Topaz.

AH: Right.

MA: Was your family able to stay together, your grandparents and your father and your mother and you?

AH: Yeah, our extended family, it was amazing. You know, there was so many things that happened that I never asked anybody about it or anything. I wish I did, my parents, but then no one ever talked about it, no one. But I know that my aunt and uncle, cousins, grandfather, we all lived in that same block, Block 12.

MA: And do you remember the living conditions, what that was like for you and your family?

AH: In Topaz?

MA: In Topaz.

AH: Yeah, I remember that. I remember it was a one-room, I remember the potbelly (stove) and the cot, we only had cots as beds. Let's see. Each barrack had six, six families, and we were... I can't, I couldn't remember north, south or anything, but when I looked at the building from the entrance side, we were the very last one on the left. And that was the closest to the mess hall, you know, the inside of each block was a community center for mess halls, latrines, showers and washing laundry. But our apartment was the closest to all the community facilities there.

MA: And your father, actually, worked as a cook, is that right, in camp?

AH: Uh-huh, yeah. And I think that's where he learned how to cook really quite well. So he became a better cook than my mom. I remember that families had a choice of eating in the mess hall with the other people, or they could put the meals in a furoshiki, the Japanese scarf, wrap it around and bring it home and eat privately as a family. And my parents were private people, so that's what they did. When he got done cooking and everything, he would wrap it in the furoshiki and come home. And I just remember my brother and I, that we just adored our dad. And I remember running up, both of us running up to him and wrapping our arms around him, and so excited to see him come home, and then we would eat there in our little apartment.

MA: So you ate your meals together, then, as a family in your...

AH: Uh-huh. And I'm sure we did it three times, breakfast, lunch and dinner together. Yeah, we were fortunate that the family was able to be with us. He built us furniture from scrap wood that was left from construction of the barracks, and thank goodness I saved two of his chairs, and I use it as a display, I go all over northern Utah giving presentations on Topaz, and I always bring 'em and people are really very interested in that piece. Eventually, I'll be donating all of what I have to the Topaz Museum.

MA: Did your mother also work in camp?

AH: No, uh-uh. No, she was a housewife, she was a housewife all her life. She did some... not in camp but after camp, she did some tailoring and mending of clothes, but it was a job that she did in her home.

<Begin Segment 3>

MA: When you were in Topaz, did you attend, like, a preschool or a kindergarten or anything like that?

AH: Uh-huh, I did.

MA: What are your memories of that, of that time?

AH: You know, I don't remember any of the preschool. I remember going to Sunday school. The Buddhist temple was really active in Topaz, I remember that. I remember going to the service and singing songs. They were called Gathas, and they still are called Gathas. And it's amazing that... I'm still very active in the Buddhist temple in Ogden, and we still sing the songs that I sang when I was in Topaz. And then I, they had the Obon festival, which is a summer festival, holiday, a big holiday for the Buddhists, and I remember learning how to do the Obon dancing there from age three. And I've been in the Obon every year ever since then, and I'm sixty-eight years old, so I participated in a lot of that all these years. And it's become a family tradition, too, that even now, my kids and my grandkids, we participate in this.

MA: That's interesting that it started in camp for you, that you learned the Obon dancing... that's interesting.

AH: Uh-huh, yeah.

<Begin Segment 4>

MA: So we talked earlier about your parents while you were in camp and sort of really trying to create a sense of normalcy for you. One example you gave was your father bringing the meals into, into the barracks and having meals together. Can you talk a little bit more about that and how that affected you and your memories of camp?

AH: It was really interesting. I just remember -- you know, these interviews are good because it makes me really think about my surroundings. I just remember that I was doted upon. I was surrounded by people who were real kind, and my father was a very positive person, and his comment is -- this is after camp -- he told us that, you know, the camp wasn't too bad because he came from a farm, they were very poor farmers. And he says that going to Topaz, we had a bed to sleep in, we had food, we had, we didn't have to have outhouses, we had actually latrines, and he says it really wasn't that bad. And he was always, my parents were always encouraging us to do good. Grace Oshita's a cousin of mine who was there when she was seventeen, she remembers a lot. And I have a lot -- I have a hard time talking about this -- to thank her for because she's the one that instilled me to do what I'm doing, what I'm doing now, kind of carrying on what she started years ago. I guess forty years ago she started. And I started talking about Topaz when my kids were in elementary school. But anyway, she was raised by her grandma because her mother passed away. And her grandma was not my blood grandma, but she was the only grandma I knew. My maternal and my paternal grandmothers, I didn't know them, I don't remember them. But (Grace's grandma) was a powerful influence on me, too, because she only had a fourth grade education, but she was so knowledgeable about life, you know. Like if I would get discouraged, I remember her telling me in Japanese -- see, we spoke a lot of Japanese, and I didn't realize that. Isn't that funny how you don't realize it at that time? But when I think about it, even in the last few years, I thought, gee, we must have, I must have spoken a lot of Japanese because I'm starting, we were ashamed to speak it after war, after the war. But now I feel more relaxed and I'm speaking a lot more Japanese. But I remember her telling me in Japanese that, "Alice, you're gonna be okay, and you could do this, and I know that because of your talent and how smart you are, you're going to do really good." And that's the kind of encouragement I was surrounded by all the time. And my younger brother was, too, so I just remember just normal childhood, and I remember when we moved into a normal home after camp, I thought, I realized, gee, this, I thought the barracks were places where everybody lived. I thought it was a normal thing for people to live in barracks. I'm a nurse and I've done lots of social work kinds of stuff and have learned that even people in poverty, that they're okay with it because they're so used to living in poverty and they don't know that there's a better way of living. And probably that applied to me when I was in Topaz, that it was normal to live in a barrack, there was nothing wrong with it.

MA: And it seems like your family really did a lot to create a nurturing environment and really, you know, establish normalcy for you and your brother.

AH: Yeah, yeah. And you know, when you're growing up, you just take those things for granted. But I look back and I thought, "That's just amazing."

MA: Yeah.

<Begin Segment 5>

MA: So are there any other memories you would like to share, anything else about Topaz that you'd like to talk about?

AH: Well, I remember seeing Snow White for the first time and how much we all enjoyed it. I think that's when it first came out, about that time. And so we got to see that. I remember playing with my friends, I remember Tetsuden Kashima was in the same block, and I remember he was, I think he's about a year or two younger than I am, he became, later on, a professor at University of Washington in Asian Studies. Anyway, but we would play, and I remember that for some reason, he bit my finger, and I just remember screaming bloody murder. [Laughs] You don't forget things like that, you know. So now, every once in a while I'd see him at a JACL function or something, and I would always remember, remind him -- he probably doesn't remember who I am -- but I remind him. [Laughs]

MA: You remember him biting your finger. [Laughs]

AH: I just remember that his father was a Buddhist priest, minister, too. But there were two boys, and Tetsuden was the younger one. I remember the hospital that I had to have my tonsils out, and I was just really scared. And I could hear my mom's voice as they were carting me into the operating room, and I remember screaming for her, "Mom, Mom, come get me." And the next thing I knew, I was coming out of my anesthetic and I couldn't talk because they had my tonsils out.

