TRANSCRIPT

Fumi (Sato) Hattori Oral History

Description: Fumi (Sato) Hattori looks back on her childhood, her family, and the role of the Japanese Language School on the Japanese community in Tacoma, Washington. Hattori notes how central the Japanese Language School was to culture, community, and social life, and how the school was unique to the time and place. Hattori connects this history with the stories of her parents, her siblings, her children, and her grandchildren.
Date: January 27, 2005
Interviewer: Hanneman, Mary L. (Mary Louise); Hoffman, Lisa M. (Lisa Mae)

Fumi (Sato) Hattori Oral History

Lisa:And this is an interview with Mrs. Fumi Sato Hattori, a Nisei woman, aged 83, who lives in Torrance, California, and today’s date is January 27th, 2005. We are at the Japanese-American National Museum in Los Angeles. My name is Lisa--

Hattori:Uh, yeah.

Lisa:Okay, great. Well, I’ll just begin again. Thank you for joining us, and this is an interview with Mrs. Fumi Sato Hattori, a Nisei woman, aged 83, who lives in Torrance, California, and today is January 27th, 2005. We are at the Japanese-American National Museum in Los Angeles, and I am Lisa Hoffman from the University of Washington Tacoma.

Mary:And I’m Mary Hanneman, also from UW, Tacoma. And we were going to start out by having you give us some real basic family background—when and where you were born and tell us a little bit maybe about your siblings.

Hattori:I was born in Tacoma, Washington on December 9th, 1921. I had four, uh, three brothers. One next to me is a year and a half younger, then the one next to him was two years younger, and then five years later I had a third brother. I, uh, the brother next to me lived in Yonkers, New York. He passed away—Alzheimer’s. He had it for about twenty years. Had a wife who was a saint. She geared his activities down as he became less able to cope. And, anyway, she passed away before he did. My next brother lives up in Tacoma. He’s the brains of the family, very, uh, independent. He studied to be an architect, then he decided his fifth year they were just trying to sell him their brand of architecture, so he wasn’t having any. So he didn’t finish his, uh, architect’s degree, but he worked for Boeing as a facilities engineer, you know, buildings and stuff like that. Then my youngest brother lives in Honolulu. He’s uh, my mother said he went into the Air Force so he could play golf. (laughs) A few years ago he was the Senior Hawaiian Open champion.

Lisa:Really?

Hattori:Yeah, a few years ago. Now he’s in his 70s, getting too old. He has arthritis and whatever, but my brothers are all fine and their children are fine. My, uh, brother in Yonkers married a girl from Hawaii, and they had three children. The children are living, but their parents are gone. My son in Florida married a Chinese girl, and they have two children: a boy and a girl. My daughter married a Japanese fellow and had two children, but they were divorced after about…maybe about seven years, I think. And, uh, but she’s been married now for twenty years to a Finnish guy. He’s from New Hampshire. His mother was Finnish, and, anyway, he’s a nice fellow. He has two children. So, just recently my daughter and her husband took all their, both their children—my grandson, uh, my daughter’s son is married to a girl from Taiwan, and we’re very, you know, multiracial. My, uh, and Gordon’s older son is married, so they took the uh, let’s see, three, six children on a cruise to Mexico over Martin Luther King holiday weekend. My oldest grandson is an attorney. He lives in Los Angeles, works in one of those big, tall buildings downtown.

Lisa:Great.

Hattori:Works sixty-hour weeks. (laughs)

Mary:We’re not far from where he is, then.

Hattori:No. He’s in—I forgot which building it is, but it’s one of the big, tall ones.

Lisa:What are your brother’s names?

Hattori:Uh, my, the oldest one is was Hidamaru. He lived in Yonkers. And the next one is Masahiro, and the youngest one is Toshiatsu. My father felt that if he gave the boys substantial names, if they ever became great, you could use the Chinese pronunciation, and it would be very effective. (laughs) My name is just plain Fumi. I’m a girl.

Mary:It’s not Fumiko?

Hattori:No.

Mary:It’s just Fumi,

Hattori:Just Fumi.

Mary:Uh-huh.

Hattori:I’m the first-born. I must have been a disappointment, but he was, he came over here as a student, you know in 1905. He was going to college in Japan, but he came from a, uh, what shall we say…not well-to-do family. So they ran out of money, so he came over here as a student to go to school here, but he found out that it cost money to go to school here, too. So, he went to work.

Mary:How old would he have been then?

Hattori:When he came? Uh, he was, according to the information I got today, he about 25 when he came. He was born in 1882, I think.

Lisa:Do you know where he came from in Japan?

Hattori:He came from Ehime-ken, which is in Shikoku, which is the southern island.

Mary:And what, uh… I’m sorry I just forgot my question.

Lisa:How about your mother? When did she come to Tacoma?

Hattori:She came in—my father came in 1905, and then in 1920 he went back to Japan, I guess through a coworker. He, uh, this coworker had a friend or relative or somebody who had an eligible daughter, and so he went to Japan, and he married her. She was 19, and they came for the second time in 1920.

Mary:I was going to ask where he came to.

Hattori:To Seattle.

Mary:He came to Seattle.

Hattori:(nodding) Mm-hmm.

Mary:So, he was thinking maybe of the University of Washington, or…

Hattori:I don’t know, but he was hoping to go to university here, but he couldn’t afford it. So, he went to work in a sawmill, and that’s where he worked his whole career. He was what they call a “planer.” I guess they…you know.

Mary:So, during your childhood, that’s what his occupation was.

Hattori:Uh-huh. (nodding)

Lisa:Do you remember which company he worked for?

Hattori:He worked for the St. Paul in Tacoma Lumber Company, down in the tide flats, they called it. And they used to have many, they used to have housing for their Japanese employees, houses numbered from 1 to 14 or something. And my brother remembered that we lived in number 11 at one time, and number 14 at another time. And across, between our house and, oh some distance away there was a boarding house for Japanese workers at the mill, and my mother used to cook there. And my father was a very reserved man. He never told us anything about his background. All I’ve learned is from his sister, who lived in New Orleans. And she communicated with her children. So, her children can tell more about my father’s family than my father did, ‘cause my father died when I was sixteen. He was coming home from work; he was hit by a car. He was a very healthy person. He used to walk to work and walk home. It was about two miles, but he worked a second shift, and I guess somebody…careless driver just hit him, and that’s when Mr. Semba, (sp?) the man—I thought it was Mr. Semba in the picture—he was an insurance man, and he investigated the man who hit him. Of course, in those days we didn’t sue anybody, you know, but he investigated, and found that this fellow didn’t have any money or anything, so he couldn’t do anything.

Lisa:Did your father’s sister also come through Tacoma at all? Did he, did she see him?

Hattori:I don’t know anything about her. She’s his youngest sister, and, uh, she had three sons, and two of them are gone now, and the youngest one is still living. He’s in the Senior Olympics. (laughs)

Lisa:Really?

Hattori:He’s two years older than I am. He says it’s easy now because he’s the only one in his class. (laughs)

Lisa:But he’s still doing it—

Hattori:He’s still doing it. He throws those, you know, whatever they call those things…uh…

Lisa:The shot put?

Hattori:Shot put. Things like that, yeah. And I think…and he’s about my height.

Lisa:He must be very strong.

Hattori:Must be, he’s been very athletic all his life, I guess. But, you know, uh, living so far—they’ve lived in New Orleans ever since the evacuation. They went to (unintelligible), and then they went to New Orleans. And here we’re a continent apart, you know, so I’ve only seen him a few times, but we’ve gone down there several times.

Mary:It sounds like your family lived in the lumber company housing—

Hattori:Yeah, out in the tide flats.

Mary:But then later moved.

Hattori:Yes, we, um… I guess my mother was probably more entrepreneurial than my father, and she saw a chance to lease a hotel, a small hotel downtown. And so, she ran the hotel, and my father worked in the sawmill. And that was really a life-saver, because there were four of us, and my father got killed, so she supported us until my brother went to college. I didn’t get to go because I’m a girl. You know, in those days boys, it was more important that boys went to college. So, when I think of it now, I’m just amazed at how my mother did it. You know, four kids, sending them all through school, Sunday school, Japanese school, and she paid for all that. I don’t know how. It was just a small hotel, I think 39 rooms or something.

Lisa:And you were the oldest at sixteen, so your youngest brother…

Hattori:About eight.

Lisa:Eight.

Hattori:Yeah.

Mary:Well, she probably had a lot of help from you, then.

Hattori:Yeah, I used to…well, you know, when I think of it, we were not too much in the community, because my mother was working, and I was helping her. And so, uh, we…everything that went on in the community my mother heard from others, you know. So I think we were sort of, uh, not kept from, but we just weren’t involved in too many outside activities.

Lisa:Do you remember the name of the hotel, or where it was?

Hattori:It was called the… Oh, now I can’t even remember. What was that hotel called? It was on 17th and Market, I think. It isn’t there anymore. But I’m sorry that I didn’t ask more questions when I was younger, but you just never think, you know, your parents are there, and you just never think about it.

Lisa:There’s one—the Superior…

Hattori:Superior Hotel.

Lisa:Is that it?

Hattori:That’s it.

Lisa:Yeah, it’s on the map.

Hattori:Yeah, it’s…

Mary:So it was right near the Methodist Church.

Hattori:Yeah, uh-huh. It’s not very far from there. It’s closer to the Buddhist Church. Oh, wait a minute…

Mary:Kind of right between them

Hattori:Yeah, mm-hmm. The Buddhist Church was just a block away from the Methodist Church.

Lisa:And you also…you went to the Methodist Church, is that right?

Hattori:(nodding) Mm-hmm. When we lived down in St. Paul Avenue, which is in the tide flats, uh, there was a Caucasian couple that came down there, sort of missionary think, I guess, to try to, you know, uh, make sure that we became good Christians and all, and they used to come down and, uh, so that’s how we started going to church. And then we…they had the Japanese church in town, so we went to that.

Mary:How old were you when you started to go to the Japanese Language School, then?

Hattori:You know, I don’t really remember. I know I was a little, we were—my girlfriend and I—were a little bit older than the other kids in the class because we didn’t start probably, you know, when the rest of them did. But, uh, we went for a number of years. We were not the best students. (laughs) I turned out for basketball in high school, and I belonged to the Triple S and some other things. We were always late. And my girlfriend says, “Don’t you remember teacher always used to make us stand at the door when we came in?” And until she acknowledged our presence we couldn’t sit down. (laughs)

Lisa:Is that right?

Hattori:Mm-hmm.

Lisa:Who was your teacher? Do you remember?

Hattori:I think it was, at that time…I only remember one, no two teachers. I can’t remember whether it was Mrs. Hata or Mrs. Asada. One of them. She always wore the same dress all season. (all laugh) Isn’t that awful? You remember things like that.

Mary:It’s the funny things you remember.

Lisa:What did the dress look like?

Hattori:It was brown and simple. It was belted. Just the sort of a shirtwaist type dress, but she wore it every day. We went to Japanese school every day, and she wore that same dress all, I remember, all winter she wore the same dress.

Lisa:And you said you were involved in Triple S? What was Triple S?

Hattori:That was a, uh, high school…I guess it was some sort of, like, you had to…I don’t know, I can’t even remember that, but…

Mary:Did you go to Stadium?

Hattori:(nodding) Mm-hmm, yeah.

