Densho Digital Archive - Fumi Hayashi Interview (denshovh-hfumi-01-0008)

<Begin Segment 8>

RP: How about high school? What was that like for you?

FH: I was there only two years. It was fun. More fun... it was good, good era. Met a lot of new people. Did a lot of different things that I guess you never thought that you'd be doing, but had to make decisions, like what class do you have to take and what were you gonna become and what you thought you wanted to become. But...

RP: Did you have any thoughts about that?

FH: No, I don't... I thought of being a nurse at one time, and then I thought, "No, I don't want to be messin' around with dirty stuff." You know how you think the negative things of things, and I thought, "Oh, maybe I should be a secretary," and so I took bookkeeping. I took shorthand, whatever there is to do. I think we all went to, I think I went to school to be involved in something. And maybe that's why I'm still working, 'cause I want to be involved. I don't know. I liked school. To this day I think I still dream of, dream about school, trying to get my locker open and get it, get my books and get to my next class, and where was my class? But, no, I really liked school.

RP: Were you involved in any clubs or sports?

FH: You couldn't 'cause you had to go to Japanese school.

RP: Oh, that's right.

FH: Everything involved was after school, and we had to go to Japanese school, so we couldn't. Some did. I guess there were some that didn't go to Japanese school. I don't know. But I knew I had to go to Japanese school, so we couldn't get involved.

RP: Did your, did your parents have ideas of what they wanted you to do?

FH: Go to Japan.

RP: That was the only thing.

FH: I think yeah. I think their thought was go to Japan, probably marry a Japanese citizen over there. But then, now, I don't know if you read the newspaper or you've heard anyone talk about it, but according to Horse Yoshinaga that writes in the Rafu Shimpo?

RP: Oh, George.

FH: You've heard "Horse's Mouth"?

RP: Yeah, "Horse's Mouth."

FH: Yeah, he always says when he went back he was treated like second grade citizen because he was not a Japanese, he was American-born, so maybe I would've been treated that way, but after a while things start melting away and those things are not in the picture any longer.

RP: Did you have any awareness of what was going on in the world beyond your life? Japan invading China and that?

FH: Oh, you hear about it, but you don't take it seriously. I mean, at least I didn't. I know my mother had a brother that was going to China, and she had long hair. Long black hair, and they all wore it in a bum, bun rather, and she cut it all off because they said that makes a wonderful vest and the bullets will pass that slick hair. They make vests with that, so she cut it and sent her hair all the way back to Japan so her brother could have, have that hair and a vest made. So I heard that, but how much hair can, one person's hair make a vest to save that person? But I don't know. I mean, the thought, good thought was there.

RP: Did your parents send money back to Japan, too, to family?

FH: I'm sure they did. I'm sure they did.

RP: 'Cause some folks also sent aluminum foil and other things --

FH: Oh, I remember that. We used to walk down the street, pick up cigarette papers and take the foil off the paper, and we'd bring it home, made balls they used... I don't know where we sent it. I know we did it. I just know we did it. We'd walk home from Japanese school at times and we'd pick, see a cigarette box, pull the lining out and pull that foil. I mean, it's a teaching that your parents teach you, I guess. I don't know if you have any goal in your mind what it's gonna do, but you're doing what they said do it. You know, you do it.

RP: Obedience.

FH: Well, it used to be that kind of a world at one time, I think. Now they tell you to fight for what you think is right and what you think. But in those days, parents told you to do it, you did it.