MA: Were the doctors Japanese Americans?

AH: Yeah. You know what's amazing is that the San Francisco area, that Bay Area, is, has lots of universities, prominent, well-known universities like University of California in Berkeley and University of San Francisco in San Francisco. And they had medical schools and also nursing schools. So a lot of the Japanese were students or physicians or professors. And so when they went to Topaz, probably in the state of Utah, that Topaz had the best medical care provided in the state of Utah. And I thought, "That's so interesting," because that's true. And a lot of the young ladies that came, single ladies who came to Topaz also became nurse's aide and things like that. So I'm sure a Japanese physician operated on me. But there are some amazing stories that come out of a situation like that. So I remember that. I remember... let's see, that, and I had an aunt who was very influential in my life, and she was in the same block. She's Grace's stepmom.

MA: What was her name?

AH: Rae Fujimoto. She was my mom's sister, and my mom was very conservative, and pretty reserved and everything. She was beautiful, she spoke English and Japanese very well. But my aunt, who was five years older than my mom, was a very colorful personality, and I think Grace might talk to you about her. Anyway, she was flamboyant, dressed really well, spoke Japanese and English very well, and she was able to... what's the word? Because of her charm, she was able to get lots of things done her way. That's a diplomatic way of saying it. [Laughs] She was like that all her life. And I think about it, somebody says, "Oh, she seems like, she's like the typical ladies of that time." I says, "No, there's nobody that can duplicate my aunt."

MA: I wanted to ask you about your mother and how, during the war and your time at Topaz, did you sense that she sort of took on certain roles? I mean, I guess she was bilingual, she spoke English and Japanese, that maybe your father couldn't because of his language. Did you notice that she took over some family responsibilities or in terms of dealing with, you know...

AH: Yeah, she, I know that -- and I'm glad you brought that up, because I didn't realize, even with my mom, she had shortcomings because she had a terrible, not terrible, but she had a real hard childhood. That she, she was forced to be the strong one because my father didn't speak any English or write English, so she had to step forward. And being able to represent the family and writing down all of the form, the registration forms and all the things that you have to fill out to come to camp and all that. And also taking care of our assets back home, and also helping us establish after Topaz, so, and many years even after that. But she was the strong person as far as being knowledgeable about all the things that had to be done, so she took on a responsibility that most mothers and wives didn't have to at that time. So I give her a lot of credit for that.

<Begin Segment 6>

MA: So anything else about Topaz that you'd like to share, or any memories?

AH: I know that -- and this is one thing that I did remember -- is that there was a young girl, she was about four years old, and that she was molested by a teenager. And I remember wondering why -- because I don't think anything was really done, I think the mom knew about it, but she didn't do anything. And I think back on it and I thought, "Gee, that was kind of bad that nothing was done," but then I ask myself now, what could have been done? I mean, it was a terrible situation, they had more problems (than) trying to handle something like that. It's one of the social ills that all community has, no matter where you are, big city, small town, whatever, and it's one of those things that happened. Which made me aware that if it happened once, it must have happened a number of other times. And I'm sure, understanding human nature, that there were things like domestic violence and things like that, too. And it might have been more so because of the stresses of the (Topaz) situation, too. I don't even, I just remember even after Topaz, when we went back to San Francisco, that there was a couple that was definitely a domestic violence, I remember that.

MA: A Japanese couple?

AH: Uh-huh, that lived in one of our apartments in San Francisco. And then I remember my parents and the neighbors would say, "There they go again," you could hear the banging and everything. I remember that. So, you know, no matter where you are, social ills happen. And I think back on it and that's probably what happened to that child.

MA: Yeah, thank you for talking about that.

AH: Yeah.

<Begin Segment 7>

MA: So how, how did your family then end up leaving camp? Did you go to Salt Lake City after Topaz?

AH: You know, that's, I wish I could talk to my mom. I could probably ask Grace, I should do that while she's able to... there's so many questions I should ask her. But I have to kind of back up a little bit. You know, I grew up knowing that I was in Topaz, but so what? Nobody talked about it. It wasn't a big deal, you know. But I'm finding out lots of things that happened now that I'm just, right now I'm reading a lot of books, I listen to a lot of speakers, scholars, and found out that there were 129,000 of us, that we were completely homeless. And I didn't know this until about four years ago.

MA: You mean coming out of camp?

AH: Camp, you know. We were given twenty-five dollars, and we didn't know where we were gonna eat or sleep that night, but no one talked about it. In our situation, I don't know how, but I sort of... what happened to us is that we had a family that went to Topaz with us, it's the Yamamoto family, we were very close. And they left before we did, and I'm not sure why. They found a duplex in Salt Lake City, and they made arrangements for our family to live with them when we left camp, so we were fortunate, one of the very few fortunate ones. So we lived with them for a year and then went back to San Francisco, but I never questioned why or how or anything. But I'm looking back on it, and I think that's how it happened.

MA: So you moved to live with this family in the duplex in Salt Lake City?

AH: Salt Lake City.

MA: What are your memories of leaving camp? Do you remember that day?

AH: You know, I don't remember that day or anything, but I remember the duplex that the Yamamotos, who owned the other side, were wonderful people. Lessie Yamamoto, she's one lady that no one ever forgets. [Cries] Hard time again. She's the type of person that had no ill toward anybody. She had a smile for everybody, she never talked bad. It's almost like, how can people be so positive? Never gossiped or anything, she was just good, good, and she was just a beautiful person physically, too. But she married a husband, his name was James, and he had diabetes. Eventually that took his life, but she took really good care of him. And I remember, gosh, I've got vivid memories of living in that duplex. My father... see, that goes into another part of my life where my uncle, I talk about Grace all the time...

MA: Grace Oshita.

AH: Uh-huh, Oshita. Her father was able to start a business in Salt Lake City after camp at the miso, it was called the Kanemasa miso company. And so my father, when he came out of camp, he worked for him for that year. And I remember Mom will pack up his, a lunchbox, and I think my uncle picked him up early in the morning, about seven in the morning. I was still, we'd all be still in bed, but sometimes I'd be awake and then I could see that he's waiting. And my sister was born during that time. So my mom must have been pregnant when she was in Topaz, because she was born in 1946, May of 1946.

<Begin Segment 8>

MA: And so at that point, in Salt Lake City, it was you and your parents and your younger brother and then your sister was born?