Mary:You went to Central…

Hattori:Central, and then McCarver, and Stadium.

Mary:So what year would you have graduated?

Hattori:I graduated in 1939. That’s why we went to our… We had our sixty-fifth reunion last year that I couldn’t go to.

Mary:Uh-huh.

Lisa:Did you speak Japanese at home with your mother, or…

Hattori:Yes. And so, I’m not much for English as a second language, because when we went to school—we spoke Japanese at home—But when we went to school we had to speak English. Nobody had special classes, anything. We just had to…just make do with what we could, you know… Of course, there was a few children older than us, maybe a couple years older, so they spoke English. So, we spoke, uh, I’m sure we spoke English by the time we went to school.

Mary:So, you don’t remember going to the public school, and kind of getting thrown in, and not knowing English?

Hattori:No, I never had that experience. I think, I think we spoke quite a bit of English by the time we got there, because the, you know, the older kids spoke English. There weren’t too many. And then on the street where we lived there was uh, the Sundquists. I can’t remember whether they were Swedish or Norwegian. I think they were Swedish. And then there were a couple of Japanese families, and then the Molstroms. I don’t know, they sound sort of Scandinavian, too, don’t they? And then the Paynes. And the rest were all Japanese. So, I think we must have picked up English along the way.

Mary:Did your parents speak English?

Hattori:My father had studied English in high school. In fact, one of my teachers in elementary school was very impressed by the fact that he was the only one who sent excuses to school, written by him. Most of the kids, you know, they wrote it and the parents signed it, but my father wrote his own. And so, that sort of impressed me that she was impressed with the fact that he could speak—he didn’t speak English, well, I don’t know if he did or not. He never spoke to us in English.

Lisa:Did your parents get involved at all in school activities? Were they part of the PTA and things like that?

Hattori:Uh,…I don’t know if we had a PTA in elementary school. Well, I guess…I really don’t know. No, my mother didn’t…she didn’t speak English at all. I remember she went to a cooking class at the Baptist—Japanese Baptist Church, and they learned how to make graham crackers with marshmallows on top, things like that.

Lisa:And was that conducted in Japanese or English?

Hattori:It must be English. I think her name was Ms. Caruthers. She was at the Baptist Church, and I don’t think she spoke Japanese, but the students were all Japanese.

Mary:But the idea was to teach them some American cooking?

Hattori:(nodding) Mm-hmm, cooking. That’s right.

Mary:Uh-huh, but did you eat anything but Japanese food in your home, or…

Hattori:We ate oatmeal. (all laugh) I remember we used to cook it in the double boiler, and I’d have to wash it. Oh, I used to hate to wash it, because, you know, it’s sort of slimy. But, uh, we ate mixed…tuna fish sandwich, stuff like that, but mostly Japanese. I remember one teacher asking at one time what we had for dinner the previous night. I guess it had something to do with nutrition or something. I was sort of embarrassed to tell her that I’d had rice and, you know, I’d make up some of it, because I know we had spinach, but we didn’t have spinach the way the American kids had it. We had spinach with sesame seeds on it or something, you know. But, uh, and we had little, uh, oh, what do you call those…umeboshi. It’s uh…

Mary:Pickled plum?

Hattori:(nodding) Pickled plum. That kind of stuff. And, uh, you know, it’s hard to explain to your teacher that that’s the kind of stuff you had. And I remember, uh, Mr. Semba being very impressed by the fact that I was making spaghetti. (laughs) Anyway, he was out in the world more than we were, and so, uh, he knew these things that we sort of got by osmosis.

Lisa:Could you tell us a little bit about your playmates when you were little? You also lived near the Sundquists. Did they have children? Did you play in each other’s homes?

Hattori:Yes, they had, uh, Lillian was older than us, and Ivy was a little bit older than me, but she used to play with one of the Japanese girls, Chio, who lived a couple of doors down from me. So we… And the Molstroms, they were mostly boys, but they had one girl, and Paynes—Ruth was a redheaded girl. I remember we always used to play, the whole block.

(2000):(20:00) Uh, we were poor, but we didn’t know it. We got along fine, you know, with everybody on the block, and we lived in the tide flats, which was sort of not too upper class, but we didn’t know that. We got along fine.

Lisa:So this was when you were down, living in the St. Paul company housing.

Hattori:Mm-hmm.

Lisa:And then when you moved to the hotel, who were your neighbors at that point? Do you remember?

Hattori:Uh, let’s see. My girlfriend, whom I still see, lived not too far away. We had church friends, you know, so a group of us used to go to Japanese school together, so we socialized with them. And the whole of St. Paul Avenue sort of, we sort of kept an eye on each other. Our activities sort of meshed. We had a happy childhood, really.

Mary:How many – about how many Japanese kids in your classes at public school? Any idea?

Hattori:Public school? Oh, there must have been four or five, maybe.

Mary:And you would walk to school and back with them?

Hattori:Mm-hmm. Yeah, when…elementary school, don’t know, I can’t really remember how we got there. I remember when we went to high school we took a streetcar. But then we’d go to Japanese school afterwards, and I knew my girlfriend who lived in town, she and I would walk to her house, and her mother would have baked yams on those stoves, you know, and we would have that and then go out to Japanese school.

Mary:So that was your snack.

Hattori:That was our snack.

Mary:Uh-huh.

Lisa:Is this the girlfriend that you’re still in touch with?

Hattori:Uh-huh.

Lisa:And who…

Hattori:Her name is Yone Nakako. She went to Japanese school, too, but she lives in Seattle. And so, we had a good time. We used to sing Danny Boy on the way home from high school. (laughs) Anyway, uh, so I think we had a pretty happy childhood. We didn’t feel particularly—we didn’t really associate too much with Caucasian kids. It just so happened that most of the Japanese lived on one end of town. When we went to high school, we went to Stadium, which is in this end of town. They sent the boys to Lincoln High School for more work-related kind of things, drafting and that kind of stuff. They sent the boys over there, and the girls went over here. Except a few, like I think Ryo went to Stadium. And there were a couple of other boys, but most of them went to Lincoln.

Lisa:How about your brothers? Did they go to Lincoln?

Hattori:My brother went to Lincoln, uh-huh. And my younger brother…I don’t really remember where he went. I guess he must have gone to Lincoln, but he was, uh, let’s see…I think he was still in school when we went to camp.

Lisa:Okay. So, it was common even within one family to have some of the children in Stadium and some in Lincoln.

Hattori:(nodding) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mary:Do you remember your friends as having been mostly from church, or mostly from the neighborhood, or mostly from school, or from language school, or kind of a mix?

Hattori:Mostly church.

Mary:Uh-huh.

Hattori:We went to church every Sunday, and we went to…we had, uh, youth activities in the evening, and church was the center of our social life, really. And the Bap-, uh the Methodist Church had a sort of connection with the Caucasian church, and they’d invite us over every once in a while, and they’d come over every once in a while. So, the Buddhists didn’t have that, but we had that, and so I knew one of our junior high school teachers, Ms. Warren, I remember invited us over to her house. I’d never been to an American house before, and I was duly impressed with her furniture and whatever, not so different from ours, but, you know. So, that’s how Americans lived.

Lisa:And so she had invited the youth group from Church, or who had she…?

Hattori:Yes, uh-huh, and let’s see…It was um, or was it high school, but there were other Japanese there, too. She invited some Japanese kids. She was friendly to the Japanese. We had, uh, several people who helped, who taught Sunday school at our church.

There was a Ms. Whitney, who was probably a little bit before I started going. The church is named after her, it’s called the Whitney Memorial United Methodist Church.

Mary:It’s after her, and not her husband then?

Hattori:After her. No, it’s after her. I never knew she had a husband. And then one of my elementary school teachers, Ms. Williams, used to teach Sunday school, too, at our school. She always used to make us “think in English.” (laughs)

Mary:Oh, really? She insisted on that?

Hattori:Oh, I was, I was her favorite. And my brothers came after me. They says, “They’re always talking about you!” But Ms. Williams was from Peoria, and she had reddish hair and wore a green knit suit. (laughs) I don’t know why I remember those things.

Mary:That’s because kids kind of remember what they wore.

Lisa:So, what were some of the youth activities, then, that you did? Would you go out on outings together, have dances and things like that?

Hattori:We didn’t have dances. Um, dances came later. And I know that they had uh, the, there was a group of Japanese out in the country, on the farms, and they used to have dances in Fife, which is right outside of Tacoma. And some of the girls used to go there, but, uh, I didn’t go. I used to be cross-eyed. And after I finished high school, I went to Japan and had my eyes operated on. So, I had a very different kind of life, I guess. I just never went out with boys until I finished high school.

Lisa:How did you end up going to Japan? Did your parents—

Hattori:Oh, the minister of our church had a brother who had a hospital in Tokyo, and he was an eye specialist, and that’s where I went. So, I stayed in Japan about eight months.

Mary:Did you go by yourself?

Hattori:Well, you know the Yamasakis from the church? Their older daughter was on the same ship, so we didn’t go together exactly, but we knew each other.

Mary:Where did you stay, then, when you…?

Hattori:Oh, I stayed with a family who had moved to Japan from Tacoma, the Ishios, and, uh, they lived in Tokyo, and I stayed with them. Mm-hmm, and I still keep in touch with…the daughter lives in New Jersey; the son lives in Tokyo.

Lisa:And so you were able to use your Japanese language skills.

Hattori:Such as it was. I enjoyed, uh…I don’t remember too much about Japanese school, except I enjoyed calligraphy. Not that I was any good at it, but it was fun. And we read, and I learned a little bit of history. And Mr. Yamasaki lived in the top floor of the school building. And I remember the top floor had a big, empty room, and they’d have the awards ceremonies, graduation, and all that. And I think once I got something, but I don’t remember what it was. But I remember that we had to learn the, uh, Japan’s national anthem, and you know, you have to learn to bow and…for years, in fact, I think maybe even to this day, if I met somebody who was older than I am—of course there aren’t too many of those—but I would bow just from habit. That’s one thing I learned.

Mary:Is that from school, or did your family insist on that, too, or…?

Hattori:Probably both. I don’t remember—Oh, I have to tell you: Once, the church group, on New Year’s Eve, went someplace, and I must have been a teenager, and so I got to go. But after…or was it…the Japanese have a custom of eating uh, something at midnight, New Year’s Eve. And then, uh, the assumption was that I would go home afterwards, but no, some kids said, “Oh, let’s go…” you know, wherever it was that we went. Anyway, my mother got worried, so she called—because I didn’t get home, and I didn’t tell her that I was going to be late—and so she called several people, and eventually I came home. The next day I had to go apologize to everybody that she had called. On New Year’s Day I went around apologizing…

Mary:Bowing.

Hattori:Bowing. And that really impressed me, because, you know, I had brought shame, really. So, that was something that I learned.

Lisa:Do you think that your mother’s expectation for your behavior, do you think she had the same expectations of your brothers? Were they…and how did they differ if they did?

Hattori:My brothers, uh, my father was a very quiet man, and so our house was usually quiet. And my, I have, the two brothers that were only two years apart, they always hung around together, and then five years later came the young one, and they were always sort of by themselves. They used to make model airplanes and do all kinds of things, just the two of them. And so, some of my friends didn’t even know I had brothers. They just knew I had a little brother, you know. He was eight and a half years younger than I am. He had to tag along with me. But my two middle brothers, well, they were in…let’s see…what did they do? I guess they had friends, but I didn’t pay much attention. I didn’t have any sisters, so I went around with my friend Yone. And I didn’t have much of a social life, anyway, but we did things together.

