<Begin Segment 37>

TI: You mentioned a son earlier, Paul. So is he your only...

NH: Yeah, he's our only child.

TI: And so, so based on the history, I'm guessing he was born in Japan?

NH: Oh yeah, he was born in Japan, yeah. He was born in Japan, and he went to preschool and the nursery school, and all the way through high school he was in the, in the army schools.

TI: Okay, so you chose to go through the army school and not the Japanese school. 'Cause he could have gone to either?

NH: I guess he could have gone to a Japanese school. He would have had to have had a lot of reading and writing to learn before he got, 'cause he had to take a test. We didn't, I didn't insist on that at all, but we spoke Japanese at home until he was about four or five, and then said, "Paul, from now on I'm going to speak to you in English and Mommy's going to speak to you in Japanese." He looked at me, well, that's the way it was. "That's the way it's going to be." He didn't care. [Laughs]

TI: And the reason you did that was you wanted him to be bilingual?

NH: Bilingual and get him ready to go to nursery school. And then by the time he got to nursery school he was, he had enough command of English to know which was right, what was right and what was wrong.

TI: And how was that raising, essentially, an American child in Japan? What was that like? Was that hard or was that easier?

NH: Well, we didn't have too much contact with our neighbors, Japanese neighbors, but we did have -- 'cause we chose to live off the post, not inside the base, which was good. But then, but there weren't too many kids to play with. There were some, and he got along well with them. With them, he ran around and spoke Japanese and everything. And then when he'd go, come home and get on the bus and go to nursery school or go to first grade, he would speak English with all of his friends at school.

TI: And at what point did your son move to the United States? You mentioned he's in Sacramento?

NH: Oh, yeah. Well, then he -- yeah. He graduated Zama High School where I taught last, and then we brought him over here. And he made application to this, that and the other school, and he decided he wanted to go to Davis. Says, "Okay, we'll let's go to Davis." And the orientation is going to be so and so date, so we went there on that day. And said, "Okay, Paul, bye."

TI: And then you went back to Japan?

NH: We went back to Japan, and he went through his orientation and all that and he came back to Japan on his own, got all his stuff, so he knew what he needed and all that. He got a, we got him a brand new bicycle, and they sent that overseas for him, too, but I don't know, he lost it right away. Davis is a good place to have a bicycle, but you don't want a new one. You want to get an old banged up one, then they won't steal it.

TI: That's good.

NH: But I don't know, he's had about three or four bicycles, and he'd leave 'em here or there somewhere, disappeared. But oh well. Anyhow, Paul graduated Davis, got his master's there in computers and stuff, he's in computer thing. And he now works at the School of Engineering, Computer Science Department.

TI: Good. Well, those are --

NH: Oh, his first computer, he wanted a computer, he was in, I know he was in elementary school. And it was a... Radio Shack, what do you call it?

TI: We call it the "Trash 80," the TRS-80?

NH: TRS, yeah, he had one of those. It came from Chicago, we mail ordered it. And we had to get a cassette player, 'cause that was right next to it, and somehow or another they were connected, and that's when he started. And he said, "This is getting old now, I have to get a new one." [Laughs] So Dad says, "Okay," and he would get another one. He must have had two or three of them.

TI: Yeah, that's, those are the very early, early computers. That's good.

<End Segment 37> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.