AH: Uh-huh.

MA: Okay, during that time.

AH: Yeah, and I've got, I've got pictures of that. And I remember, I don't know if it was while we were there, but the Yamamoto family, they had two children, Eleanor, who's four years older than I am, and then they had a son named Junior. And he contracted a deadly disease and it took his life. And I remember it was awful, everybody was traumatized by that. So Eleanor grew up by herself.

MA: What was the neighborhood that you lived in in Salt Lake City?

AH: It was, it was a nice neighborhood. I mean, it wasn't real fancy or, you know, big mansions, but it looked like it was a middle-income. It was, it didn't seem to be low-income area or anything like that. It was close to West High School, about a block where, actually, I eventually graduated from West High School. It was close to downtown, it was close to the state capitol. It was an, it was an okay area.

MA: Were there other Japanese American families that lived in that neighborhood?

AH: Yeah, there really was. There was, in fact, Grace Oshita's husband's family, they went to another camp, and they ended up buying a home a few blocks from us in Salt Lake City. And eventually, Grace and Ben Oshita got married. But they were not too far from us. Oh, yeah, you know, and there were some other families, too... let me think. But then they came after, though, they came after.

<Begin Segment 9>

MA: Right, so then you said that you stayed in Salt Lake City for about a year.

AH: I think it was about a year.

MA: And then your parents decided to move back to San Francisco.

AH: Uh-huh, yeah.

MA: And so what was it like to return back to the West Coast after being... I mean, I guess --

AH: You know, there was one... because let's see. When I was in Salt Lake for that one year, I started kindergarten, and I think I started first grade. Wait a minute, I'm getting kind of confused. I know I started kindergarten, it was Lafayette Elementary School, went to San Francisco and started second grade there. And I remember I was placed into special education class because I remember I ended up in this class and I saw these disabled people, they were mentally retarded and physically disabled and all that, and I thought, "What am I doing here?" and it really traumatized me. And I look back on it, I never did ask my mom, but I think what happened is I was extremely shy, and I spoke a lot of Japanese and I stopped speaking. And so I wasn't speaking English very well, and so I think what happened is they misplaced me in an inappropriate special ed. class. Because the next thing I knew, I was in a regular classroom. So whenever I give my presentations, a lot of times I do give it to faculties, and I tell them how important it is to really test the child before they place the child, and make sure that they get them in the... of course, more technology and the tests are a lot more, there's been a lot of improvement in testing for things like that.

MA: At your school, were there, was it mostly Japanese American students?

AH: Oh, in San Francisco?

MA: Yeah, in San Francisco.

AH: No, it was, it was amazing. It was ninety percent, probably, African Americans because what happened is when, when we were all sent to Topaz, lot of the laborers were gone, lot of the blue collar workers were gone. And so this is what I understand, that there was a big ad from the businesses of San Francisco in the south encouraging the African Americans who were jobless down there or in low income to come up to San Francisco to find jobs. So what happened is when we went to Topaz, our whole place was overtaken by African Americans.

MA: Your apartment building?

AH: Right, uh-huh. And in fact, that whole area. So by the time we went back, it was pretty much trashed. And so the school, there was a lot of African Americans, very few Caucasians, I'd say maybe five percent, the rest were Asians and Chinese and Japanese especially.

MA: What was the feelings like between the communities, especially the African American and Japanese American communities when you got back to San Francisco?

AH: This is, I'm sort of, kind of... not embarrassed, but I'm sort of... I guess that's the right word, embarrassed because the Japanese, we had strong racist ideas.

MA: Against African Americans?

AH: African Americans. I grew up not associating, we treated the African Americans like they were second class citizens. And of course, thank goodness, I outgrew that realizing that that's not... but the Japanese, the Japanese were, and then we even considered Chinese as a lower class, too. I think it's terrible now, I can't believe that I went along with that, but I grew up with it. Thank goodness I've changed.

MA: Was it sort of a community-wide, community-held, sort of, beliefs? And how did that play out in terms of the relationships between the communities? Was there ever tension or was it sort of like communities just kind of did their own thing and didn't really interact?

AH: There was a little bit of tension, but we act like they didn't even exist. Japanese are very proud people. What's interesting to me, and I learned, is that the Japanese that came from Japan are, came directly from Japan. In Japan they have a strong class system, and that was carried into San Francisco. So my parents were, my parents were not judgmental. I just remember them... but then it was the other extended family that were pretty judgmental, and that was kind of the general feeling of the Japanese community there. I was told what Japanese were the "lower class," and, "stay away from that family." And, "This family's okay and that family's okay." But I'm a rebel at heart, and I just played with the people from the low class because, to me, they weren't. They had nice cars, they dressed well, their homes were clean and everything, and the parents were very nice. So lot of times, I ignored some of that. But then I did comply about the African Americans because, to me, they were scary when I was growing up. They lived in the basement apartment of our apartments, and they were not very clean. You know, they come from poverty background, so they didn't know any better, probably. But then when I went back, I moved to Utah, the further away you get from the West Coast, especially San Francisco, the class system fades and you come here and you have no clue, which is good.

MA: Oh, that's interesting. So you noticed a strong difference, then, between San Francisco and Utah in terms of...

AH: Oh, yeah. The Japanese in San Francisco versus here. The Japanese here in Utah are a lot more friendly and more open.

MA: Why do you think that is?

AH: I think it has to do with the proximity, the Japanese coming from Japan, coming to San Francisco, and the class system. The Japanese were real close, tight-knit community, and I... anyway, when I came here, I didn't feel that at all. There was, there wasn't that class system or feeling like... well, and then the Japanese here didn't have to have that, dealing with... they didn't go to camp, and so when they, they didn't have that experience of leaving their homes and then being overrun by people who were going to leave it trashed, I guess. I don't know. But I didn't feel the discrimination here like I did in San Francisco. That was years ago now, I'm sure things have changed a lot.

MA: Right.

<Begin Segment 10>

MA: So going back a little bit to San Francisco, what type of work did your father do when you were living there?

AH: He went back to laundry cleaning business.

MA: Did he work in a laundry, or did he sort of open up his own laundry?

AH: He, he went back to, you know, I think a couple of the businesses that were already established, but he tried to do it on his own and didn't do it very well and had a nervous breakdown, I remember that. It was a very sad, sad time. I remember that very vividly. And my mom and dad would have arguments, and there was a lot of stress there. And you know, things happen for a reason. My uncle had a very successful miso business in Salt Lake City, and his mother passed away, who did, she helped a lot with the business, packaging things and all that. So he called my father to say, "If you want to, I would just love to have you and your family move back to Salt Lake and help continue with the business," so we moved back to Utah.

MA: Oh, okay.

AH: That's how we came back.

MA: And how old were you at that time?