Mary:You said earlier that you felt like your family was kind of out of the social world.

Hattori:Yeah, we were because it was just my mother and the kids, and so we used to help at the hotel, although most of the people at the hotel were steady people. They were there for a long time. They were retired, or, you know, older people.

Mary:Were they mostly Japanese?

Hattori:No, no Japanese. Mostly Caucasians. It was, uh…They were real good to us. In fact, when we went to camp we needed boots, and I remember writing to this man who lived at the hotel, if he would send me a pair of boots. And so he bought them for me.

Lisa:Is that right?

Hattori: (nodding) Mm-hmm. He was really nice. They lived in the hotel for years.

Lisa:Could you tell us a little more about what you remember about the Japanese Language School and some of your teachers, and some of the lessons, perhaps, that the teachers taught you?

Hattori:We had books that we had to learn to read, and then she’d tell us a little bit about the history, which I found interesting at the time, but I wish I could remember some of it. And we used to have to sweep after. We used to have to clean the rooms, and as I recall, there was a garden outside, too, on the hillside. And I really don’t remember too much about much else, because I just went to Japanese school and came home. We walked home the two miles, you know, back to St. Paul.

Lisa:After Japanese school.

Hattori:Mm-hmm.

Lisa:You’d walk back.

Hattori:Mm-hmm.

Mary:That was a hike!

Hattori:Yeah, so when it was foggy, my father would come down and meet us, you know, along the way. Because there’s a…from the time we’d cross the 15th Street Bridge there’s a long space of…I don’t know what they had there, but there was nothing there. It was just dark, and so he’d come and meet us.

Lisa:Incredible.

Hattori:Well, we, uh, we didn’t think much of it. There were several of us, you know, my brothers and a couple of neighbors.

Lisa:And then…I’m sorry if you told me… How old were you when you moved to Market and 17th?

Hattori:Let’s see…my father died in 1937, I think, and it was a couple of years before that. I must have been…I was born in ’21…I must have been in my teens, fourteen or so. Thirteen, fourteen, something like that.

Lisa:That was much closer to the school.

Hattori:Yeah, it was closer to the junior high school. It was farther to the high school. We used to take the streetcar.

Mary:And you did… It sounds like you were pretty involved in high school, and did a lot of activities, and stuff…

Hattori:Yeah. I belonged to the honor society, and, uh…what else? Some other clubs. International club. I don’t know that I did anything, but I was there. And I enjoyed school.

Mary:It sounds like you put maybe more effort into your high school schoolwork than Japanese language school schoolwork.

Hattori:I’m sure I did. In Japanese school, the students that did well had Japanese-speaking parents who spoke to them and then helped them with their homework and, you know, things like that, so they progressed faster than those of us who were latecomers and really didn’t get many help at home.

Lisa:Do you remember if you were, or if you could tell us about the decision to go to the Japanese Language School? Was it something that you talked about with your parents?

Hattori:No. We just went. They told us to go, so we went.

Mary:Did it bother your mother that you were getting involved in after school activities at Stadium?

Hattori:Uh, not really. You know, she didn’t really have too much time to spend thinking about what we were doing at school. And so, I guess we were really dull. We never did anything we shouldn’t do.

Mary:Except to go out after—on New Year’s Eve.

Hattori:(laughing) Yeah.

Lisa:But you remember.

Hattori:I remember that. I remember that.

Lisa:How did you feel about going to the Japanese Language School?

Male:Male: I need to change tapes.

Lisa:Okay.

So, if you could just tell us how you felt about going to Japanese language school.

Hattori:I didn’t have any strong feeling one way or the other; we just went. Because everybody else went, we went. And when I think of it now, I think my mother wasted all that money sending me to Japanese school.

Lisa:So, you remember that you had to pay tuition.

Hattori:Oh, yes. So, I don’t know how she did it, but I have to give her credit. I do now, but at the time…it was just something that everybody did.

Lisa:So, if you think about the institutions that took up a lot of your time in Tacoma, so you have the public schools, and you have the Methodist Church, and you have the Japanese Language School. Is there one that you feel has impacted you more? Can you talk a little bit about the…when you think about your…?

Hattori:I think my social life really centered at the church, and I think everything we did, we did at the church.

Mary:Did your mother attend the church as well?

Hattori:My mother? Yes. She was the last Issei at the church. All the rest of them had died.

Lisa:What role, then, do you think the churches—the Methodist church, the Buddhist church and the Baptist church—what role did they play in the community, the larger community?

Hattori:Well, I think the Buddhist church had many activities. It was a larger church, and they used to have movies there. We used to go to that, and they would have all these observances, you know. And in Tacoma, if somebody at the Buddhist Church died, everybody at the Methodist church went to the funeral, you know, and vice versa. It was, uh, it was just something you did. Even our Methodist minister went to the Buddhist funerals, and so it was a community thing. Churches were very active. They…I think the kids who went to the Buddhist Church, you know, their social life centered around their church. And we had… But we were a little bit more, uh, connected to the Caucasian churches, so we had that sort of an advantage.

Mary:It sounds like that interaction—that kind of free (unintelligible) interaction between the Methodist and the Buddhist Churches—it sounds like that maybe wasn’t the case in other communities.

Hattori:Could be. We were close, you know. We’re here, and the next block, there’s the Buddhist Church. And so, uh, of course we saw the kids at school, but now that I think of it, I didn’t know many of the younger Buddhist kids, for instance, you know. If they were in my class I’d know them, but otherwise I probably wouldn’t know them, because our activities just didn’t involve them.

Lisa:So what role, thinking other than the churches, and thinking of the Japanese Language School, what role do you think it played in the community?

Hattori:The Japanese Language School? (pause) It must have played a big part because almost everybody went. And, uh, whether one realizes it or not, we learned things that probably impacted our lives, like you should be proud to be Japanese. I’ve always been proud to be Japanese; I don’t know why, but I’ve never been, uh, I’ve never felt inferior to anybody because I’m Japanese. Because I’ve always thought that, well, the Japanese have a pretty big, you know, long history, and they’ve done a lot of amazing things. They’ve also done some terrible things, too, I guess, but we were taught to be proud to be Japanese. And I think, even now, I think that our generation had quite a place in history because we were there when the war broke out. We went to camp. We led a different life afterwards; we made new friends. I have friends that, uh, in Hawaii that I met when I went to work in Chicago, and, you know, that was let’s see, nineteen forty something. And I still keep in touch with them. So it’s, it broadened our horizons quite a bit.

Lisa:So you associate, then, that pride with things that you learned in the language school, you think?

Hattori:I think so. I think so. It’s, uh…I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think so. Because I know my mother never said anything about, you know, being proud of yours-. You know, but nowadays parents are supposed to teach all these things at home. (shaking her head) My mother never did, because she never sat us down and talked to us about what we should do or what we shouldn’t do. It was just assumed that, when the time came, my brother would go to college and I would do something else, and I’d get married in due time and all that. It was just, it was an assumption, and we just never questioned our parents. We never, uh…I don’t remember ever arguing with my mother or my father. We just never did.

Mary:But you knew what the standards were somehow.

Hattori:Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. That’s right.

Lisa:Some of the other former students of the language school talked about the impact of Mr. and Mrs. Yamasaki in particular. Do you also have—are there any specific memories--?

Hattori:No, because I think they taught the upper grades, or people who were there longer, or who did better than I did. And so, uh, I know Tetsu, the older daughter—we went to Japan together—I knew her better than I knew her parents. Her parents were, uh, they were there, but I just didn’t see that much of them. I remember the teachers, uh, a couple of them. One lived down the block from us, and the other one, uh, I don’t know exactly where she lived. But anyway, I only remember two teachers. So I don’t think I went to Japanese school long enough to… But I was, uh, I think a lot of our behavior just comes from being there, because cert-, standards were expected, you know. You just behaved a certain way. I don’t know whether it’s Japanese following, you know, the rules. I think a lot of that…we do follow rules. We obey the laws, you know, and things like that. It’s just accepted that you do. And, uh, you know, if you did anything out of the ordinary, everybody knew about it. (laughs)

Lisa:We have heard some stories of that…

Hattori:Yes.

Lisa:…how quickly things would spread.

Hattori:Yes, yes. Now, you know, it’s…to be an individual is sort of a badge of honor. You should do what you think, but Japanese people weren’t brought up that way. You were brought up to…to think of what effect it would have on your family, and that was important, I guess.

Mary:What year was it that you went to Japan?

Hattori:1940

Mary: So, things were not going well between the United States and Japan then.

Hattori:No. In fact, uh… People find it hard to believe that I went there in September of 1940, and in the spring of 1941 I got a letter from the embassy in Japan, telling me to go home. They sent a letter to everybody who had come to Japan recently, saying that unless you have a very pressing need to be there, go home because things don’t look very good.

Lisa:Interesting.

Hattori:Yeah. So, when—

Mary:You mean you got it from the American Embassy?

Hattori:From the American Embassy. And, uh, I wish I’d kept that letter, because they said, you know, that was early…well, I don’t know whether it was January, February, or whatever, but I couldn’t get passage until…I came home in June on the next to the last ship. Because, you just couldn’t get, you know, a space on the earlier ships because everybody was heading home.

Mary:But how ironic that they would send you a letter as an American, “go home.” And you got there, and they sent you as a Japanese to the camp.

Hattori:Camp, yeah. So, my feelings about President Roosevelt are sort of mixed, because he knew that war was coming. They told us to come home because, you know. And yet, to be so, uh, lackadaisical at Pearl Harbor and all that, they weren’t being quite honest. I think, you know, they said “stabbed in the back.” Well, I don’t know about that, because it’s, uh…they knew, you know, they told us to come home.

Mary:Interesting.

Hattori:Yeah.

Lisa:So, you took a ship. When did you arrive back in the United States?

Hattori:June of ’41.

Lisa:June of ’41.

Hattori:I came back on the next to the last ship that came back. I think one came to Hawaii and went back again. Well, I was two ships before that.

Lisa:And did you, then, go back to Tacoma?

Hattori:Mm-hmm.

Lisa:Okay.

Hattori:Yeah.

Mary:When you were in Japan, you were an American, right?

Hattori:Mm-hmm. (nodding)

Mary:And yet you spoke Japanese, and…

Hattori:Mm-hmm. Well, I could speak enough Japanese to get by, you know. And then when you’re there you can speak better than when you…I can’t speak it at all anymore. It’s a shame, but I know my daught-, my youngest brother’s wife is from Japan. And so, when we talk on the phone, I’m so embarrassed because I can’t speak it the way I used to. But it’s, uh, it was an experience.

Mary:Do you have any memories of how you were treated when you were in Japan?

Hattori:Yes, I used to teach English to the nurses in the hospital. They were very anxious to learn English. And, uh, in Japanese hospital at that time, you had to have your own attendant. They didn’t have nurse’s aides to what-you-call. So, she did everything for you that needed doing. And I didn’t need anything; I was, you know, I could walk and talk and take a shower and everything, so I used to send her to the store to buy me oranges and stuff like that. (laughs) But, they were…yeah, I used to teach them English. But, that was…I hadn’t thought about that in a long time.

