Densho Digital Archive - Mas Hashimoto Interview (denshovh-hmas-01-0030)

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TI: So talk a little bit more, why teaching. I think you mentioned it earlier, that you wanted to kind of give back because you were appreciative?

MH: I think it was important for the Japanese American community to say thanks to the teaching profession, because they really did support us overall. We only had two friends, the American Friends, Quakers, and Kate Smith, and then a smattering of individuals which we need, need to honor. But nationally only two. So, but teachers locally, teachers were writing letters of recommendation to get us in, my brothers into college. So teachers were one of the best friends the Japanese American community had from the beginning. I wish there would be more Japanese Americans going into teaching. I think there, I think they would enjoy that. It's not easy.

TI: That's good. And so after you got your teaching certificate, then what was next?

MH: I got drafted. [Laughs] I served in the United States Army, I got stationed at the Presidio San Francisco. I was in the chemical section, and everybody had top secret clearance in the office because we were handling top secret information. And we worked with chemical, biological and nuclear agents. Today, you would call them weapons of mass destruction, and the ones that scares me the most are biological agents. We're not prepared, as a nation, prepared to handle germ warfare.

TI: So this was based on some of the... I mean, when you were in the Presidio, did you actually work with the chemicals or in these germs?

MH: Thank goodness, no. The labs are in Maryland and Utah and such.

TI: But you just had the information about what these things could do.

MH: In case of a nuclear attack, in case of a chemical attack, in case of a biological attack. In 1918, millions of people died because of the flu. And right now, when there's a little bird flu, and somebody dies of bird flu in Indonesia, we all get shook up. Well, there's a reason for that.

TI: Because how rapidly these things could, can spread and how devastating it could be. So, so you spent your time in the military, in the chemical division, and then after you're out, what do you do next?

MH: Well, I went to San Jose State for summer classes, and I met my old teacher, Mr. Bud Rowland. And I asked Bud for a job and he says, "You're hired," that was the extent of my interview. And I was sitting a few weeks later at a faculty meeting at Watsonville High School, and they, the teacher that introduced me introduced me by my nickname, 'cause he really didn't know my real name.

TI: And what nickname did he use?

MH: When I was in, in school?

TI: Yes.

MH: They never called me Mas, nobody called me Mas. They called me "Mousie." And Mousie came, actually, from Massie, Mas, Massie, and then people didn't hear it right, and because I was so small anyway, so they started calling me Mousie. So, but I, now that I'm older, I'm a big rat.

TI: [Laughs] Oh, that's good. And did you really want Watsonville High School? I mean, was this the...

MH: This is, this is the job that I really wanted. I coveted this one. I didn't want to teach anyplace else. And it took me forty years to get out of Watsonville High School. Thirty-six years of teaching, four years as a student.

TI: And so in those thirty-six years, what did you teach?

MH: U.S. History primarily. And they always, I used to get the foreign exchange students because, whether they come from Germany or Turkey or Brazil or China, wherever, they thought that it would be fun to assign U.S. History being taught by a Japanese American.