AH: I was twelve, I think I started sixth grade at Jackson elementary school here, and then went to junior high school, Jackson junior, and then West High School and graduated.

MA: How did you feel about leaving San Francisco at that age?

AH: I was happy.

MA: You were happy.

AH: Oh, yeah. 'Cause I just, because I used to come to Salt Lake during summertime, my aunt and uncle, the one, Rae and her husband who had the miso factory would come and pick my brother and I up to come to Salt Lake on vacation, and we kept, we just had a ball.

MA: So you have happy memories of that time from Salt Lake City.

AH: Right, uh-huh.

MA: So where, where did you move to when you came back to Salt Lake, what neighborhood?

AH: Let's see. We lived right next door to my aunt and uncle. It wasn't too far from the duplex that we lived right after Topaz. And they had a nice home, and we lived in a little tiny house until another house was sold, we bought another home. We stayed really quite close to my aunt and uncle. It was really an interesting relationship, it was kind of a dependent kind of relationship.

MA: And this was the aunt and uncle who operated the miso factory, Grace's parents.

AH: Right, uh-huh.

MA: And did your father at that time work at the miso factory?

AH: Uh-huh. When he came back, that's all he did.

MA: What type of work did he do there?

AH: He learned, there's a secret formula in making the miso from soybean, and so he carried that with him. And so he was a laborer, he was blue collar, and yet he was real important in the business to keep it going and everything. He and my aunt and uncle, well, obviously they got along really well. And we never had a car in the family but it was my aunt and uncle that drove us all over, or we learned how to ride the bus, buses in Salt Lake City.

<Begin Segment 11>

MA: What was the Japanese American community like in Salt Lake City in terms of people who had been in camp versus those who hadn't? And more of the, what was the demographic like that that you remember?

AH: There were very, very, very few of us that ever came from any camp. It was mostly the Japanese families who's already been established here before the war. Some of them probably came from other communities, but by the time we got here, the families have already been established. And somebody like me, from Topaz, was very, very rare. You know, there was Ted Nagata, and my cousin, and then what was interesting to me was -- and it was really enjoyable -- is as I was growing up in Salt Lake City, you know, the Buddhist temple in Topaz was very, very active, and a lot of ministers there. And Michiko Sanada came from Reverend Sanada's family, and she's almost exactly the same age as I am. And we knew each other -- I can't say we knew each other before the war, we were too young -- but we, I think we knew each other in Topaz, and they went back to San Francisco, and then we came to Salt Lake. And then eventually the bishop of Buddhist Churches of America -- this was after the war -- transferred Reverend Sanada's family from San Francisco to Salt Lake City. So I was reunited with Michiko Sanada, and we've been very close, we still are very close. We were in each other's wedding party and things like that. It was really neat for me to be able to have a good friend from my past who had the same, similar background, and we shared a lot of things together and we became best friends.

Other than that, most of the families have already been established here. There were well-established businesses like we had a very active Japanese town for many years, there was Sunrise Fish Market, there was Sage Farm Market, there were a couple, three restaurants, Pagoda, which still exists. (Now) we don't have Japanese town anymore, we had Dawn Noodle, gone, Roy Jewelry's gone. But it was a family, there was a family grocery store owned by a Japanese family, couple of hotels. And the thing that's amazing about Japanese town -- I'm kind of rambling here -- is as popular as Nat King Cole was, you know, the African American entertainers, when they came to Salt Lake City they were real popular. They sang, like, he sang at the Rainbow Rendezvous, which is a ballroom, real popular. But none of the hotels would let them eat or sleep in the hotel or restaurants, so they ended up in our two hotels in Japanese town. And he used to come to Pagoda Restaurant to have his dinner and all that. And that's just an amazing story, isn't it?

MA: That's amazing, yeah. That is amazing.

AH: And so a lot of the owners have those fond memories and they probably have a lot of pictures of him.

MA: So how were you in general treated by the white people in Salt Lake City? How was that relationship?

AH: That's so interesting because, okay, after the war, everybody hated us.

MA: You mean all the whites?

AH: Japanese, I mean, the white people, in general. So we just completely denied our Japanese, we stopped speaking Japanese, and whenever we did anything Japanese, it was just among us. Like kimono and things like that. But we all stuck together, too, we were really a close-knit group. We had an active YBA, Young Buddhists Association, and we had a junior JACL. And then I went on, some of us went on to University of Utah, and we had an organization called Utorients, and the Japanese students there, we were all close. But yet, like at West High School, we were all close as the Japanese friends, but we were popular in the schools, but we never hung out with the popular kids, we didn't fit in the clique. But yet we were elected officers, and that's kind of strange when I think about that now.

MA: What about your parents and that generation in terms of dealing with job discrimination and housing discrimination? Did that happen a lot in Salt Lake City?

AH: I don't remember anything like that because they were already established in the Japanese community. My dad had a job with my aunt and uncle, my mom didn't have to work, and we had the Buddhist temple. And I don't remember an out and out discrimination.

<Begin Segment 12>

MA: Did you talk about camp at all with your friends, especially when you were younger, when you came back to Salt Lake City?

AH: There was nothing in common to talk about. I mean, they had no way to relate, and no one really talked about, you know, my parents never talked about it. And I'm learning now that there's, some of the people are really quite bitter and now I understand why, because everything was taken away from 'em, everything, we were completely homeless. And see, like I say, I didn't realize that until just a few years ago. There's a lot, there's a lot... not a lot, but little by little, expressions of bitterness is coming out. There was a lady who -- there's two ladies, they're older than I am, and one of them... see, I talk about it freely because I was so young and protected from all this harshness, you know. But this one lady, she's a few years older than I am, and she would say, "I don't even want to talk about," because somebody approached her, and she says, "Don't ever talk about this to me."

MA: About camp, you mean?

AH: Camp -- or World War II. I don't, I think she might have gone to camp, but I'm not sure. But she's old enough to experience the harshness of the discrimination, and she said, "I was offered the $20,000 but I refused it. And don't ever bring this up again, ever." And then another one expressed, a Caucasian friend, when they were young, probably teenagers, it was after the war and everything, saying, the Caucasian friend said, "Oh, there's these popular singers that are coming," or it was a popular movie that's coming into town. "Let's all go together, we probably have to wait in line because it's so popular." But that lady, she's passed away now, but she said that, "I'll never, I'll never go with you because that's all we did in camp is wait in line for our food, wait in line for doctor's appointment, wait in line to do this, wait in line to do that. And I'll never, ever get in a situation where I have to wait in line." And then, see, I'm just reading about that now, and I didn't realize that. I sort of did, but I didn't realize how bad it is. Like there's a book that I just read in Tanforan, there were 8,000 of us, they only had three mess halls. And so they had to wait in line forever to get all three meals. So that just came out, this has all been classified until 2006.