Mary:Well, so your mother wasn’t concerned about sending you to Japan—

Hattori:No, I stayed with Ishios, and they were family friends.

Lisa:They were friends from Tacoma.

Hattori:Mm-hmm.

Lisa:Okay. So, when you returned in June, then what did you do?

Hattori:Uh, let’s see…I worked for the JACL for a while, you know. I can’t remember what I did, but I worked for them a while. And, uh, then the war broke out.

Lisa:And what are your memories of hearing about Pearl Harbor and…?

Hattori:Well, I, it was a Sunday morning, and I remember a friend of mine, who’s married to my Seattle friend now. He died, but anyway, he used to work for a photographer, and so I called him to say all the military men are supposed to report to camp, you know, so he went back to camp. It was sort of an unsettling period. As I said, we weren’t in the community so much, but I remember one family. They said the father had been laid off from work in December something, right after the war broke out. They fired him. And he had…that was the first family that I heard of that was in need. The Japanese community needed to help him, because he, you know, he had lost his job. And until then, I had never heard of a Japanese family being in need. You know, they…they had to have help. We never went to the, you know, welfare or anything like that. So… But that family seems to be doing all right now.

Mary:But the community kind of—

Hattori:Yeah, Mm-hmm.

Mary:--got together and helped them.

Hattori:Yeah. And in due time other people lost their jobs, too, but not immediately, you know.

Mary:But that was kind of the first…time that you saw…

Hattori:Yeah, Mm-hmm.

Lisa:And the people that were staying in the hotel, were they? How did they react after..?

Hattori:They were fine. They had always been there, and we were there. There was no feeling of indifference at all.

Lisa:Do you have any memories of experiencing discrimination and racism during your childhood in Tacoma?

Hattori:Not really, because most of our acquaintances were Japanese. I remember there was one black family, just one, uh, that we knew, and nobody thought anything about that. Tacoma in those days used to be primarily a Scandinavian, German, Italian; and there was really no discrimination as such. In fact, when we were evacuated, the First Methodist Church arranged for somebody from their church to come to live in our parsonage, which was right next to the church, to keep an eye on the church, where the church people had left a lot of their belongings in the basement.

Lisa:How interesting.

Hattori:Mm-hmm. And so, we had somebody living in our church.

Lisa:Did your mother just leave the business, then?

Hattori:She sold it to a couple of ladies, yeah, uh-huh, for a few hundred dollars.

Mary:Wow.

Hattori:Yeah. I remember we had just bought a new refrigerator, and I can’t remember how much she paid for it, but anyway, it was new, and I think she sold it for like $25 or something like that, you know. But, you know we were very honest. They told us, “You can only take what you can carry in a suitcase. That wasn’t much, except your clothes. But, uh, I don’t know how the Issei felt about it. I mean, some felt very strongly that it was wrong, you know, and they were very, uh, resentful. But, uh…well, let’s see…at that time I was nineteen or twenty, and so I didn’t really think that much about, you know, citizenship rights and things like that. The old Japanese custom of accepting what’s, you know, you just do what you’re told to do.

Lisa:Did your younger brothers ask you questions? Do you remember talking with them at all, or your mother, as you…about the order and had to register—

Hattori:No, not really, except when we got into camp and the recruiter, the army recruiters came by, and my brother volunteered to join the army. My mother had a fit! That was the first time I remember she…she says, “Here they put you in camp, and you want to go in the army?” she says, you know. She thought that was terrible, but anyway he didn’t pass, because he had a heart murmur or something. But they drafted him six months later.

Mary:Oh! Is that right?

Hattori:Yup.

Mary:Wow!

Hattori:They didn’t take him when he volunteered, but they took him as in the draft.

Mary:Would he have gone—I know you probably can’t easily answer this, but your mother was adamant—

Hattori:Adamant, yeah.

Mary:Would he have gone if he’d been accepted, do you think?

Hattori:I think so. My brother felt quite, uh… He was quiet, but he had his principles. He’s the first person I ever knew who subscribed to PBS. You know. Yeah. You know, lots of people watch PBS and never pay, never. He’s the first person that subscribed to them. He was an artist, and they lived in Yonkers, and the Yonkers Museum asked him to, uh, make something that was in front of the museum for quite a long time. And they got written up in the papers—his wife was an artist, too—and they were written up in the papers. So, my brother, in spite of all his quietness—he didn’t talk much—he had, you know, certain things that he believed in. It was, uh… I wish I’d talked to him more, too. His broth-, my middle brother lives up in Tacoma now, and we were talking the other day, and I said, “You know, I got… The next time I go up to Washington I’m going to spend a few days with you. We’ve got a lot of things to talk about.” He remembers things that I don’t remember, like what was across the street from our house down on St. Paul Avenue. I remember the piles of lumber and that’s about all. But he remembers other things, you know.

Lisa:What are your memories of camp? And you went to…uh…

Hattori:I went to Pinedale, and then went to Tule Lake, mm-hmm. But I stayed in camp about a year altogether. I went to Pinedale, and it was sandy. The sand used to blow in through the windows, and they had a, uh, bathroom that everybody went to, and mess halls and all that. But, uhm, when they started to leave for Chicago and other places, you had to have a job before you could leave. Well, my girlfriend had a job. She got a job. I can’t remember where she worked. But anyway, I didn’t have a job, but I had gone to secretarial school in Tacoma, so I was qualified. I could work, you know. So, they let me go even though I didn’t have a job. And so, I was in camp for altogether about a year.

Mary:Then you went to Chicago?

Hattori:I went to Chicago.

Lisa:Alone, then.

Hattori:Well, the two of us, Hanna and I went. We went to Reno, and then we took the train. You know, her boyfriend from Tacoma—he was a soldier—was in Missouri. Joplin, Missouri. We decided that we would go and visit him on the way to Chicago. Camp said we were supposed to be in Chicago. Chicago says, “They aren’t here.” (laughs)

Lisa:Oh dear!

Hattori:I think we were in Joplin four days or something. We can’t remember how we got there, but anyway we got there and eventually ended up in Chicago. I had a lot more nerve then than I do... (laughs) I mean, considering that I had never been out of Washington before, you know. Oh, no. I had gone to Salem, Oregon once, but we went by car. But anyway, went to work in Chicago, and that’s where I met true Caucasians who had never known any Japanese before. I worked for the Civil Service Commission, and one of the people… I sat here, and Emmy sat behind me, and we got to be friendly. They were really good to us.

Mary:Was it different than being around Caucasians from Tacoma who—

Hattori:Yeah, I guess so, because I saw more of them, you know, because we worked together. It was so funny, though. We were early in Chicago, so when you got the el station, you look around and see if any Japanese are around, you know. And you wouldn’t see any. And if you did see one, you know, it’s a big day. You saw a Japanese!

Mary:Would you go talk to them?

Hattori:No, I’m still Japanese. You don’t talk to strangers! (all laugh) Anyway, it was an interesting time. Things were rationed. It was interesting, though, because, you know butter was rationed, for instance, but the grocery store where we shopped, close to the apartment where we lived, used to save us butter. They were good to us, because, you know, at the end of the day you go and there isn’t anything. You had to eat brains or, you know, things that we had never eaten before. But, uh, they found out that we paid our bills, and we, you know. They found out that Japanese worked hard, too, so we had no difficulty getting a job. I had several jobs. I worked for the Stevens Hotel in the banquet department. Well, people weren’t having many banquets then, so there I sit with this beautiful office and nothing to do. I finally got tired, so I quit and went to work for a wholesale liquor company. That was interesting. It was run by a Jewish company, and so you learn Jewish people are a little different again. A group of Japanese girls worked under me in the billing department, and a Jewish, young Jewish guy was the manager of the office, and he figured, well, he could just keep giving them work because they did it, you know. So finally, they started to complain. They said, you know, “We can only do so much.” And so, they came to me and told me that. So, one Friday, all of us went into his office—the manager’s office—told him off. Told him, you know, you’re abusing all these girls and so forth, and I was in tears by the time I finished telling him everything I thought. And so, I figured, well, I can’t go back there anymore. I’ve told off the boss. So, I, uh…anyway, I didn’t go back to work the following Monday. I went to Idaho to see my folks. But it was the one and only time I ever told a boss off.

Mary:Did you go back to work?

Hattori:No, I didn’t go back to that. They were surprised. The other Japanese girls did go back, and I didn’t. I figured, well, I couldn’t go back after I told the boss how I felt about him.

Mary:Did you… You did return to Chicago though?

Hattori:Oh, yeah. I still lived in Chicago. We took a trip to Idaho to see my mother and stepfather, and came back and I got another job.

Mary:And so how long were you in Chicago altogether?

Hattori:Let’s see…about…I think about three or four years, something like that.

Mary:Did you meet your husband there?

Hattori:Mm-hmm. We were married there.

Mary:But, was he from California?

Hattori:(nodding) Mm-hmm. He’s from California. He grew up in Brawley, which is in the desert. My girlfriend, the one that I went to Chicago with, she married the soldier friend—

Mary:Oh good!

Hattori:– and so, I was invited to dinner at their house one night, so I went. And lo and behold, my husband and his sister came to visit, too. And they stayed, and they stayed, and Hanna and George didn’t have enough food to feed five people, you know. And so, we went out to dinner. My husband paid the bill. That is very characteristic of him. He always picked up the bill. I don’t know why. You’d think he had money or something. (laughs) But anyway, that’s how I met my husband.

Lisa:So, when were you married? What year?

Hattori:Nineteen forty, uh, six. I think it was six.

Lisa:Do you remember the years, then, that you were in Chicago?

Hattori:Well, was it in 1946, or forty… Let’s see…45, 46. I was there from forty…probably from around ’42.

Mary:Had your husband been in Chicago, or you met him in Missouri?

Hattori:I…No, I didn’t meet him. He was in—overseas. He had… He was in the army for five years.

Mary:Had he been drafted, or…?

Hattori:Yeah, he was in the first draft, so he was in the army for five years. But he never got into the 442nd or the MIS or anybody, you know, and so when they put up all these monuments to these people, I resent it, because I figure my husband was there before them, and he was there after they’d gone. But he was always with Caucasian groups. He volunteered once for the 442nd, but they said he didn’t speak enough Japanese, (laughing) so he didn’t get accepted. But anyway, so he was, uh, he was a veteran, but the unrecognized one.

Lisa:So where did your mother go, and your brothers, after camp?

Hattori:My mother went to Idaho. My stepfather was a chef at a country club in Boise.

Lisa:Where did your mother meet your stepfather?

Hattori:In camp.

Lisa:Oh, in camp.

Hattori:Mm-hmm. Yeah, camp. And, uh, they were married in camp, and at that time my brother—one was going to the Illinois Institute of Technology, so he was in Illinois, and Hida was in the army, and I was in Chicago. So there was just my youngest brother. So he lived at the – so he got to be a golfer because they were on the golf course.

Lisa:Oh, nice.

Hattori:Yep, he was the Idaho state something or other in high school. He was a good golfer.

Lisa:That’s the one in Hawaii.

Hattori:Mm-hmm, yeah.

Mary:So your mother, they never returned to Tacoma?

