Densho Digital Archive - George H. Morishita Interview (denshovh-mgeorge

<Begin Segment 6>

KL: What was your name at birth?

GM: Hideyuki, H-I-D-E-Y-U-K-I. And I look back and I think, boy, Papa sure had big hopes. He took that name from... just before the first Tokugawa shogun, I think his name was Ieyasu, and he was still young. And there was this guy who was the head guy, was that Toyotomi Hideyoshi? Something like that. And because he didn't come from the right family, he could not become a shogun, but he's the one that went into Korea and tried to take Korea and all that. My father took the first part of his name, Hide, and the "yuki," I used to tell people, yuki is snow, but also yuki is to move forward, if you write the Chinese character. So I said, man, he had big hopes for me, poor guy. [Laughs] But there was a funny thing about that. In the '30s, I remember the second grade, I raised my hand because I told the teacher my name is Hideyuki. She kept me after school because she told me my name has to be "Hidey-yuki" because of the way it's spelled, honest to god. And years later, I was telling this friend of mine, well, this couple, my wife and I became friends. And the wife, my friend's wife was a schoolteacher, and she got all upset. She's Caucasian and she says, "George, that's terrible." Back then, those times were different. I said, look, during the Cold War time, you didn't see any Polish guy walking around saying, "I'm Polish." I said, I understand during the war, when I came out of camp, at L.A., I went to Central junior high for one semester before they closed it, that's downtown L.A. with the board of education...

KL: What's its name, Century?

GM: It was Central junior high. I think they closed that in '46. Anyway, I met Chinese guys for the first time. One time me and this Chinese kid became... and we would compare notes and we would laugh because I told him, gee, my mom told me one time when she find out I went to Chinatown with this friend of mine, she said, "Oh, no, the Chinese like to get Japanese boys and they cut their throat," and this and that. And this guy started laughing and said, "My mom told me the very same story about don't go down to Japanese town."

KL: That was in junior high school?

GM: Yeah. He said, "George, damn you, just because of you, any time I went downtown, Broadway, I had to put this badge on, 'I'm Chinese.'" And I said, "That's because you joined the wrong side, buddy." [Laughs] We were just junior high school kids. And that's when we were saying, darn it, we're so similar. But because of war that was going on with Japan and China, they became like we have been, real aggressive and this and that.

KL: Were your parents keeping track of news from Japan during the '30s?

GM: You know, I'm really not sure. If they did, they didn't share it with us.

KL: I was curious if you knew anything about their thinking about changes in Japan and increasing the military zone, just what was going on.

GM: Well, you know, my father was typical immigrant. I used to tell my friends, looking back, just like here, back in those days, most of the women stayed home and the guys would go out to work and things, went in the army or whatever, and they got a little bit more worldly, so to speak. And the older generation women in America, they were more [inaudible]. And I said, I have a feeling my dad had no thoughts in his mind that Japan had any chance. I mean, he didn't even think that. But my mom, I still remember, she was a barber, and most of her customer were Mexicans on the other side of the river. And I still remember more than once I heard my mom arguing with a customer, "No, Japan's going to win." "Japan couldn't win, no way Japan could win," this and that. I look back laughing, but my father never said a thing. I figured he knew better. Just like... well, you guys know this. When Commodore Perry opened the doors and all that, and they started to become Westernized, they sent the young future admirals to Annapolis, and then future generals to Germany. And I understand Yamamoto, the head of the Pearl Harbor attack, historically, he knew there was no way. But he had told the War Department, "The first six months, I just tear up the Pacific," that's all he said. Whereas the generals that were in Germany, they had no idea, and they were, I think the army was more accountable. That's my understanding, history-wise.