MA: Right. So people obviously carried a lot of strong emotions still about their experiences.

AH: Right. And that, people didn't say anything for a lot of reasons. And my parents, I didn't feel any bitterness. I think they were just so busy and everything raising kids, there were four of us, and raising money, saving money for our colleges and all that. But there was other people who didn't say anything because they were very bitter like this lady. I'm sure she's not alone. And I have to say at this point, there are very, there are heroes in my life where the very few people pretty much forced us to say anything. Because it would have been all swept under the carpet and everybody would have forgotten it. We wouldn't even have this interview, you know, it would have just gotten away. But Jane Beckwith, she's, she's my hero. In the 1980s, she forced us to say something. She's living in Delta, she's an English teacher, and she knew this history and she was shaking all of us, saying, "You've gotta say something." And people like her and a few others, John Tateishi on a national level, and a few young attorneys, third generation after Topaz, found out the atrocities. And even then nobody wanted to talk about it. I mean, John Tateishi, our leader, tried to get support from the people from World War II, no one wanted to, they didn't want to bring up, open up any can of worms anymore. And like I say, all, there were a lot of reasons why people didn't want to say anything. And so the very few people that agreed to testify in front of the congressional party for redress, we have a lot to be thankful for because they did express the concern. And that's the reason why the bill was passed federally, that the Park Service is going to establish all ten camps.

MA: Right, that was passed just recently.

AH: Yeah, recently. And so we have a lot of people to be thankful for, and there are very few. Because John (Tateishi), I know when I met him -- he doesn't even know who I am, but he came as a speaker. And I cried and I gave him a big hug because he sacrificed his personal life for all of us. He left his family for months at a time to lobby for us in D.C., and I don't think people really realize what he's done. He believed in this, and he got young attorneys to get involved (to get over $20,000, redress and apology).

<Begin Segment 13>

MA: I wanted to talk with you a little bit about San Francisco again, and the sort of Japanese cultural traditions and practices that you learned there and you retained from the community in San Francisco, if you could talk about that a little bit.

AH: You know, the word that really comes to me is -- and I grew up with this -- is the word "jouhin." And it's hard to really describe in English what that word means, but anybody that knows -- I mean, speaks the language would know what jouhin means, which means "something in good taste," and "classy" in Japanese. And you notice that all these pictures during World War II, that we were being transferred under these terrible circumstances, that everybody was dressed jouhin, which means that they had their hats and their gloves and their heels on. And that's kind of what I'm thinking of. And I feel like I got a lot of this in San Francisco because when I came to Utah, I've always appreciated the fact that I was able to learn what that means in Japanese. And that jouhin attitude has helped me to learn how to carry myself, and even my relationship with people and how I dress, how I walk. I guess the word "dignity" is real good, and I think that's the thing that was so amazing about that generation, is they held their dignity even under all these terrible, terrible circumstances. And I think that's one of the things that I really appreciate from San Francisco. And that jouhin applies to making sure that our kimono is put on properly, how we speak, and even how to dance. During the Obon time, I was taught to dance the right way, and it's not so much right or wrong, but how much to really enjoy the dancing by doing it properly. Some of the movements you shouldn't exaggerate, that it should be subtle and beautiful. And so if you see a dancer doing the same dance, and one dancer exaggerates that movement and another one does it with subtlety, it's more beautiful to watch the dancer who does it with subtlety and not the one who exaggerates. You know, there's a lot of movies that are being made about geishas, and like Grace Oshita, my cousin and I, I think she might have seen some of those. And we just kind of shake our head because it wasn't done with jouhin. But I... and so yeah, it's really amazing. That's an interesting question you ask because it really applies to a lot of things that, who I am now. See what you did to me? [Laughs]

MA: That you noticed came from your, your short time in San Francisco.

AH: Yeah, all this upbringing. I was surrounded by people, kind of like osmosis, too, you know what I mean? I was surrounded by people with good taste. I grew up with families... and they weren't rich or anything, I remember it was just kind of a middle income family, but they were just so, they were really nice people, and their living quarters were so beautiful. Not with expensive kinds of things, but they were real clean and everything. And these were families that were well-respected in the community, too. There was a Suwada family, she was a sensei of koto and shamisen. And then their daughter, who was my girlfriend's mom, just wonderful people. And the Baba family on Post Street... in fact, the Baba family on Post Street, I remember Russell Baba, he was about two-and-a-half when I last saw him, and now he and his wife and I, we play the taiko together. Well, not together, Russell and his wife are known internationally as outstanding taiko performers, so we have something in common. I'm not internationally known, I'm just lucky at my age that I could play the taiko. [Laughs]

<Begin Segment 14>

MA: So I wanted to go back a little bit and ask you about high school. So you attended West High School. What were the, what was the racial composition of your, of your high school class? Japanese American, Caucasian?

AH: It was mostly Caucasian. A lot of the Japanese, I think West High School had the most concentration of Japanese students, but percentage-wise, with the number in the student body, we weren't that much. But of all the other high schools in the Salt Lake valley, we probably had the most number because Japanese town was right close by. And so, let's see, there were Hispanics, and very few African Americans, I don't remember that many.

MA: How was the Hispanic community in general treated by the larger white community? How was that, what was that relationship like?

AH: At that time? If I remember... at that time, the Hispanics were having problems... I remember the ones that -- no, I guess I can't say that. There was some discrimination, I have to admit to that. Yeah, there was. I can't say that there wasn't. But yet, some of them were real popular and we became really good friends. So I guess it's kind of case by case. But in general, there was some. And there weren't that many Hispanics at that time, either, and even fewer African Americans. And then it was, I graduated in 1958, and lot of us were quite, you know, well-liked, we were popular, elected secretary. Not just me, but the others, too, elected for this and that. And academically, we did very well because the very fact that... because our elders always told us, after the war, during the war, that, "Whatever you do, you have to, you have to excel, you have to be 150 percent better than the average students." And so we did well athletic-wise, academically, things like that.

MA: At that point in high school, were you thinking about going to college? Was that a goal of yours?

AH: Yeah, uh-huh. In our family, when we were born, our parents put a mark on our forehead saying, "College, college," and so there was no question that I had to go to college.

MA: And do you feel like that was similar for the other Japanese Americans students in your high school? Everyone was encouraged?

AH: I think so, yeah. Education was important to the, for the Japanese families. And I remember -- now, this is how naive, because I was really naive. I think about, I'm a little bit more worldly now, but I met my husband when I was junior in high school, and I fell in love with him and I didn't look at anybody else, and I just wanted to get married. But my husband was a lot more practical, his name was Mack Hirai. And he says, "No, we won't marry until you get your degree," and my parents said the same thing. And I'm so glad that they told me to do that because he passed away at a young age. And because of my degree, I was able to have a pretty good income to keep our family together. Where if it wasn't for that, I'd be working minimum wage, waiting on tables and all that. So there's a lot of things I was very naive about.