Hattori:Yeah, they did. They, after, uh… I don’t know why they left Idaho, but they decided that they were going back to Tacoma. And they bought another hotel, well, my mother bought a hotel. And the Ryo Munekata’s family used to have that hotel.

Lisa:Oh, they bought that one.

Hattori:Mm-hmm, they bought that one. And so, my husband and I, well, we lived in San Diego for a while, but uh… Oh, I know. My mother and stepfather wanted to go to Japan, and so they asked if we would come up there. And so, we went and ran the hotel for a while when they went to Japan.

Lisa:And when was that?

Hattori:Let’s see…my daughter was, uh let’s see, she was an infant when we were in San Diego. She was born in 1948, so she must have been about two or so when we went to Tacoma.

Lisa:And how was it returning to Tacoma? What was the interaction like with other people there after the war?

Hattori:We were working, as usual, so I didn’t really get out much, but I didn’t really get in touch with anybody, although I had a girlfriend who stayed in Tacoma. She kept in touch with a few of her high school friends. But we went to, I went to a reunion, oh, several years ago, and I didn’t know a soul, except my girlfriend and two of them from Seattle. But it was interesting.

Mary:What reunion was it?

Hattori:Uh, let’s see. This last year was 65th. It must have been about the 63rd or something, the reunion I went to. I missed a year, and then I didn’t go last year. They have a reunion every year.

Lisa:Every year?

Hattori:And they just get together for lunch. Mm-hmm, and, uh, a lot of the Tacoma people have stayed there, you know, and have been pillars of society and all that, and it’s very interesting. They get sick just like everybody else, too, though.

Lisa:So there weren’t, just returning to that community, did you feel that there were… What were the relations like between Caucasians and—different groups of Caucasians—and the Japanese—

Hattori:Well, I think the high school group were (sic) very aware of what had gone on, and they were anxious to show us the new Tacoma. You know, Tacoma’s changed a lot. And they have a museum there down where used to be restaurants and stuff, and they wanted to show us around, and we went to our old high school. We had quite a high school, you know. We had the, uh, football field which overlooked the Sound, and this natural amphitheater. It was really nice. Now they’re fixing it up, too. Our high school was built to resemble some castle in France or something. Beautiful.

Lisa:It’s an incredible building.

Hattori:Mm-hmm, yeah. Anyway, so they’re, uh… They wanted us to see the high school and… So, these people have always—have lived in Tacoma all their lives, and they want us to share, uh, you know, what they know about Tacoma. So, I’m looking forward to going, maybe this year, maybe… Next year, the new Stadium High School is supposed to be ready, so maybe I’ll go next year. I don’t know.

Lisa:I don’t know if you’ve heard—I think you have—that the University of Washington has purchased the land that the building, uh, where the Japanese Language School was, and the building doesn’t, has now been torn down…

Hattori:(nods)

Lisa:…Is not there, and we just wanted to ask if you had any particular feelings about that, and about the building being gone.

Hattori:Not really. I’ve, uh, never…I’ve never really even thought about Japanese School, because I left Tacoma, and I, you know, I just didn’t think of it. It was… Some people were very close to the Japanese School. Their parents were very active in it and all that, but, uh, my mother wasn’t. When my father was living, he was very good at calligraphy, so they used to have him write, you know, hangings and things like that.

Lisa:At the school, they would have him—

Hattori:At the school, mm-hmm, yeah. I wish I had some of those things. When we sold the hotel—my father was very, uh, artistic, and he, you know, during the Depression one winter he didn’t have a job, so he used to spend all his time painting. And I remember we had a book of knowledge. That’s an old encyclopedia kind of thing, and there’s a picture in there of a horse, and my father painted that picture. It must have been about this big. (3 feet across) I wish I’d had that, because it looked just like the picture in the book. But we don’t have the book; we don’t have the picture. I don’t know what… We couldn’t take it with us. We left it at the hotel. I don’t know if the hotel people ever appreciated it, you know.

Hattori : I’m…that’s the one thing I miss about—that I wish I had, because he was a very, uh, I think he was very talented. And my brother—well, in fact, two of my brothers, the two in the middle—they’re both artistic. The older one studied art, and he went to this school, the Art Institute in Chicago, and he married an artist, and he worked in art in New York. But, you know, we were so far apart. And, in fact, I was so far apart from my mother, too. She always lived up in Washington. We tried to get her to come down and live with us. She says no. She doesn’t like California. She wants to live where her friends are.

Mary:What about the fact that the church congregation has moved out of the church?

Hattori:Yes, it’s a very small church now, meeting with the Puyallup Methodist Church, and I know my friends in Seattle go there every once in a while, but Yone, my friend, lives in Seattle proper, and she has to go to Bellevue to pick up her other friend and then take her to Puyallup and then come back and take her back to Bellevue. So, she puts in a hundred miles…

Lisa:Oh, yeah.

Hattori:But, I guess they’re still meeting. They have a retired minister there, and they have several very faithful church members that, uh, you know. The Japanese are, uh, you know, they’re marrying out of the race. In fact, most of them—I think half of them marry non-Japanese. My friend in Bellevue, all her four girls are married to Caucasians. But they’re all doing well.

Lisa:What kind of advice would you give to young people today, and about these kinds of issues or being Japanese and their identity?

Hattori:I think it’s important for us to, uh, teach by example, probably – more than anything else, that there are certain standards that we like to think Japanese people aspire to. Maybe some of them don’t observe it anymore, but I think we like to think that we’re honest, and we’re responsible, and we’re (pause) diligent. We work hard. And, uh, I know other ethnic groups have that, too, but, you know. Like my Chinese grandson—my half-Chinese grandson—he’s very interested in Japanese things, too. His other grandmother was from Hong Kong, but she didn’t speak Jap-, she didn’t speak English. And so, my daughter-in-law speaks Chinese, but her children don’t speak Chinese, and they live in a Caucasian area near golf clubs and stuff, you know. So, it’s uh… I think they have sort of a yearning to learn about Chinese and Japanese history. My grandson who is sixteen is really interested. I remember sending him a book once. I saw a book here that I’m going to send him, uh, about being Japanese. Because my son is not particularly…he was never particularly interested and neither was my daughter, but her daughter is interested.

Lisa:…skipped a generation.

Hattori:Mm-hmm. And she has a boyfriend who’s Filipino and Japanese and some other things. (laughs)

Lisa:Are there particular things about your childhood, growing up in Tacoma that you’ve told your children or grandchildren?

Hattori:Not really. And just the other day, my daughter and I were coming home from lunch, and I started…something started me talking about my childhood. She says, “You know, you should write all that down.” And I think I should, because there isn’t going to be another generation that went through what we went through, you know.

But I wish I knew more about my mother and my father, but, uh…it’s…

Mary:But now you can do that for your kids so they can say that—

Hattori:Yeah, Mm-hmm. I—

Lisa:And we’ll also send you a copy of this—

Hattori:Well, I ramble on, but I think the next generation is really interested in their history. And their mixed-up history, too. Yeah.

Lisa:Are there other things that we haven’t touched on today that you want to make sure to share?

Hattori:Hmm, let’s see… When I was looking for the material, I thought of things, but it doesn’t come to you when you want it to. Uh, yeah, I think the Japanese School really reinforced things that our parents tried to teach us by example, rather than by telling us things. And I remember Mr. Yamasaki used to, uh, well as I said, he emphasized--

Tacoma, I understand, had a pretty good reputation. It was supposed to be quite a good school, and I think partly because, uh, you know, at Japanese School we weren’t Buddhist or Methodists or anything. We were just studying Japanese. And I think that…well, like my grandchildren haven’t had anything like that, you know. They’re all American (or all-American [?])

Hattori:But they look different. And so, it’s good for them to realize that they have, uh, history. The Chinese were here before the Japanese, way before the Japanese. They have a different history. I think their history was worse than ours. I mean, being treated—they were treated worse than we were. Camp was, uh…unfortunate, but in some ways it was good. You know, we met people from all over, and you realize that Washingtonians are different from Californians.

Lisa:How are they different?

Hattori:Uh, Californians were, uh…we were not as discriminated against as they were in California, you know. People who farmed near railroad tracks were accused of being ready to blow up the tracks or something, you know. People didn’t treat us that way in Washington. And we came here, and we found out that Californians really are a little different. And I think I was lucky to grow up in Washington.

Mary:So, you learned about the differences from hearing stories, or from actually experiencing the differences from Washington to California—

Hattori:Oh, from just experience. You meet people, and they have a different way of looking at things, you know. We never think in terms of discrimination. Although, when I finished high school—in those days you could take post-graduate—you could go to high school after you graduated, and I went and took some business courses, because I had taken an academic course before, and when I realized when I wasn’t going to go to college I took business courses. But anyway, it never occurred to me to apply to Weyerhaeuser Company to get a job. I just…just nobody did, you know. But then I think now you do. You have people in all fields. But it wasn’t because of discrimination; it was partly hesitation on my part. You know, we just weren’t used to being that aggressive and going to a big company and applying for a job, even though I knew I could do it. It was uh… But then that’s a generation thing.

Lisa:Well, breaking those boundaries can be a very difficult thing to do.

Hattori:Mm-hmm, yeah. That’s true. I’ve been retired for over twenty years now, and I wonder what on earth have I been doing all these years. (laughs) I went to college. I finally got my degree.

Lisa:Oh, fantastic!

Mary:What did you get your degree?

Hattori:When? I graduated in ’89.

Lisa:Oh, congratulations!

Mary:What was your degree in?

Hattori:Human Services, which is, it’s uh, you know, psychology and sociology and how to deal with people, and all that stuff. I volunteered at the senior day care center for about ten years. But, uh, it’s a good experience.

Mary:What did you retire from?

Hattori:I retired from the school board. I used to work for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Lisa:Oh, wow!

Hattori:I worked for one of the board members. She was—

Mary:As an assistant?

Hattori:Uh, I was, uh, her secretary. Well, I guess, what do they call them now? I don’t—

Mary:Administrative—

Hattori:Assistant. Yeah, that’s what I… when I left, I was the administrative assistant. But that was an interesting place to live, but I decided there was a world out there. I wanted to do something different. I wanted a college degree. That’s what I wanted.

Mary:Where did you get, go to school then?

Hattori:I went to Cal State Dominguez Hills, because that’s the closest. Mm-hmm. It’s only about five miles from home.

Mary:We teach… At the school we teach at, at UW-Tacoma, there are a lot of older students returning for some reason. They’re the best—

Hattori:Mm-hmm, yeah. It was funny because my political science teacher wasn’t even born (laughs) when we were talking about the Roosevelt years, you know. He wasn’t even born! (laughs) Anyway, but it was fun. I enjoyed it. Because, you know, you have nothing but time, the kids were gone, and I had time. So, you could do your studies, you know. Anyways, it was worthwhile.

Mary:Well, and think of how… Well I look at it this way: Think about how worthwhile it was for the other people in the class who got to share your knowledge and experience—

Hattori:Well, yeah. One of my professors said that. She says, you know, it was helpful to her, because I’m way older than her. (laughs)

Lisa:Great.

Hattori:Anyway…

Lisa:Well, thank you. We want to thank you very much for taking the time to come today—

Hattori:It’s quite all right.

Lisa:I think, uh, you’ll—

Lisa They were friends from Tacoma.:They were friends from Tacoma.

Hattori Mm-hmm.:Mm-hmm.

