Densho Digital Archive - Mika Hiuga Interview (denshovh-hmika-01-0001)

<Begin Segment 1>

AC: This is an interview with Mika Hiuga, a Nisei woman, eighty-one years old. This interview is taking place in Ontario, Oregon, on December 4, 2004. The interviewer is Alton W. Chung of the Oregon Nikkei Legacy Center's Oral History Program 2004. Thank you so very much for agreeing to go and speak with us today. So let's just start off with something, just very simple. Where were you born and when were you born?

MH: Okay. I was born in Hood River, Oregon, which is right near Portland. I went to, through high school there. Luckily, I was out of high school when evacuation came around, so I've lived here longer than I have been at home.

AC: So I guess where, do you have brothers and sisters?

MH: Oh, yes. My father was an orchardist. We had apples and pears and cherries. All together, we had a family of eight, five boys and three girls. But when my oldest sister was small and my older brother, the two, my parents took both of them to Japan. So my oldest sister, obasan, which is her auntie, said, "Leave this girl here because she'll just get in the way. And after you make your fortune, you can come back to Japan," which all the Isseis planned. Well, they left her there, and of course, you never raise a fortune. You had a lot of kids, so we were all born in Hood River. When she graduated from high school in Japan, Dad says, "Come and join the family," and she said, "No. I want to repay Auntie for taking care of me." So she stayed in Japan. Well, World War II came along, and so unfortunately, after about two years or three years after she was bombed in Nagoya, we got word that she and her children were bombed and killed. So I never knew her. I've seen her pictures. And so when Dad and I went to Japan in 1968, that's the first time I got to go Japan, we went to Auntie's home which is my dad's home, and her name was Masako. And so she, when they saw me, they said, "Oh, feel like Masako has come back." Well, I've had happy and sad events, both Dad's family and also Mom's family because Mom had already gone. So both places, they placed me as daughter or child. I had a good time, but it was, I still felt, you have different emotions.

AC: So your eldest brother also went to Japan?

MH: Yes, but they brought him back.

AC: Oh, he came back with them.

MH: And should I talk about him?

AC: Sure.

MH: Okay. My oldest brother was drafted. At that time, there was a draft. And so when Pearl Harbor came along, I had two brothers in the service already. Taro who was the oldest was in the MIS, and then my brother right above me was not but he talked the folks into volunteering, so I had two brothers in the service when Pearl Harbor hit. And I have a dear friend who was in the Military Intelligence Service, and they don't know how he was killed, whether he was shot by the Japanese or whether he was shot by the American, but he is buried to our family plot in Hood River, Frank Hachiya.

AC: So where was he and how was he involved in the war?

MH: He was in the Military Intelligence Service as like my brother, my oldest brother.

AC: But you don't know where he was stationed or --

MH: In those islands over there. And of course, we used to get letters from my brother in camp with little cuts all over his letter, but we were glad to have a letter. I don't know. He probably wasn't aware of what he was writing, but they had cuts all over, you know. But we were glad to hear from him.

AC: And this Frank Hachiya, he had no family?

MH: Yes. The parents had gone back to Japan. His mother was, it's a Buddhist sect. She had a church over there in Okayama, Okayama, and so they were in Japan. He has a brother, and he goes back and forth from Japan. So he's there with my brother and my family in Hood River.