<Begin Segment 7>

SG: Is there anything else about the war, right after the war that you would like to tell us about?

HU: Yeah. I was... when I was sixteen, the year 1941, I was, I received a letter from district office of city that I should appear to take a physical, and those days, a lot of my friends included too, volunteer for the youth military schools and that type of thing, and I suppose they desperately need soldiers, but they cannot draft underage people, so they probably direct the young mens for the different schools, the trainings and that type of thing, and I took a test and passed the physical. They asked me whether my mother, my parents were, approved of my joining the service. And I didn't really expected this because, young, but I start thinking, gee, what to answer this, you know. At that time, I knew I was American citizen, but I just stop, think, and quiet for a while, then I thinking all the situations how my mother feels, all the relatives. My brothers, the Japanese army, and can I refuse. That's the biggest fear, can I refuse. If I refuse, tell them I can't serve, I'm American citizen. Then how they feel, how they'll treat it, so I didn't answer that questions, and the city people said, "How come you don't answer all my questions?" Then I have to confide, you know. Finally, I'm American citizen, so that was it. They cannot draft me, draft American citizen. And then the day goes on. And about a few months later, my mother in hometown received from town hall that I was given Japanese citizenship. I wasn't asked for it, you know. So anyway, so they could technically draft me, I was dual citizenship, and they did. But fortunately because of the incident, being American citizen, war ended just a few days before my induction date. I didn't know exactly what they're going to do to me because I'm sixteen years old. They probably send me to youth training center and whatever, but I was saved by the bell. That was just a terrible things in my situations. My life is just so complicated, the half brothers and my brothers and all that type of things.

And I'm going back a little farther, when I decide to go to city of Osaka for further education for the technical schools. This school is really unique, just only one in Japan. This school required one year's more than any other high school and very high level high school, and the students come from all over Japan, not only just the city of Osaka and nearby towns. And I took a test, and I, passed the written test. And we have an interview, character testing, and five judges were there. Actually, all those were teachers, the interviewers, and one interviewer noticed my background, and he said, "Answer us why we have to accept you as an American citizen while we're denying Japanese citizen for entering school." And I, oh, gee, this is it. This is all, I just gave up. I couldn't even answer. But the one interviewer stood up. "He has excellent school record, and he passed exam, high grade. And he has just tremendous, the recommendation from principal and teachers from elementary school, and his parents are Japanese, and it wasn't Ueno's fault that he was born in the United States. He grew up just like a Japanese boy except first two years of his life." And the other examiners, they can't say much then. So I still remember the scene, the way she stood up for me, and we became a good friend for the next four years. And I still appreciative for his views, and I appreciate it then, and I still appreciate him now. He's long gone, but... so there is a, among the Japanese, against others in the stand up for the principle.

SG: There's some good people, huh?

HU: Yes, good people. So I kind of away from your question, but so, very, very exciting. And when I, after the technical high schools, Japanese industry was completely demolished under the occupation forces, and they even came to our factories. They examine the machines, blueprints, and all that things. Then we are asked to submit all the blueprints in a miniature version. Those days, you don't have, the machines to shrink and enlarge, all that type of thing. Oh, we spent just days and months to come up with drawn up miniature version of the copies. And then at that time, I felt, oh, Japanese industry was completely destroyed, no chance for recovery, and so I decided to attend the law school, and you know, I start, I'm going to law school. And when I was finishing the second year at law school, I regained my U.S. citizenship. I start processing this for much earlier, but I, they hung up with my record of working for the city hall for one year, age of fourteen, so it's delayed a little, but they determined that I was underage, age of fourteen, fifteen. So finally, they granted for citizenship. And when I was growing up, my hometown, we have to make every two years to the American consulate office in Kobe to keep registering or renewing our citizenship. The American citizens had to require that. But the war interrupted for four years, so we automatically lost our citizenship. So then I start processing and going back to the original point, I regained citizenship. Then that time, my brother was already working for GHQ, and he helped me out quite a bit. And so I was determined to come over to United States. In those days, just Japan was just a mess, just a mess and lost the war, the economy, the economical recovery is far distance away, so then I quit school and came over here. My brother helped me out, gave me five hundred dollars. His gracious five hundred dollars, those days, five hundred dollar is just huge money, so I financed that for coming over here and a few spending money for the, you know. But that's the beginning of life in the United States.

SG: And where did you come to when you came to the United States?

HU: I came straight to the Portland, go through the, Hawaii and San Francisco and came to Portland because my parents was Pendleton's, and they were a few friends, for the people in the hometown, people lived in the Portland. And my, I call him my uncle. He's the man who adopted my brother. He was living in Portland, so I came to him because he was living in a little apartment, but I came to Portland. Then my other struggle begin there. [Laughs] I got a job beans picking in the third day in Portland. I have to survive, so that was a tough job, and I just wondered, "Americans work this hard?" you know.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.