MA: Was your husband from a, sort of, prewar Salt Lake City family?

AH: No, he's from Idaho, they had a farm. He came from a large family, yeah, they were a struggling farming family. And I met him, his brother Yosh was already going to the University of Utah, and he always used to tease me saying -- my husband was the youngest, and Yosh would always tease me, saying, "You've gotta meet Mack, my brother, you've gotta meet him." So I kept thinking, "Oh, yeah." But then I did finally meet him, and yeah, that was it. [Laughs]

<Begin Segment 15>

MA: So when did you get married?

AH: In 1962. It was, I graduated in nursing, June, and then I got married in August, a couple months later.

MA: So you attended the University of Utah, you said.

AH: Uh-huh.

MA: And when did you decide that you wanted to go into nursing? Was that something that you had known when you first applied to college, that you wanted to do?

AH: No, it's something I've already known. You know, in those times, there weren't that many options for women. Either was housewife, secretary, teachers, nurse, and even when I graduated, this is how unrealistic -- well, maybe it was realistic at that time. Even after I graduated and got married, I thought, "Okay, I'll just work as a nurse maybe for a few months, and then I'll have a baby and I'll be a housewife rest of my life and that's it. I won't go back to nursing at all." But of course, it didn't work out that way.

MA: When you were at University of Utah, were there many other Japanese American students there?

AH: Uh-huh, there was a few of us. And that's where we formed that, they call it Utorients, they called it Utes for University of Utah, and then Orient for Orients, and so it was called Utorients, and it was a pretty active organization.

MA: Was it just Japanese American or was it also other Asians?

AH: No, it was Japanese Americans.

MA: What types of things did you do?

AH: We had dances. Lot of it was social kinds of things. We, I think we did some fundraising. It was social things, dancing and picnics and things like that, and it was pretty active. And we used to have some... annually we'd have this invitational basketball tournament, and you're going to interview Ted Nagata and he'll know about that, too. Anyway, it was a real popular event, especially for the girls. And we would... anyway, we would invite teams from California, we used to have the San Francisco Saints come. Do they still exist? Do you know about them?

MA: I don't know, I'm not sure.

AH: They were really popular, the Chinese basketball team from San Francisco, and then we'd get teams from San Francisco in general, and Berkeley and Oakland, L.A., and then they would all come, and all of us girls, we would -- this is awful -- we would dump our boyfriends and we'd go out with the basketball players. [Laughs] Isn't that awful? I'll probably be the only one ever admitting that, that's going to be interviewed. But anyway... and some, some of those stuck because I know there's a few from Salt Lake that did meet these basketball players, and they're married, and happily married now. But, and then we'd have queen contests and things like that. And I ran and I never got it, but that's okay. [Laughs]

MA: Was this group pretty tied into the Japanese American community in Salt Lake City and Japantown?

AH: Oh, yeah.

MA: There was a strong relationship there?

AH: I'm sorry, the basketball tournament?

MA: Just your, your group in college, in general.

AH: Oh yeah, we were all, because, see, we were still close together. There's a comfort zone because there's still... I wouldn't say an outward discrimination, but we just felt more comfort being together, and we didn't do a lot of things outside of the Japanese community. Even though we were okay, the others accepted us okay. Except there was one experience that... there was Martha Miyagishima and Grace Endo and I, we were student nurses at the same time. Our freshman year, you know how the colleges would have freshman orientation, and they'd have a social, and one of being a dance and all that. So all three of us went, and then the hostess was a sorority chapter. And this one sorority member was escorting three boys to come toward us to dance with us, and when she saw that we were Asians, she goes, "Oh, well, let's, I'll find you some other girls," and turned around and walked away. Because, I'm sure it's because she didn't realize we were Asians, that she didn't want to introduce the boys to us. And so we looked at each other and thought, "Well," so discrimination.

MA: What about in class? Did you, were most of your teachers men or women? How did you feel being a Japanese American woman in your classes in college?

AH: You know, I didn't, I don't ever remember negative feelings about it. And then, you know, nursing, lot of nursing professors were women, and I didn't feel any discrimination. The general classes were also male professors, but I don't remember any discrimination that way.

<Begin Segment 16>

MA: So then you married your husband Mack in, was it 1962?

AH: Uh-huh.

MA: And you have three children?

AH: Right.

MA: Can you name your children and when they were born?

AH: Stan was born 1965, so he's forty-three. And then Marlane was born in 1967, and she just turned forty. And she's the one that's mentally delayed and has special needs. And then my third child (Alicia) was born in 1977, she's thirty and she lives in Chicago, and she's married, has no children yet. And then I have two grandchildren, and they're the delight in my life. And we have so much fun that I get in trouble with them, too, so that's how much fun we have. And when I get them in trouble, I have to go and apologize, "I'm sorry I got you in trouble." [Laughs] Mackenzie, she's, right now she's fourteen, and Alex is ten.

MA: And they live in the Salt Lake City area?

AH: Uh-huh. And like I say, the big national JACL convention is coming in a couple of months, and Alex, my ten year old, is gonna be my date to the Sayonara Ball. And I wanted him to come because the keynote speaker is going to be astronaut Tani, he was in space for 123 days, and his mother passed away while he was up, and she was in camp. And so I asked Alex, I said, "Are you interested in space as a career in the future?" and he says, "Oh, maybe." And I says, "Well, I'd like to expose you and Mackenzie to all different kinds of options that you could have," and I said, "Would you like to sit with me to listen to the speaker?" And I said, "I know that maybe you might feel kind of awkward being with Grandma, but you could bring a friend." And he says, "No, Grandma, I'll sit with you." So I thought, "That's kind of neat." So he's gonna be my date.

<Begin Segment 17>

MA: I was wondering if you could talk -- we talked earlier about your activism that you've been involved with in the education system for a long time. Can you talk about how that started and your involvement with that?

AH: I think the experience in Topaz started that.

MA: Can you explain that a little bit?

