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TI: Terry, the way I start this is I just start with the date and the place. So today is December 2, 2010, and we are at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose. In the room we have Dana Hoshide on the camera, and we have Steve Fugita, who's the co-interviewer, and my name is Tom Ikeda, and I'm with Densho. And this interview is gonna be for both the Densho visual history collection as well as given to the Japanese American Museum of San Jose. So, Terry, I'm just going to start with a basic question. Can you tell me your name that was given to you at birth?

HT: Hiroshi.

TI: And is there any particular significance of the name Hiroshi?

HT: Well, I understand that the Japanese name has a meaning, supposed to be "wide knowledge." I thought that was kind of funny. That's my father, I don't know, I don't know if he had any religious connection at all, but he named me, so I don't know.

TI: Okay, so when I was introduced to you, I was introduced to you as "Terry." Where did the name Terry come from?

HT: The military. And it was given to me by General Van Fleet. He came to our company one day, and we were just kind of casually talking and I got to know him. And somebody came back and said, "Hey, Hiro." And the general looked at me and says, "Is your name Hiro or is it Hero?" I said, "That's my Japanese name." He says, "Well, we can't have two heroes in this war." He says, "I'm the only hero." That's what he told me. So he said, "We'll have to change your name to Terry." So I said, "Fine with me." So since then my name is Terry.

TI: Oh, that's a good story. And at that point, everyone started calling you Terry?

HT: Yeah, so the company, they told, announced that "Hiro is now Terry." And so everybody called me Terry. But they didn't change my paperwork, of course, they can't do that. But all the time everybody calls me Terry, I got used to it. I was getting kind of tired, everybody says, you know, when you in the ship or something, when you get off, they said, "Sound off your last name, sound off first name," and someone would say, "Terakawa Hiroshi." He said, "What?" So now it's easy, so Terry.

TI: And so you decided after the military service, to keep using Terry. Because you could have, at that point, switched back to Hiro.

HT: Well, I didn't ever use "Terry" before that time, so I said, "Hey, that's unique, it's short, so call me 'Terry.'"

TI: So for the purposes of this interview, would you rather that I call you Terry or Hiro?

HT: Oh, yes, use Terry.

TI: Okay, so I'll call you Terry.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.