Densho Digital Archive - Ted Hachiya Interview (denshovh-hted

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MP: Tell me more about your father. And I want to get into the, we'll get into this, the high school fights and so on, but tell me more about your father and about his story, how he got to this country and your grandfather and so on.

TH: Well, as far as I know, Dad came to this country at the age of fourteen years old, I think. That's what he said. He came with his father who had signed up with the Union Pacific as a laborer on building the railroad in Eastern Oregon. And I guess he worked about four, three, four years, and then he went back to the old country with Dad for his promised bride. And he came back himself but not with his bride because there was, I think she was interned for quite a while, someplace in Seattle that took care of people that were migrating over here, and I think that she stayed in that place over six months. Usually inspection for tuberculosis, it was kind of prevalent with Japanese people, I think with Eskimos and Indians as well. But I know my father didn't, I think he was, he must have been twenty-two or twenty-three when he got married, but he was eight years older than Mom. Mom was sixteen. I know my mother's age because she's exactly seventeen years older than I am.

MP: How did they pick a bride for your dad?

TH: Well, the two families got together and more or less agreed that the son would accept the daughter. That's all I know about the picture brides. She wasn't really a picture bride. She was spoken for, and the families arranged everything, I guess, before he came here the first time, and I know he went back after her.

MP: Did he know her at all?

TH: Yes. They were born in a similar area. I think you would call it county, I guess. He lived in the next county next to her, but she went to same, basically same school. I think, she said started finishing school about twelve because she was ready to be married at sixteen. It was four years of finishing school. It's a little different than the regular high school. They taught them, oh, arts, you know, cooking, and keeping house and being a good wife, I guess, that's all.

MP: Did they teach that musical instrument?

TH: Yes. If you had a talent for music, they would have had their choice of picking a musical instrument; and of course, you learned how to cook. Grandma was a pretty good cook, and Grandpa was a good cook. But she learned everything about keeping house and raising children, I guess, oh, making clothes too. She sewed a lot.

MP: What kind of clothes did she make?

TH: Well, when she was in Japan, she made Japanese dresses, you know, with the long sleeve and stuff like that. But when she came to America, she went through some kind of a tailoring school and learned how to make dresses and suits, and I think a lot of Japanese women that come over here, they worked for Pendleton or Jantzen or White Stag. They were pretty good seamstresses. I think in the early ages of the women folks, they were taught, you know, sewing. It was very important.

MP: Did you say they were taught swimming?

TH: No, sewing.

MP: Sewing, sorry. You said your father's dad was working for the railroad?

TH: Yes.

MP: And your mother's dad was a pastry chef?

TH: Pantry chef, they called them. All they did, you take care of salads and making, you know, cakes and pies, and that was his duty, and he was working for the University Club.