AH: That all our rights were taken away. And so I think the biggest, one of the biggest impact it has made is when my handicapped daughter Marlane, we were told by professionals that, a neurologist told us that, "She has no future, she doesn't understand anything you're talking about. She's just going to be so disruptive in your life, and just as well put her, send her to American Fork," which is known to be a warehousing of human bodies there. But we didn't know any better and so we signed her up, and it took, there was a waiting list for a whole year. And every night, I cried every night because we'd have to just send her away, a baby that we loved. In the meantime, things happen for a reason, Jim and Marvel Byrnes came into our lives from the state of Nebraska. And my husband and I, we were really active in the handicapped movement, where we're trying to provide better services for the handicapped. And we heard about this Project TURN, an acronym for Teaching Utah's Retarded Normalization, which means it's a philosophy to mainstream the handicapped into the mainstream of life. And so we, we brought this gentleman here without even thinking that it might apply and help our daughter, because we already had her signed up to go to American Fork. And anyway, Jim (Byrnes) came and saw Marlane and he says, "Gee, Alice and Mack, Marlane understands everything you're talking to her about. I mean, she's got you wrapped around her finger. I'll be able to -- let my family and I take her for two weeks, we work with the handicapped back in Nebraska and know the steps and how to help you normalize her behavior, and also this will give you two weeks of respite because it's been really hard to handle," and she was very hyperactive.

MA: How old was she, I'm sorry, around that time?

AH: About seven. And so they took her for two weeks, and at the end of the two weeks they said, "Now, we want you to come to our home but we don't want her to know that you're there, or else she'll revert back to her bad behavior." And so they had a fireplace which was a screen, it separated the dining room and the living room, so they had Marlane on the other side of the fireplace, and then they had, my husband and I watched through the screen, and we just couldn't believe our eyes, all those negative behavior was gone. (Before), she would try to vomit for attention, and having to go to the bathroom all the time, and just being hyperactive, but she didn't do any of that (at Byrnes'). And so my husband and I, we started crying, couldn't believe it. Anyway, this husband and wife, and they have five children, and they were the most amazing family because it was a whole family, they adored the disabled. Back in Nebraska, every weekend they would take home a client that didn't have any family. And have fun, not only just keep them, but they had fun with the client, and that's what they did with Marlane. They just completely adored Marlane. And so what they did, the family taught us, is how to work with her at home so that she could be with us and be as a family.

And we were so excited that we wanted to go and approach the education system, and said, "Gosh, this is such a neat thing." And it was really a right time because it was at that time that a federal bill was passed saying that all children will have an appropriate education. And with that funding, established legal centers for the handicapped. And so if the school districts did not comply, that we would consult with the legal center. So we went and the school districts, we had to work with two districts, and they would say, "We're just really sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Hirai, but we don't have any funding. We feel really bad," and all that. And I used to get really emotional and all that, but along the way, we got some training as parents, how to deal with the school district without getting emotional. So eventually, when they kept telling us that, we would say, "I guess, I'm just really sorry, but I guess we'll have to go to the Legal Center for the Handicapped." Boom, things started happening.

MA: I see. So once you said, you brought in the legal...

AH: Center for the Handicapped.

MA: Then they started changing.

AH: Things started happening. It was ten years of a lot of fighting, lot of fighting, and a lot of unethical things were done. Professional people not doing professional things. We, there was a superintendent that manipulated -- how do you say that? He, he organized the "good parents" against the "bad parents" to try to quiet us. And of course we were the "bad parents," and so all the "bad parents," we looked at each other and we said, "Our name is already mud, it can't get any worse, why don't we just go for it?" So we fought for everything.

<Begin Segment 18>

MA: What were some of the main things that you were, that you wanted and that you were fighting for?

AH: Trying to establish a mainstreaming program, a successful program. They had a lot of things saying, "This is what we're gonna do," and it was just a bunch of whatever. We wanted a program that really works for kids to have a chance to get into a mainstreaming program and have success in these programs. And then they would say, "No, we can't do that, we don't have enough staff, we don't have enough money. You're being too unrealistic, emotional," all this type of stuff. And, but eventually, I was counting the years, I think it was ten years, we finally going things going. And the thing, it really angered me at the time, but the "good parents," they didn't want to do, they didn't want to support us, they didn't want to ruin their names. But then by the time we got everything established, their children benefited from our fighting.

And then we were rewarded, I have to bring in Jeanette Misaka... I have a hard time talking about her, too, because she's been so wonderful. She's been a friend of mine for years and years, even since childhood. Well, she became a very successful special ed. professor at University of Utah, and she's been following our family, the way we fought for Marlane and all the other handicapped students. And she was instrumental in having a state organization, they call it (The Utah Council for Exceptional Children). But anyway, they gave us an award, a state award for our work in, for the handicapped. But, see, Jeanette's been a mentor of mine for years, and she would have me speak at different schools about Topaz, but she would always say, "Please bring in about Marlane, that is so significant." So I have a lot to be thankful for her, too. She recognized what we were doing and what we have accomplished. And there's been, this superintendent that manipulated parents, the "good" and "bad," he was promoted as state superintendent. The new superintendent that came in his place, Superintendent Taggart, and he knew us well and he was very supportive. And when he first became the superintendent of our district, he had a private meeting with my husband and I, and he basically said, "Alice and Mack, from now on, if you have any concerns, you don't have to go through the chain of command, chain of communication," that, "My door is open and you can come and talk to me anytime." And of course we started crying. He was wonderful. And then so my husband passed away, but I'm still a strong advocate for Marlane and the handicapped. And I'm sort of doing that right now with the problems that she's having, I'm making sure that she gets all the options and benefits to keep her quality of life there. And Project TURN is a company that provides the day program and the night program. And they are one of the -- oh, in fact, this is a company that my husband and I brought in, the Byrnes', they brought in Project TURN. She lives in this group home now, and (the staff is) supporting me as a mom, that I'm taking the bull by the horn and making sure that everything is being done to help Marlane. And they would tell me now repeatedly that they wished that more parents would be this involved. Lot of them, it's a dumping ground, and they don't want to be involved anymore. But I can't, I can't sleep at night, she's still my child. She's been a delight -- all three of my children, in fact, myself, my, all five of us, my husband, he's passed way, and my children, we're all people persons. We like to be with people and we enjoy being with people, and Marlane is the same way, she makes friends easily. But right now, half of (her personality) is gone, and it's like I'm losing part of her. And I'm trying to bring that back. So I'm grieving that part. And I feel like it's okay, I feel bad that I'm tearful, but I feel like it's okay, I'm a mom. And actually, my life is great, I can't, I've had lots of things happen, and lots of things are real positive for me. I mean, I just live every moment now, and this is why I'm here. I feel like this (interview) is important, this is for the future, for my grandkids. And I want to leave a legacy for people, the generation -- it's not only Japanese Americans in the future, but just children in the future, that this is a generation of people that went through this with such dignity and left us such wonderful legacy. And so I feel very honored and proud that I'm able to do this (interview).

<Begin Segment 19>

MA: I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the presentations that you do in schools about Topaz, and how you started doing that.