Lisa Okay. So, when you returned in June, then what did you do?:Okay. So, when you returned in June, then what did you do?

Hattori Uh, let’s see…I worked for the JACL for a while, you know. I can’t remember what I did, but I worked for them a while. And, uh, then the war broke out.:Uh, let’s see…I worked for the JACL for a while, you know. I can’t remember what I did, but I worked for them a while. And, uh, then the war broke out.

Lisa And what are your memories of hearing about Pearl Harbor and…?:And what are your memories of hearing about Pearl Harbor and…?

Hattori Well, I, it was a Sunday morning, and I remember a friend of mine, who’s married to my Seattle friend now. He died, but anyway, he used to work for a photographer, and so I called him to say all the military men are supposed to report to camp, you know, so he went back to camp. It was sort of an unsettling period. As I said, we weren’t in the community so much, but I remember one family. They said the father had been laid off from work in December something, right after the war broke out. They fired him. And he had…that was the first family that I heard of that was in need. The Japanese community needed to help him, because he, you know, he had lost his job. And until then, I had never heard of a Japanese family being in need. You know, they…they had to have help. We never went to the, you know, welfare or anything like that. So… But that family seems to be doing all right now.:Well, I, it was a Sunday morning, and I remember a friend of mine, who’s married to my Seattle friend now. He died, but anyway, he used to work for a photographer, and so I called him to say all the military men are supposed to report to camp, you know, so he went back to camp. It was sort of an unsettling period. As I said, we weren’t in the community so much, but I remember one family. They said the father had been laid off from work in December something, right after the war broke out. They fired him. And he had…that was the first family that I heard of that was in need. The Japanese community needed to help him, because he, you know, he had lost his job. And until then, I had never heard of a Japanese family being in need. You know, they…they had to have help. We never went to the, you know, welfare or anything like that. So… But that family seems to be doing all right now.

Mary But the community kind of—:But the community kind of—

Hattori Yeah, Mm-hmm.:Yeah, Mm-hmm.

Mary --got together and helped them.:--got together and helped them.

Hattori Yeah. And in due time other people lost their jobs, too, but not immediately, you know.:Yeah. And in due time other people lost their jobs, too, but not immediately, you know.

Mary But that was kind of the first…time that you saw…:But that was kind of the first…time that you saw…

Hattori Yeah, Mm-hmm.:Yeah, Mm-hmm.

Lisa And the people that were staying in the hotel, were they? How did they react after..?:And the people that were staying in the hotel, were they? How did they react after..?

Hattori They were fine. They had always been there, and we were there. There was no feeling of indifference at all.:They were fine. They had always been there, and we were there. There was no feeling of indifference at all.

(1500):(15:00)

Lisa Do you have any memories of experiencing discrimination and racism during your childhood in Tacoma?:Do you have any memories of experiencing discrimination and racism during your childhood in Tacoma?

Hattori Not really, because most of our acquaintances were Japanese. I remember there was one black family, just one, uh, that we knew, and nobody thought anything about that. Tacoma in those days used to be primarily a Scandinavian, German, Italian; and there was really no discrimination as such. In fact, when we were evacuated, the First Methodist Church arranged for somebody from their church to come to live in our parsonage, which was right next to the church, to keep an eye on the church, where the church people had left a lot of their belongings in the basement.:Not really, because most of our acquaintances were Japanese. I remember there was one black family, just one, uh, that we knew, and nobody thought anything about that. Tacoma in those days used to be primarily a Scandinavian, German, Italian; and there was really no discrimination as such. In fact, when we were evacuated, the First Methodist Church arranged for somebody from their church to come to live in our parsonage, which was right next to the church, to keep an eye on the church, where the church people had left a lot of their belongings in the basement.

Lisa How interesting.:How interesting.

Hattori Mm-hmm. And so, we had somebody living in our church.:Mm-hmm. And so, we had somebody living in our church.

Lisa Did your mother just leave the business, then?:Did your mother just leave the business, then?

Hattori She sold it to a couple of ladies, yeah, uh-huh, for a few hundred dollars.:She sold it to a couple of ladies, yeah, uh-huh, for a few hundred dollars.

Mary Wow.:Wow.

Hattori Yeah. I remember we had just bought a new refrigerator, and I can’t remember how much she paid for it, but anyway, it was new, and I think she sold it for like $25 or something like that, you know. But, you know we were very honest. They told us, “You can only take what you can carry in a suitcase. That wasn’t much, except your clothes. But, uh, I don’t know how the Issei felt about it. I mean, some felt very strongly that it was wrong, you know, and they were very, uh, resentful. But, uh…well, let’s see…at that time I was nineteen or twenty, and so I didn’t really think that much about, you know, citizenship rights and things like that. The old Japanese custom of accepting what’s, you know, you just do what you’re told to do.:Yeah. I remember we had just bought a new refrigerator, and I can’t remember how much she paid for it, but anyway, it was new, and I think she sold it for like $25 or something like that, you know. But, you know we were very honest. They told us, “You can only take what you can carry in a suitcase. That wasn’t much, except your clothes. But, uh, I don’t know how the Issei felt about it. I mean, some felt very strongly that it was wrong, you know, and they were very, uh, resentful. But, uh…well, let’s see…at that time I was nineteen or twenty, and so I didn’t really think that much about, you know, citizenship rights and things like that. The old Japanese custom of accepting what’s, you know, you just do what you’re told to do.

Lisa Did your younger brothers ask you questions? Do you remember talking with them at all, or your mother, as you…about the order and had to register—:Did your younger brothers ask you questions? Do you remember talking with them at all, or your mother, as you…about the order and had to register—

Hattori No, not really, except when we got into camp and the recruiter, the army recruiters came by, and my brother volunteered to join the army. My mother had a fit! That was the first time I remember she…she says, “Here they put you in camp, and you want to go in the army?” she says, you know. She thought that was terrible, but anyway he didn’t pass, because he had a heart murmur or something. But they drafted him six months later.:No, not really, except when we got into camp and the recruiter, the army recruiters came by, and my brother volunteered to join the army. My mother had a fit! That was the first time I remember she…she says, “Here they put you in camp, and you want to go in the army?” she says, you know. She thought that was terrible, but anyway he didn’t pass, because he had a heart murmur or something. But they drafted him six months later.

Mary Oh! Is that right?:Oh! Is that right?

Hattori Yup.:Yup.

Mary Wow!:Wow!

Hattori They didn’t take him when he volunteered, but they took him as in the draft.:They didn’t take him when he volunteered, but they took him as in the draft.

Mary Would he have gone—I know you probably can’t easily answer this, but your mother was adamant—:Would he have gone—I know you probably can’t easily answer this, but your mother was adamant—

Hattori Adamant, yeah.:Adamant, yeah.

Mary Would he have gone if he’d been accepted, do you think?:Would he have gone if he’d been accepted, do you think?

Hattori I think so. My brother felt quite, uh… He was quiet, but he had his principles. He’s the first person I ever knew who subscribed to PBS. You know. Yeah. You know, lots of people watch PBS and never pay, never. He’s the first person that subscribed to them. He was an artist, and they lived in Yonkers, and the Yonkers Museum asked him to, uh, make something that was in front of the museum for quite a long time. And they got written up in the papers—his wife was an artist, too—and they were written up in the papers. So, my brother, in spite of all his quietness—he didn’t talk much—he had, you know, certain things that he believed in. It was, uh… I wish I’d talked to him more, too. His broth-, my middle brother lives up in Tacoma now, and we were talking the other day, and I said, “You know, I got… The next time I go up to Washington I’m going to spend a few days with you. We’ve got a lot of things to talk about.” He remembers things that I don’t remember, like what was across the street from our house down on St. Paul Avenue. I remember the piles of lumber and that’s about all. But he remembers other things, you know.:I think so. My brother felt quite, uh… He was quiet, but he had his principles. He’s the first person I ever knew who subscribed to PBS. You know. Yeah. You know, lots of people watch PBS and never pay, never. He’s the first person that subscribed to them. He was an artist, and they lived in Yonkers, and the Yonkers Museum asked him to, uh, make something that was in front of the museum for quite a long time. And they got written up in the papers—his wife was an artist, too—and they were written up in the papers. So, my brother, in spite of all his quietness—he didn’t talk much—he had, you know, certain things that he believed in. It was, uh… I wish I’d talked to him more, too. His broth-, my middle brother lives up in Tacoma now, and we were talking the other day, and I said, “You know, I got… The next time I go up to Washington I’m going to spend a few days with you. We’ve got a lot of things to talk about.” He remembers things that I don’t remember, like what was across the street from our house down on St. Paul Avenue. I remember the piles of lumber and that’s about all. But he remembers other things, you know.

Lisa What are your memories of camp? And you went to…uh…:What are your memories of camp? And you went to…uh…

(2000):(20:00)

Hattori I went to Pinedale, and then went to Tule Lake, mm-hmm. But I stayed in camp about a year altogether. I went to Pinedale, and it was sandy. The sand used to blow in through the windows, and they had a, uh, bathroom that everybody went to, and mess halls and all that. But, uhm, when they started to leave for Chicago and other places, you had to have a job before you could leave. Well, my girlfriend had a job. She got a job. I can’t remember where she worked. But anyway, I didn’t have a job, but I had gone to secretarial school in Tacoma, so I was qualified. I could work, you know. So, they let me go even though I didn’t have a job. And so, I was in camp for altogether about a year.:I went to Pinedale, and then went to Tule Lake, mm-hmm. But I stayed in camp about a year altogether. I went to Pinedale, and it was sandy. The sand used to blow in through the windows, and they had a, uh, bathroom that everybody went to, and mess halls and all that. But, uhm, when they started to leave for Chicago and other places, you had to have a job before you could leave. Well, my girlfriend had a job. She got a job. I can’t remember where she worked. But anyway, I didn’t have a job, but I had gone to secretarial school in Tacoma, so I was qualified. I could work, you know. So, they let me go even though I didn’t have a job. And so, I was in camp for altogether about a year.

Mary Then you went to Chicago?:Then you went to Chicago?

Hattori I went to Chicago.:I went to Chicago.

Lisa Alone, then.:Alone, then.

Hattori Well, the two of us, Hanna and I went. We went to Reno, and then we took the train. You know, her boyfriend from Tacoma—he was a soldier—was in Missouri. Joplin, Missouri. We decided that we would go and visit him on the way to Chicago. Camp said we were supposed to be in Chicago. Chicago says, “They aren’t here.” (laughs):Well, the two of us, Hanna and I went. We went to Reno, and then we took the train. You know, her boyfriend from Tacoma—he was a soldier—was in Missouri. Joplin, Missouri. We decided that we would go and visit him on the way to Chicago. Camp said we were supposed to be in Chicago. Chicago says, “They aren’t here.” (laughs)

Lisa Oh dear!:Oh dear!

