Densho Digital Archive - Mas Hashimoto Interview (denshovh-hmas-01-0005)

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TI: You mentioned your, your father died when you were three years old, so this would be about 1938?

MH: He died in August of 1938.

TI: '38, so tell me a little bit about that. What did he die of?

MH: He died of a heart attack. He was a chain smoker, and so he died in his sleep. And so when the funeral is held -- you know how they used to take pictures of the casket and the people who attended the funeral in front of the church? You've seen 'em? Well, since ours was next door, our picture was taken right in front of our house. And I don't remember too much about this, but my mother decides to take half of the ashes back to Japan in 1938. So, and my brother Mits, he was six years, old, I was three, we will tag along. And some people thought it was foolish expenditure of money, and it probably was. But there was something good that came out of it. We go to Japan, and my mother is treated badly by Japanese authorities and such because we have American passports, and I guess I didn't behave like other Japanese children and such. But what she saw in Japan was a militaristic Japan. Now, we visited my, my brother number two, Wataru, who was now in the Japanese army, but he was stationed in Korea. So we went to visit him, and since he, since he's been there since 1922 as a three-year-old, beginning as a three-year-old. He was not convinced that we were relatives, that this was his mother, that I was his brother. So we were kind of set apart from Wataru.