<Begin Segment 2>

SF: What year were you born?

GH: Myself?

SF: Yes.

GH: 1924.

SF: And how many sisters and brothers did you have?

GH: I have one sister and two brothers.

SF: When did your family move from Penryn, and where did they go?

GH: We moved here to San Jose in 1929, so been here most of our lives, yeah.

SF: Okay. Why did you choose San Jose, or why did your dad choose San Jose?

GH: What?

SF: Why did your dad choose to move to San Jose?

GH: Oh, I think my mother had a relative here, and so that's why we moved here. And we farmed with the relative for a couple of years, I think.

SF: What kind of crops did you work with, or did your dad work with?

GH: When we first came here, we, my folks raised strawberries, 'cause that's what the relative did.

SF: Okay, so when you moved to San Jose, how old were you then?

GH: Pardon?

SF: How old were you when you moved to San Jose?

GH: Five, I think.

SF: And so you started elementary school. What school did you go to?

GH: Franklin. Franklin-Mckinley.

SF: Okay.

GH: Yeah, that was on... I think it, I think it's on Tully Road.

SF: What do you remember about your elementary school days? Were they good years, bad years?

GH: Well, I was only, I was pretty young then, I don't remember too much about it, but it was okay, you know, it was a good... oh, one thing I remember about it, we lived on the west side of 101, or... what do they call that now? And to, from school, we walked to the corner of where Curtner and First street is, or Monterey Highway is, and we'd have to walk through the cemetery to get home. And if we played at school too long, it'd be almost dark by the time we walked through the cemetery. That was kind of spooky, yeah.

SF: When you went to high school, do you remember if most of your friends were other Japanese, or were they hakujins or whites?

GH: In where?

SF: In high school, when you started going.

GH: There were quite a few Japanese. At that time, we lived in the North First Street area, and there was a lot of Japanese farmers right there, so there were quite a few Japanese in that area, and also... it went to Santa Clara, so that, that would cover quite an area. There was only about five high schools in the whole valley at that time, you know.

SF: So in high school, were most of your friends Japanese?

GH: Yeah, I would say so.

SF: Like, would you think about dating a white girl in high school?

GH: I haven't, I didn't, but I imagine I thought about it, yeah.

SF: It would be okay; you could do it, huh?

GH: Yeah.

SF: What kind of activities did you participate in in high school?

GH: Basketball, track, wrestling...

SF: Were you interested in the academic side, or was it just kind of a, you were much more interested in sports?

GH: Yeah, it was kind of... yeah.

SF: Okay.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2004 Densho and The Japanese American Museum of San Jose. All Rights Reserved.