<Begin Segment 8>

BH: And what about you? Where did you finish high school?

HI: I graduated from Washington after just going one year, my senior year, which was not very enjoyable because I didn't know anybody. But there were a few Japanese people. I knew Reiko Miura before, so I was glad she was there. After graduation, she and I decided to go to college in Forest Grove, go to Pacific University, and we roomed together and had a good time.

BH: How did you get to Washington High School every day? That was quite a ways from Montavilla.

HI: Right. I took the streetcar, the streetcar came to the end of the Eighty-eighth and Yam hill, and we lived on 108th and Market. So my dad had to take me every morning to the end of the streetcar. And sometimes I'd walk home, or I could contact him and make arrangements. We didn't have cell phones, so we said, well, "I'll be home at such and such a time," and he'd be there waiting or I'd have to wait for him.

BH: How was the transition back to a big public school after having been in high school in camp?

HI: It was very different. I don't think we were welcomed that well, because I didn't make hardly any friends after that.

BH: Were there people, students that you knew from grade school who also went to Washington?

HI: There were a few, but they wouldn't talk to me so I didn't talk to them.

BH: How did you feel about the whole experience of the FBI coming and taking your family's stuff, and losing stuff, going to camp, coming back, you were not as welcomed. How did that affect you?

HI: (...) I thought it was unfair, and why did they have to do that? Because we're not a people that would cause a lot of trouble. So I just was amazed that they would do that. And my uncle was one of the first picked up by the FBI on December 7th. In fact, the Legacy Center had a postcard with his picture with the FBI. He had a suitcase and the FBI was taking him off someplace, and that was my uncle.

BH: And what was his name?

HI: Sadaji Shiogi. He ended up in Montana someplace, Missoula (perhaps).

BH: In an FBI detention center?

HI: (Yes). And, of course, the family was left behind, so they had to go to camp. It took them quite a while to be reunited.

BH: During our pre-interview, you mentioned that you felt different after your experiences, and that prompted you to take classes at Washington High School that you may not ordinarily have taken.

HI: Oh, I was very shy, and I couldn't speak up in front of people, and also I forced myself to take public speaking. And, of course, you have to get a speech ready and talk in front of the class. I was very fearful, but I forced myself to do it.

BH: You were very brave to do that.

HI: I can't remember what I got in the class.

BH: Did it help you gain some confidence?

HI: A little bit.

BH: And overcome some of those feelings?

HI: (Yes), it did.

BH: If I remember correctly, you used the word "inferior," that you felt inferior?

HI: Sometimes.

BH: And do you think that was because of what happened during the war?

HI: (Yes), I think (so). And then we didn't have the income like the American families. So it was a little hard to have the clothes that you want in high school like others.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.