Hattori I think we were in Joplin four days or something. We can’t remember how we got there, but anyway we got there and eventually ended up in Chicago. I had a lot more nerve then than I do... (laughs) I mean, considering that I had never been out of Washington before, you know. Oh, no. I had gone to Salem, Oregon once, but we went by car. But anyway, went to work in Chicago, and that’s where I met true Caucasians who had never known any Japanese before. I worked for the Civil Service Commission, and one of the people… I sat here, and Emmy sat behind me, and we got to be friendly. They were really good to us.:I think we were in Joplin four days or something. We can’t remember how we got there, but anyway we got there and eventually ended up in Chicago. I had a lot more nerve then than I do... (laughs) I mean, considering that I had never been out of Washington before, you know. Oh, no. I had gone to Salem, Oregon once, but we went by car. But anyway, went to work in Chicago, and that’s where I met true Caucasians who had never known any Japanese before. I worked for the Civil Service Commission, and one of the people… I sat here, and Emmy sat behind me, and we got to be friendly. They were really good to us.

Mary Was it different than being around Caucasians from Tacoma who—:Was it different than being around Caucasians from Tacoma who—

Hattori Yeah, I guess so, because I saw more of them, you know, because we worked together. It was so funny, though. We were early in Chicago, so when you got the el station, you look around and see if any Japanese are around, you know. And you wouldn’t see any. And if you did see one, you know, it’s a big day. You saw a Japanese!:Yeah, I guess so, because I saw more of them, you know, because we worked together. It was so funny, though. We were early in Chicago, so when you got the el station, you look around and see if any Japanese are around, you know. And you wouldn’t see any. And if you did see one, you know, it’s a big day. You saw a Japanese!

Mary Would you go talk to them?:Would you go talk to them?

Hattori No, I’m still Japanese. You don’t talk to strangers! (all laugh) Anyway, it was an interesting time. Things were rationed. It was interesting, though, because, you know butter was rationed, for instance, but the grocery store where we shopped, close to the apartment where we lived, used to save us butter. They were good to us, because, you know, at the end of the day you go and there isn’t anything. You had to eat brains or, you know, things that we had never eaten before. But, uh, they found out that we paid our bills, and we, you know. They found out that Japanese worked hard, too, so we had no difficulty getting a job. I had several jobs. I worked for the Stevens Hotel in the banquet department. Well, people weren’t having many banquets then, so there I sit with this beautiful office and nothing to do. I finally got tired, so I quit and went to work for a wholesale liquor company. That was interesting. It was run by a Jewish company, and so you learn Jewish people are a little different again. A group of Japanese girls worked under me in the billing department, and a Jewish, young Jewish guy was the manager of the office, and he figured, well, he could just keep giving them work because they did it, you know. So finally, they started to complain. They said, you know, “We can only do so much.” And so, they came to me and told me that. So, one Friday, all of us went into his office—the manager’s office—told him off. Told him, you know, you’re abusing all these girls and so forth, and I was in tears by the time I finished telling him everything I thought. And so, I figured, well, I can’t go back there anymore. I’ve told off the boss. So, I, uh…anyway, I didn’t go back to work the following Monday. I went to Idaho to see my folks. But it was the one and only time I ever told a boss off.:No, I’m still Japanese. You don’t talk to strangers! (all laugh) Anyway, it was an interesting time. Things were rationed. It was interesting, though, because, you know butter was rationed, for instance, but the grocery store where we shopped, close to the apartment where we lived, used to save us butter. They were good to us, because, you know, at the end of the day you go and there isn’t anything. You had to eat brains or, you know, things that we had never eaten before. But, uh, they found out that we paid our bills, and we, you know. They found out that Japanese worked hard, too, so we had no difficulty getting a job. I had several jobs. I worked for the Stevens Hotel in the banquet department. Well, people weren’t having many banquets then, so there I sit with this beautiful office and nothing to do. I finally got tired, so I quit and went to work for a wholesale liquor company. That was interesting. It was run by a Jewish company, and so you learn Jewish people are a little different again. A group of Japanese girls worked under me in the billing department, and a Jewish, young Jewish guy was the manager of the office, and he figured, well, he could just keep giving them work because they did it, you know. So finally, they started to complain. They said, you know, “We can only do so much.” And so, they came to me and told me that. So, one Friday, all of us went into his office—the manager’s office—told him off. Told him, you know, you’re abusing all these girls and so forth, and I was in tears by the time I finished telling him everything I thought. And so, I figured, well, I can’t go back there anymore. I’ve told off the boss. So, I, uh…anyway, I didn’t go back to work the following Monday. I went to Idaho to see my folks. But it was the one and only time I ever told a boss off.

(2504):(25:04)

Mary Did you go back to work?:Did you go back to work?

Hattori No, I didn’t go back to that. They were surprised. The other Japanese girls did go back, and I didn’t. I figured, well, I couldn’t go back after I told the boss how I felt about him.:No, I didn’t go back to that. They were surprised. The other Japanese girls did go back, and I didn’t. I figured, well, I couldn’t go back after I told the boss how I felt about him.

Mary Did you… You did return to Chicago though?:Did you… You did return to Chicago though?

Hattori Oh, yeah. I still lived in Chicago. We took a trip to Idaho to see my mother and stepfather, and came back and I got another job.:Oh, yeah. I still lived in Chicago. We took a trip to Idaho to see my mother and stepfather, and came back and I got another job.

Mary And so how long were you in Chicago altogether?:And so how long were you in Chicago altogether?

Hattori Let’s see…about…I think about three or four years, something like that.:Let’s see…about…I think about three or four years, something like that.

Mary Did you meet your husband there?:Did you meet your husband there?

Hattori Mm-hmm. We were married there.:Mm-hmm. We were married there.

Mary But, was he from California?:But, was he from California?

Hattori (nodding) Mm-hmm. He’s from California. He grew up in Brawley, which is in the desert. My girlfriend, the one that I went to Chicago with, she married the soldier friend—:(nodding) Mm-hmm. He’s from California. He grew up in Brawley, which is in the desert. My girlfriend, the one that I went to Chicago with, she married the soldier friend—

Mary Oh good!:Oh good!

Hattori – and so, I was invited to dinner at their house one night, so I went. And lo and behold, my husband and his sister came to visit, too. And they stayed, and they stayed, and Hanna and George didn’t have enough food to feed five people, you know. And so, we went out to dinner. My husband paid the bill. That is very characteristic of him. He always picked up the bill. I don’t know why. You’d think he had money or something. (laughs) But anyway, that’s how I met my husband.:– and so, I was invited to dinner at their house one night, so I went. And lo and behold, my husband and his sister came to visit, too. And they stayed, and they stayed, and Hanna and George didn’t have enough food to feed five people, you know. And so, we went out to dinner. My husband paid the bill. That is very characteristic of him. He always picked up the bill. I don’t know why. You’d think he had money or something. (laughs) But anyway, that’s how I met my husband.

Lisa So, when were you married? What year?:So, when were you married? What year?

Hattori Nineteen forty, uh, six. I think it was six.:Nineteen forty, uh, six. I think it was six.

Lisa Do you remember the years, then, that you were in Chicago?:Do you remember the years, then, that you were in Chicago?

Hattori Well, was it in 1946, or forty… Let’s see…45, 46. I was there from forty…probably from around ’42.:Well, was it in 1946, or forty… Let’s see…45, 46. I was there from forty…probably from around ’42.

Mary Had your husband been in Chicago, or you met him in Missouri?:Had your husband been in Chicago, or you met him in Missouri?

Hattori I…No, I didn’t meet him. He was in—overseas. He had… He was in the army for five years.:I…No, I didn’t meet him. He was in—overseas. He had… He was in the army for five years.

Mary Had he been drafted, or…?:Had he been drafted, or…?

Hattori Yeah, he was in the first draft, so he was in the army for five years. But he never got into the 442nd or the MIS or anybody, you know, and so when they put up all these monuments to these people, I resent it, because I figure my husband was there before them, and he was there after they’d gone. But he was always with Caucasian groups. He volunteered once for the 442nd, but they said he didn’t speak enough Japanese, (laughing) so he didn’t get accepted. But anyway, so he was, uh, he was a veteran, but the unrecognized one.:Yeah, he was in the first draft, so he was in the army for five years. But he never got into the 442nd or the MIS or anybody, you know, and so when they put up all these monuments to these people, I resent it, because I figure my husband was there before them, and he was there after they’d gone. But he was always with Caucasian groups. He volunteered once for the 442nd, but they said he didn’t speak enough Japanese, (laughing) so he didn’t get accepted. But anyway, so he was, uh, he was a veteran, but the unrecognized one.

Lisa So where did your mother go, and your brothers, after camp?:So where did your mother go, and your brothers, after camp?

Hattori My mother went to Idaho. My stepfather was a chef at a country club in Boise.:My mother went to Idaho. My stepfather was a chef at a country club in Boise.

Lisa Where did your mother meet your stepfather?:Where did your mother meet your stepfather?

Hattori In camp.:In camp.

Lisa Oh, in camp.:Oh, in camp.

Hattori Mm-hmm. Yeah, camp. And, uh, they were married in camp, and at that time my brother—one was going to the Illinois Institute of Technology, so he was in Illinois, and Hida was in the army, and I was in Chicago. So there was just my youngest brother. So he lived at the – so he got to be a golfer because they were on the golf course.:Mm-hmm. Yeah, camp. And, uh, they were married in camp, and at that time my brother—one was going to the Illinois Institute of Technology, so he was in Illinois, and Hida was in the army, and I was in Chicago. So there was just my youngest brother. So he lived at the – so he got to be a golfer because they were on the golf course.

Lisa Oh, nice.:Oh, nice.

Hattori Yep, he was the Idaho state something or other in high school. He was a good golfer.:Yep, he was the Idaho state something or other in high school. He was a good golfer.

Lisa That’s the one in Hawaii.:That’s the one in Hawaii.

Hattori Mm-hmm, yeah.:Mm-hmm, yeah.

Mary So your mother, they never returned to Tacoma?:So your mother, they never returned to Tacoma?

Hattori Yeah, they did. They, after, uh… I don’t know why they left Idaho, but they decided that they were going back to Tacoma. And they bought another hotel, well, my mother bought a hotel. And the Ryo Munekata’s family used to have that hotel.:Yeah, they did. They, after, uh… I don’t know why they left Idaho, but they decided that they were going back to Tacoma. And they bought another hotel, well, my mother bought a hotel. And the Ryo Munekata’s family used to have that hotel.

Lisa Oh, they bought that one.:Oh, they bought that one.

Hattori Mm-hmm, they bought that one. And so, my husband and I, well, we lived in San Diego for a while, but uh… Oh, I know. My mother and stepfather wanted to go to Japan, and so they asked if we would come up there. And so, we went and ran the hotel for a while when they went to Japan.:Mm-hmm, they bought that one. And so, my husband and I, well, we lived in San Diego for a while, but uh… Oh, I know. My mother and stepfather wanted to go to Japan, and so they asked if we would come up there. And so, we went and ran the hotel for a while when they went to Japan.

Lisa And when was that?:And when was that?

Hattori Let’s see…my daughter was, uh let’s see, she was an infant when we were in San Diego. She was born in 1948, so she must have been about two or so when we went to Tacoma.:Let’s see…my daughter was, uh let’s see, she was an infant when we were in San Diego. She was born in 1948, so she must have been about two or so when we went to Tacoma.

(3004):(30:04)

Lisa And how was it returning to Tacoma? What was the interaction like with other people there after the war?:And how was it returning to Tacoma? What was the interaction like with other people there after the war?

