Densho Digital Archive - Mas Hashimoto Interview (denshovh-hmas-01-0004)

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TI: And when, going back to your, your parents, tell me a little bit about your, your father. What was he like?

MH: He died before I was three years old, so I don't have any memories of him, only what people have told me. And people told me that, that he was a good man, and in reality, that's good enough for me. He was, I know he was a kind man, a gentle man. He didn't drink, although he made sake. We had a brewery; with our udon shop, we had a brewery. He, he grubstaked many families. When it was difficult to feed the family, they would come to our restaurant, and my father saw to it that they got fed. And people have been really nice, telling me stories about my father grubstaking the family so that they wouldn't go hungry.

TI: So you mentioned your father had a place that made food and also a, a sake brewery. Let's talk about that, that building a little bit. So this is the one on 110 Union Street?

MH: Union Street, right.

TI: So tell me about, again, when you moved here and the condition of the house when you first moved in and how it was modified.

MH: Well, the building originally -- well, I don't know about originally. But anyway, when we bought it, we bought it from the Japanese Association. There were four different associations. These associations were labor associations, they were like unions. And different communities had, you know, Kumamoto-ken, Kagoshima-ken, they would have their own associations. So we bought, my father bought the house, and then he raised it and put the first story underneath. We used, it was a rather large addition, so one room, rather large, was used as the banquet room. So when there were funerals or weddings and such, or birthdays, my father would cater the festivities. And so he would do sushi as well, and we had the sake brewery. My father didn't drink the sake, he tasted it but he didn't, he was not a drinker. One of the interesting stories, "Well, what about Prohibition?" Well, during the Prohibition years, my father was still making sake. But in Japantown, just a half a block away was the police station. Now, the Japanese community had a good relationship with the police chief, so we didn't get into trouble. But my father's making sake, and when federal authorities were to arrive, he would be warned by the police chief. And so they would hide the equipment. Now, where would they hide it? They hid it next door, upstairs. Well, what's next door and upstairs? It's the Buddhist altar. [Laughs] So they hid it in the hongo.

TI: Oh, that's a good story. [Laughs] So the FBI agents, or the federal agents, never went back there and, and found the still, essentially? That's a good story. So Prohibition, that's in the 1920s, early '30s, is this time period.

MH: And then I remember, we started the brewery -- we never really quit the brewery -- but I remember workers, Caucasian workers coming in, getting a shot of sake in a little glass, and it was five cents. And they would drink and go home or something.

TI: Do you ever have a sense in terms of the quality of the sake that he was able to brew? I'm curious, this, kind of this home brew versus the type of stuff we drink now. Do you have any sense?

MH: I have absolutely no idea.

TI: Now, was it traditionally, did people drink it warm or cold? Do you know how they drank it?

MH: Probably at room temperature, at least for the guys that came in. But I, I remember the sake bottles, so we must have, we must have warmed it up in a pan of hot water.

TI: Oh, those little, those little flask type things. You mentioned earlier how your, your dad got the house or bought the house from the Japanese Association, and then he converted it into sort of this place that had a banquet facility.

MH: Right.

TI: Was it, do you think it was purchased with the idea that was going to happen, and that's why the Japanese Association decided to sell to your father, because they knew he was a cook, and that was all part of the plan?

MH: The Japanese Association were disappearing. As the workers became sharecroppers and tenant farmers, there was no need for a workers association in the late 1930s. So they began to disappear, because families would be -- most of the workers association were bachelors.

TI: And so they were, essentially, divesting of their assets in some ways?

MH: Uh-huh.

TI: And so where did that money go as they would sell? Do you have any sense?

MH: I have no idea.

TI: Because your, your house was strategic. You mentioned it was next door to the Buddhist church, and so it was very convenient in terms of banquets and things related to the Buddhist church.

MH: Right, weddings.