Densho Digital Archive
Japanese American Museum of San Jose Collection
Title: George Hanada Interview
Narrator: George Hanada
Interviewer: Stephen Fugita
Location: San Jose, California
Date: November 15, 2004
Densho ID: denshovh-hgeorge-01-0013

<Begin Segment 13>

SF: Did you belong to many organizations in the years after the war? Like, I understand that you're very active in the Buddhist Church. Were you active in other organizations?

GH: Yeah. Active in the Veterans Association, and then --

SF: That was the Nihonjin chapter, or Japanese chapter?

GH: Yeah. It's the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and it's primarily Japanese. We had a few hakujins in there. That was fifty, fifty-some-odd, fifty-two years ago that they started this, this Post 9970 is the number of that post. And then I was also active in the merchants association.

SF: That's the Japantown Merchants Association?

GH: Uh-huh, yeah. [Pauses] Can't think of any others.

[Interruption]

SF: So did any of those involvements help out with the business? That is, you knew people from these associations, and they came to like you and then would do business in the garage with you, or the service center?

GH: Maybe. I don't know, because I think that, well, I know most of the people, like the merchants association, I knew most of the people even when I was active in it, before I became too involved in it.

SF: So did you join a lot of these organizations because you felt sort of obligated, you wanted to give back, or it was just interesting? Why do you think you joined?

GH: Yeah, I think that, you know, you can't just live in a community and do nothing; you gotta do something. This fellow, Jim Yamaichi, stayed real active in the Buddhist Church, and he kind of corralled me into that one. I didn't go in it with the religious aspirations, I just went in to help him out and then I, I guess I kind of liked it and I stuck around, and I've been there quite a while.

SF: Do you find that being in Japanese American organizations somehow is more comfortable or easier or more fun than, say, with white organizations?

GH: I don't know. I haven't given, I hadn't given it that much thought, you know. You mean like Lions or...

SF: Yeah, say instead of belonging to a Nisei VFW, you could have belonged to a white VFW. Would that be as, as attractive?

GH: Well, a lot of the organizers, when we first started to join all these different groups, wouldn't accept, right off, they wouldn't accept the Asians or Japanese.

SF: So you were forced to form your own groups a lot of times, huh?

GH: Pardon?

SF: So you were forced to form your own groups a lot of the times in the early years.

GH: Yeah, yeah. We had this one guy, hakujin guy that really went to bat for us to get us into the Veterans, because they really wasn't going to accept all the Nisei, but this one guy named Flemings, he really went to bat for us, and really helped us out to organize ours, and all the other Nisei posts, 'cause I think there's ten or eleven.

SF: Why do you think he was so helpful to the Japanese?

GH: I don't know, but he was a real nice guy.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2004 Densho and The Japanese American Museum of San Jose. All Rights Reserved.