AH: I started low-key when my kids were in elementary school, because the teachers found how somehow that I was in Topaz, so I'd just go in. And then through the years, it started to change, and it's still, it evolves. And now it's become, it just kind of fell into my lap, and it's really a dynamic part of my life now. Schools are asking me to come, and I have a PowerPoint presentation so I help the students. And I speak all ages, too, I speak from elementary school all the way up to civic groups, the adult groups. In fact, next week, I'll be speaking to a senior population in Weaver County, and I'm going to, I try to relate it to the level of people I'm talking to. And this new book that came out, everybody should purchase it, it's called Impounded, written by (Gary) Okihiro and Linda (Gordon). But it's about Dorothea Lange's pictures that's been classified. And there's a powerful part in that book, I just finished reading it two days ago, that I'm going to quote, because it relates to the senior population. They were part of the war, they were, they're the veterans, and there's part of, that part in that book, it talks about the 442nd and valor, President Truman honoring them with all these citations. And in his presentation, he says that, "You have honored us with your fighting the war against fascism and prejudice, and you have won both of them." And I read that to my friend last night, I said, "Is this appropriate for this generation?" And, "Yeah," he says, "do it." And so I try to gear it, and then I even talk to first graders, too. And for some reason... see, I'm a Buddhist. And as a Buddhist, all the things that's happening to us, there's a reason why it's happening, and it's not me, me, me kind of ego thing, it's just an energy that's there. I feel like my parents are with me to do all this, because a lot of them weren't able to speak. And so when I talk, it's almost like -- because I used to be extremely shy. I'm not as shy, obviously, anymore. My friend say, "You're shy? I never knew that you were ever shy." But anyway, I was, I was extremely shy. But I feel comfortable talking to the students, and they're just listening to me, and then after I'm done, they come up, usually kids in elementary school, you have to prompt them to say, "Thank you." They come up on their own and shake my hand. And there's some sixth graders that I taught a few weeks ago, and a couple, three of them came up and asked for my autograph. I'm going, "Autograph? I've never signed autographs." [Laughs] But then, to me, I knew that I was able to reach them.

MA: What is, usually, the level of knowledge that people have about World War II and the camps and all of that that you've been finding?

AH: Well, some of, some of the history teachers are bringing that in. So by the time I give a presentation, they have some knowledge of that. But when I first started to do this, like when Jeanette Misaka would, she liked me to speak to her REACH program, and it's a program for faculty. I don't know if it's mandatory, but they have to take these sensitivity classes on diversity, and she would arrange for the Hispanic population presentation, and then she would ask me, as a Japanese, to represent us. And so some of them have near heard of it. That was several years ago, but now, because there's more things being written about it and scholars, speakers and things like that, and history teachers are becoming more knowledgeable, that a lot of them know about it. And some are not, just all ranges. But... oh, and then what I do is so that, especially with the young children, I play the taiko. And taiko is a very passion of mine. And my son's my teacher, and he's my worst instructor and I'm his worst student. [Laughs] So we love each other, but we have this thing... but I just thoroughly enjoy it. So what I do is, at the end of my talk -- well, when I first give the presentation, I always approach the audience saying that, "I'm not here because I don't want you to feel sorry for me, I'm here because I want to tell you about a story of a generation that a lot of people don't know about. And I also want you to know that I'm not here because I'm angry, because I'm a Buddhist, and we're taught as Buddhists to drop anger, all the anger feeling, it doesn't do us any good. I'm here because I want you to learn this story." And students, I'll say, "You're the future, and you're gonna be our leaders, and if you know about this story, you'll make sure that this doesn't happen again." So I have, I have the audience part of what I'm trying to do. And I go through and I end up with this very powerful story.

I mentioned John Tateishi, he came and gave a very powerful presentation on one Issei that made a testimony, and the suffering that she went through because of the war. She came with, she and her husband and three sons went, I think they went to Manzanar. The husband died shortly after, I think he was depressed, I kind of got that feeling, and the three sons joined the military. And one by one, they all died. [Cries] And I have a hard time telling this, but usually when I give this part I read it because I cry. And she's telling this in front of the congressional party, she's in her eighties. And to me it's sad because I mentioned, she never had a chance to be a grandma, and I have such joy as being a grandma, you know. And she is, she says, "I'm a Buddhist, and I don't want to go my grave with bitterness, and I want you to please understand, because of your mistake, the suffering and pain that you caused all of us." And when she got done, John Tateishi said that there was not a dry eye in the room. So I always end up with that. But then after the serious part is done, I tell the kids, I said, "You know, when I left camp, everybody hated us so we denied our Japanese. But now, after all these years, I've been able to make a lot of resolutions, my life's great, I'm proud to be an American. I mean, what other country, what other dictator would apologize to the victims of the atrocities? And I celebrate my ethnic background, and I'm going to do a, play a drum for you, taiko." And you'd just be amazed, their eyes go boom, like they open up, they love that. And what I do is I have them hit the drums, and I know the last time I did it at a junior high school, they, they wanted to stay after school and play the drums and watch me perform some more. So it kind of ties everything together. I wanted it to be a positive experience, and I thought the adults wouldn't care for this, but they do. They know about this drum, they go, "Bring your drums, bring your drums," so I even do it for the adults and they love it, too, so it kind of ties it all together. Anyway, that's my presentation and I feel like I didn't plan -- you know, you never know what holds in the future for you either, with this experience, what's gonna happen to you. And I never planned all this in my life, to do this. It's something I feel like I'd like to do, and that's what I'm supposed to be doing.

<Begin Segment 20>

AH: And I'm still working as a nurse, and I work with the senior population. And what's interesting about this is, like, I go to the senior centers and make the same presentation, and I always bring up the fact that, "You're the generation that hated me when I was five years old, but I'm a Buddhist, and one of the main teachings of Buddhism is impermanence, which means nothing stays the same. And you're a perfect example because here, all I feel is love from you, and I love you." And I said, "This is, this is just wonderful.

MA: So you have positive experiences with the senior communities?

AH: Oh, I do, oh, yeah. My boss wants me to do more and more and more, and I, I feel guilty, I says, "I can't do it." He says he knows, he says, "I know you can't do everything, but you're my first choice. But when you turn it down it's okay, but just understand that I always will recommend you." I mean, I'm sixty-eight, and my career is booming. [Laughs]

MA: That's great.

AH: He's been my best boss. He gives me a project and he tells me to run with it. So I love my job, I told you, my life is great.

MA: Well, is there anything else you'd like to share?

AH: I think pretty much, I mean, I talk an awful lot, I'm a gabber, and my kids call me a motormouth. [Laughs] But thank you very much for giving me this, it's such an honor for me. I didn't know that I'd ever be able to do this because I knew that they wanted somebody who actually remembers stuff, and I don't remember a lot of stuff.

MA: I think your story was really important.

AH: Is it?

MA: So yeah, thank you so much for, for sharing, I appreciate it.

AH: Thank you.