Densho Digital Archive - Bill Hirabayashi Interview (denshovh-hbill

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MA: Is there anything else you'd like to share before we end?

BH: I guess, this is just myself, but this is a country of opportunities. They talk about the "opportunity knocks but once," that's not true. It's knocking all the time, you just have to make up your mind yourself that, "I want to do this." That's what it seemed. And I was fortunate that when I came up with ideas that was off the board a lot of times, my wife would say, "I know you could do it, go ahead." Well, how can you resist anything like that, when you've got a hundred percent backing like that? And for me, I could talk that way no matter what I did, 'cause sure, she questioned it, but then at the end, she'd say, "Well, you do what you want," and that's what it was, you see. And so all I can say is different things that I did, people say, "Gee, you had a good idea," and so forth. But it's just that, it wasn't my idea, a lot of it, it came from my customers. They'd say, "If you would do this," or, "If you had this, then I would buy a car from you," or something. That's how Foreign Auto Parts started. They said, "If I could get foreign auto parts for a car without having to wait like a lot of people have to wait for the things," said, "then I'd probably buy a foreign car because I'd like a foreign car. But I don't want to have problems with the parts situation." That's when I started Foreign Auto Parts. And same when people say, "If I could have somebody to finish off the job that I start if I get stuck with it, then I would buy that part from you and try it myself. But otherwise, I don't want to attempt it." Well, then the station across the street from me went up for sale, so I bought it, and I hired the fellow's brother to run the thing. And when they start saying that, then I said, "Okay," just go across the street, and that's one of our place." So I said, "Gil will only charge for the time that he has to spend to show you, or else to do it for you." So that snowballed the same way, you see what I mean? So a lot of things that I did was all, it was brought up by the customers and not -- I have no brains, like I say. [Laughs]

MA: It seems like you and your wife made a lot of connections and networks, and that's how you were so successful.

BH: Yeah, my wife, with all the volunteering she did for the hospitals and the nursing home and Traveler's Aid and Fest of Nation, well, I mean, I could go on and on. When they built the Japanese garden and stuff, she was always in with the people. She herself always stayed in the background, but then she still was active enough that it helped all the way around. So I guess all I can say is that Minneapolis/St. Paul area to me has been just a wonderful place. Because my kids have never got into trouble, any of that kind of thing. And I've been very fortunate, we've had, I don't know, any number of things that I think were advantageous for us. Because when we moved into our house, the first house in Richfield, and we were unloading the freezer and stuff like that, a bunch of people started coming over. And I thought, gee, you hear of people saying that, "You're not welcome around here," and all that. Well, it was just the opposite. They all came over, like the neighbor across the street, Adrian, says, "I'm Adrian Aathey," and then so on and so forth. Well, anyway, everybody, John Hammer, and everybody introduced themselves. And they said, "What can we do to help you unload the stuff?" and all that. And then Adrian says, "You know, there's only one guy here that's got enough money to buy anything good." And so he... I can't think of his name, the fellow on the corner, I'm talking fifty-some years ago. He said, "You're the only guy that's got the money with a power lawnmower, why don't you bring it over here and cut the lawn for Bill?" You see what I mean? So all that kind of stuff. So then when my wife had, got into the coffee club, like how they do in the block? She said something about different foods, you know how women talk about menus and recipes, rather? And she talked about things like shrimp and lobster. And they said, "Oh, we've never tasted it. We've heard about it, but never..." 'cause those days, back in early 1951, they hadn't tried it. 'Cause a lot of the people in town, our neighborhood at that time, they were from the farm, from outer farms and stuff. So then she said, "Okay, this winter when it's cooler and all that, I'll cook a Japanese dinner. And Carol, as long as you're Norwegian, you could have your lutefisk and whatever." And it just went on and on. So for quite a few years, we had, once a month, we had, like at the Hammers' we had German food, and the Danish, the lutefisk, you know, Norwegian. We had a lot of fun with it. And so she started, like I say, she more or less started an international dinner party that way. And then it was shortly after that that she did a lot of entertaining. So then she wanted a bigger house, and then we found this other house in Twelfth Avenue, so we moved out there. And then in 1980, I was, it was at the point where my wife said, "If you're going to manicure the lawn when I have somebody cutting the grass and all that, the kids are gone, we need to get rid of it." And we ended up in, she bought a condominium up in 1980, and that's where I've been for the last twenty-nine years.

So all I can say is Minnesota has, really, the people are so nice. I went to a cemetery to bring flowers to my brother-in-law and my sister, 'cause they're both buried there, and I was carrying the brass vase that they have, and I couldn't find any water. 'Cause normally the water was turned on, but this was very early, and so I couldn't find it. So I thought, "Well, what'll I do?" And all of a sudden, a lady came by with a car, and she slowed down so I thought she was asking, going to ask me what row these headstones were. But instead, she says to me, with a big smile, she says, "Isn't it hard to find water?" And I said, "Well, yes, I'm walking around trying to find it." And right away, she had a bottle of regular drinking water. She says, "Here." And I said, "Oh," I said, "thank you." I said, "How much is that?" She says, "It's not going to cost you anything." She says, "It's my pleasure, you take it." And then she drove off with a big smile. You see what I'm saying? People are so nice like that. I can't say enough nice things about Minnesota, because people have just been so nice that way.

And as far as discrimination, the only discrimination that I can talk about, is like I told you about getting my job. But see, I had to make my own job, ask for my own job like that. But beyond that, 'cause all of customers -- I say "all" -- a big percent of our customers are all friends now. And like I mentioned, Steve Cannon was a radio man for WCCO, he bought a car and we became friends. And Joe Soucheray is in St. Paul, and he still has a radio program now. But he'll call me and different things like that. So it was very, very unusual that you could have a thing like that happen. 'Cause our dance teacher was my wife's friend, Doris Marshall, so we used to have dances in our house at, our other house. And we had about, I think it was about eight of us Japanese couples, and Doris used to teach us. And you know what, ended up with that? She married Earl Bachen, who is the founder of Medtronics. And so we were all, this group of, Japanese dance group, were invited to their wedding reception and everything else like that. So you see what I'm saying? People are so friendly and so nice. I don't have anything to -- maybe if somebody cuts me off on the highway I might be mad, but beyond that, everybody, they're such nice people in this town or this state for that matter.

MA: Well, that's a very positive, upbeat place to end the interview.

BH: Well, thank you, but it's just the way it is. That's me.

MA: Yeah.

BH: And I'm not a Japanese, I'm a "Yapanese." [Laughs]

MA: Well, thank you so much for doing this interview.