<Begin Segment 31>

KL: So you were telling me -- and you've talked some in this interview, but also before, we were looking at this picture book that your family made for your ninetieth birthday. And you were telling me about the four generations of your very multicultural family now, and I wondered if you'd just share with us a little bit for the recording about who's in your family what your family is like.

HF: I have three children, and my oldest son is married to a Chinese American. My daughter was married to a Caucasian, well, he passed away a couple years ago. And then my youngest son is the only one that married a Japanese. And then my granddaughter, my oldest granddaughter married a Chinese, and then she adopted two Chinese, a boy and a girl from China. And the oldest must be about eight or nine now. And then my second granddaughter, she looks more Japanese, well, she married a Japanese. And then my son's two children, his daughter is married to a Caucasian, and they live in Denver. And then my youngest granddaughter, it's my daughter's daughter, she married a Chinese fellow, Chinese American, and they live in Los Angeles. So my whole family is just mixed up. We have different nationalities, and we all get along, which is good.

KL: Yeah, that's a good thing, I think. Family can be a real strength.

HF: Right. Of course, we live far away, too, so we can't be bickering over the telephone. But we get along. It's been fun.

KL: How did you celebrate your ninetieth birthday?

HF: My children gave me a party at the Suncoast. They rented one of the banquet rooms and invited a few friends and family, and they came from California.

KL: I bet that brought back some memories, too, of other times in your life.

HF: Right, uh-huh.

KL: What do you want people who may watch this video a hundred years from now, what do you want them to know about your life and what you've witnessed?

HF: A hundred years from now? [Laughs]

KL: Uh-huh. Or maybe, let's say fifty years from now, or even next week. Some seventeen year old who doesn't know very much about Japanese American removal...

HF: Yeah, what happened during the war.

KL: Yeah. What do you want those people to know?

HF: I just want them to know that we were put in camp, and then we were interned. We were treated good, though, considering. And then the children went to school, they had opened up a school, and they went to grammar school and then high school, and some of them graduated high school. I know my brothers went to school in camp, because my brother, I think he was in, the one, George, he was in his last year of high school when he was put in camp. And my younger brother was younger, he was fifteen, so he had to go to school, too. And I think good teachers, because a lot of them were teachers from before the war, before they went into camp. And they kept it up, and I thought it was good. Well, the discrimination part, I think in camp we weren't discriminated, but then outside we were discriminated. And I'm glad to have people know about it, know that, what we went through.

<End Segment 31> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.