Densho Digital Archive
Oregon Nikkei Endowment Collection
Title: Mika Hiuga Interview
Narrator: Mika Hiuga
Interviewer: Alton Chung
Location: Ontario, Oregon
Date: December 4, 2004
Densho ID: denshovh-hmika-01-0019

<Begin Segment 19>

AC: So tell me more about what do you, when you're asked to go and speak to people, what is the thing that you want to leave people with as far as --

MH: With my talk?

AC: Yeah.

MH: I just tell them about what happened and our experience in camp, and I describe what was in camp and different things. But it's just that I want them to know what happened so that it won't happen to anybody ever.

AC: What kind of reactions do you get from students?

MH: Well, it's, they don't say too much after I talk. They might have a question or two, but they don't say too much. I really don't know. But when I talked to one grade school class, we have a lot of Hispanics in class. And so after I finished my talk, the teacher would say, "What do you think, kids, if Joe and so and so was taken away from our, from this class?" You know, she kind of says that. And they said, no, you know. So they sort of react to my talk I would say. And it might be good for the little kids to know that. It's kind of hard to talk to little kids. You don't know how much they're absorbing. But I have talked to grade school kids. I've talked to civic organizations. I've talked to a lot of, at first, I was doing quite a bit. Lately, it's just maybe classes that come to the Four Rivers Cultural Center and they ask me, so I'm glad to do that.

AC: Well, looking back over all your entire experience of your entire lifetime now, what lessons have you learned about living in America?

MH: Say that again?

AC: All the things that you'd experienced in your entire lifetime, what conclusions or lessons have you come to about living here in America?

MH: Okay. I thought many, many times how thankful I am that Dad and Mom came to America and have us become American citizens because when I visited Japan and have gone there about three times now and it's good to meet the relatives and see how they're living, but it's such a crowded country and living in small homes and all this kind of thing. And I'm just so thankful that my parents came here, and we can become American citizens, live in this free country if you want to call it that. So I tried to do the best I can to not only take but give, and we're here to help our fellow people, and a lot of people won't, they don't volunteer for anything. They don't do anything, and I just think, no. I volunteer a lot. I do a lot of volunteering.

AC: And that's how you give back to the community?

MH: I tried to give back to the community, get to know the people. In fact, we're lucky in this small community. We all kind of know each other, and so I don't know if you heard of the Help Them to Hope, but it's gone on for years that we collect money, toys, and food and give to the people who are not quite so blessed as we are. And so there's good things going on in this community.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.