Hattori We were working, as usual, so I didn’t really get out much, but I didn’t really get in touch with anybody, although I had a girlfriend who stayed in Tacoma. She kept in touch with a few of her high school friends. But we went to, I went to a reunion, oh, several years ago, and I didn’t know a soul, except my girlfriend and two of them from Seattle. But it was interesting.:We were working, as usual, so I didn’t really get out much, but I didn’t really get in touch with anybody, although I had a girlfriend who stayed in Tacoma. She kept in touch with a few of her high school friends. But we went to, I went to a reunion, oh, several years ago, and I didn’t know a soul, except my girlfriend and two of them from Seattle. But it was interesting.

Mary What reunion was it?:What reunion was it?

Hattori Uh, let’s see. This last year was 65th. It must have been about the 63rd or something, the reunion I went to. I missed a year, and then I didn’t go last year. They have a reunion every year.:Uh, let’s see. This last year was 65th. It must have been about the 63rd or something, the reunion I went to. I missed a year, and then I didn’t go last year. They have a reunion every year.

Lisa Every year?:Every year?

Hattori And they just get together for lunch. Mm-hmm, and, uh, a lot of the Tacoma people have stayed there, you know, and have been pillars of society and all that, and it’s very interesting. They get sick just like everybody else, too, though.:And they just get together for lunch. Mm-hmm, and, uh, a lot of the Tacoma people have stayed there, you know, and have been pillars of society and all that, and it’s very interesting. They get sick just like everybody else, too, though.

Lisa So there weren’t, just returning to that community, did you feel that there were… What were the relations like between Caucasians and—different groups of Caucasians—and the Japanese—:So there weren’t, just returning to that community, did you feel that there were… What were the relations like between Caucasians and—different groups of Caucasians—and the Japanese—

Hattori Well, I think the high school group were (sic) very aware of what had gone on, and they were anxious to show us the new Tacoma. You know, Tacoma’s changed a lot. And they have a museum there down where used to be restaurants and stuff, and they wanted to show us around, and we went to our old high school. We had quite a high school, you know. We had the, uh, football field which overlooked the Sound, and this natural amphitheater. It was really nice. Now they’re fixing it up, too. Our high school was built to resemble some castle in France or something. Beautiful.:Well, I think the high school group were (sic) very aware of what had gone on, and they were anxious to show us the new Tacoma. You know, Tacoma’s changed a lot. And they have a museum there down where used to be restaurants and stuff, and they wanted to show us around, and we went to our old high school. We had quite a high school, you know. We had the, uh, football field which overlooked the Sound, and this natural amphitheater. It was really nice. Now they’re fixing it up, too. Our high school was built to resemble some castle in France or something. Beautiful.

Lisa It’s an incredible building.:It’s an incredible building.

Hattori Mm-hmm, yeah. Anyway, so they’re, uh… They wanted us to see the high school and… So, these people have always—have lived in Tacoma all their lives, and they want us to share, uh, you know, what they know about Tacoma. So, I’m looking forward to going, maybe this year, maybe… Next year, the new Stadium High School is supposed to be ready, so maybe I’ll go next year. I don’t know.:Mm-hmm, yeah. Anyway, so they’re, uh… They wanted us to see the high school and… So, these people have always—have lived in Tacoma all their lives, and they want us to share, uh, you know, what they know about Tacoma. So, I’m looking forward to going, maybe this year, maybe… Next year, the new Stadium High School is supposed to be ready, so maybe I’ll go next year. I don’t know.

Lisa I don’t know if you’ve heard—I think you have—that the University of Washington has purchased the land that the building, uh, where the Japanese Language School was, and the building doesn’t, has now been torn down…:I don’t know if you’ve heard—I think you have—that the University of Washington has purchased the land that the building, uh, where the Japanese Language School was, and the building doesn’t, has now been torn down…

Hattori (nods):(nods)

Lisa …Is not there, and we just wanted to ask if you had any particular feelings about that, and about the building being gone.:…Is not there, and we just wanted to ask if you had any particular feelings about that, and about the building being gone.

Hattori Not really. I’ve, uh, never…I’ve never really even thought about Japanese School, because I left Tacoma, and I, you know, I just didn’t think of it. It was… Some people were very close to the Japanese School. Their parents were very active in it and all that, but, uh, my mother wasn’t. When my father was living, he was very good at calligraphy, so they used to have him write, you know, hangings and things like that.:Not really. I’ve, uh, never…I’ve never really even thought about Japanese School, because I left Tacoma, and I, you know, I just didn’t think of it. It was… Some people were very close to the Japanese School. Their parents were very active in it and all that, but, uh, my mother wasn’t. When my father was living, he was very good at calligraphy, so they used to have him write, you know, hangings and things like that.

Lisa At the school, they would have him—:At the school, they would have him—

Hattori At the school, mm-hmm, yeah. I wish I had some of those things. When we sold the hotel—my father was very, uh, artistic, and he, you know, during the Depression one winter he didn’t have a job, so he used to spend all his time painting. And I remember we had a book of knowledge. That’s an old encyclopedia kind of thing, and there’s a picture in there of a horse, and my father painted that picture. It must have been about this big. (3 feet across) I wish I’d had that, because it looked just like the picture in the book. But we don’t have the book; we don’t have the picture. I don’t know what… We couldn’t take it with us. We left it at the hotel. I don’t know if the hotel people ever appreciated it, you know.:At the school, mm-hmm, yeah. I wish I had some of those things. When we sold the hotel—my father was very, uh, artistic, and he, you know, during the Depression one winter he didn’t have a job, so he used to spend all his time painting. And I remember we had a book of knowledge. That’s an old encyclopedia kind of thing, and there’s a picture in there of a horse, and my father painted that picture. It must have been about this big. (3 feet across) I wish I’d had that, because it looked just like the picture in the book. But we don’t have the book; we don’t have the picture. I don’t know what… We couldn’t take it with us. We left it at the hotel. I don’t know if the hotel people ever appreciated it, you know.

(3509) I’m…that’s the one thing I miss about—that I wish I had, because he was a very, uh, I think he was very talented. And my brother—well, in fact, two of my brothers, the two in the middle—they’re both artistic. The older one studied art, and he went to this school, the Art Institute in Chicago, and he married an artist, and he worked in art in New York. But, you know, we were so far apart. And, in fact, I was so far apart from my mother, too. She always lived up in Washington. We tried to get her to come down and live with us. She says no. She doesn’t like California. She wants to live where her friends are.:(35:09) I’m…that’s the one thing I miss about—that I wish I had, because he was a very, uh, I think he was very talented. And my brother—well, in fact, two of my brothers, the two in the middle—they’re both artistic. The older one studied art, and he went to this school, the Art Institute in Chicago, and he married an artist, and he worked in art in New York. But, you know, we were so far apart. And, in fact, I was so far apart from my mother, too. She always lived up in Washington. We tried to get her to come down and live with us. She says no. She doesn’t like California. She wants to live where her friends are.

Mary What about the fact that the church congregation has moved out of the church?:What about the fact that the church congregation has moved out of the church?

Hattori Yes, it’s a very small church now, meeting with the Puyallup Methodist Church, and I know my friends in Seattle go there every once in a while, but Yone, my friend, lives in Seattle proper, and she has to go to Bellevue to pick up her other friend and then take her to Puyallup and then come back and take her back to Bellevue. So, she puts in a hundred miles…:Yes, it’s a very small church now, meeting with the Puyallup Methodist Church, and I know my friends in Seattle go there every once in a while, but Yone, my friend, lives in Seattle proper, and she has to go to Bellevue to pick up her other friend and then take her to Puyallup and then come back and take her back to Bellevue. So, she puts in a hundred miles…

Lisa Oh, yeah.:Oh, yeah.

Hattori But, I guess they’re still meeting. They have a retired minister there, and they have several very faithful church members that, uh, you know. The Japanese are, uh, you know, they’re marrying out of the race. In fact, most of them—I think half of them marry non-Japanese. My friend in Bellevue, all her four girls are married to Caucasians. But they’re all doing well.:But, I guess they’re still meeting. They have a retired minister there, and they have several very faithful church members that, uh, you know. The Japanese are, uh, you know, they’re marrying out of the race. In fact, most of them—I think half of them marry non-Japanese. My friend in Bellevue, all her four girls are married to Caucasians. But they’re all doing well.

Lisa What kind of advice would you give to young people today, and about these kinds of issues or being Japanese and their identity?:What kind of advice would you give to young people today, and about these kinds of issues or being Japanese and their identity?

Hattori I think it’s important for us to, uh, teach by example, probably – more than anything else, that there are certain standards that we like to think Japanese people aspire to. Maybe some of them don’t observe it anymore, but I think we like to think that we’re honest, and we’re responsible, and we’re (pause) diligent. We work hard. And, uh, I know other ethnic groups have that, too, but, you know. Like my Chinese grandson—my half-Chinese grandson—he’s very interested in Japanese things, too. His other grandmother was from Hong Kong, but she didn’t speak Jap-, she didn’t speak English. And so, my daughter-in-law speaks Chinese, but her children don’t speak Chinese, and they live in a Caucasian area near golf clubs and stuff, you know. So, it’s uh… I think they have sort of a yearning to learn about Chinese and Japanese history. My grandson who is sixteen is really interested. I remember sending him a book once. I saw a book here that I’m going to send him, uh, about being Japanese. Because my son is not particularly…he was never particularly interested and neither was my daughter, but her daughter is interested.:I think it’s important for us to, uh, teach by example, probably – more than anything else, that there are certain standards that we like to think Japanese people aspire to. Maybe some of them don’t observe it anymore, but I think we like to think that we’re honest, and we’re responsible, and we’re (pause) diligent. We work hard. And, uh, I know other ethnic groups have that, too, but, you know. Like my Chinese grandson—my half-Chinese grandson—he’s very interested in Japanese things, too. His other grandmother was from Hong Kong, but she didn’t speak Jap-, she didn’t speak English. And so, my daughter-in-law speaks Chinese, but her children don’t speak Chinese, and they live in a Caucasian area near golf clubs and stuff, you know. So, it’s uh… I think they have sort of a yearning to learn about Chinese and Japanese history. My grandson who is sixteen is really interested. I remember sending him a book once. I saw a book here that I’m going to send him, uh, about being Japanese. Because my son is not particularly…he was never particularly interested and neither was my daughter, but her daughter is interested.

Lisa …skipped a generation.:…skipped a generation.

Hattori Mm-hmm. And she has a boyfriend who’s Filipino and Japanese and some other things. (laughs):Mm-hmm. And she has a boyfriend who’s Filipino and Japanese and some other things. (laughs)

Lisa Are there particular things about your childhood, growing up in Tacoma that you’ve told your children or grandchildren?:Are there particular things about your childhood, growing up in Tacoma that you’ve told your children or grandchildren?

Hattori Not really. And just the other day, my daughter and I were coming home from lunch, and I started…something started me talking about my childhood. She says, “You know, you should write all that down.” And I think I should, because there isn’t going to be another generation that went through what we went through, you know.:Not really. And just the other day, my daughter and I were coming home from lunch, and I started…something started me talking about my childhood. She says, “You know, you should write all that down.” And I think I should, because there isn’t going to be another generation that went through what we went through, you know.

(4006) But I wish I knew more about my mother and my father, but, uh…it’s…:(40:06) But I wish I knew more about my mother and my father, but, uh…it’s…

Mary But now you can do that for your kids so they can say that—:But now you can do that for your kids so they can say that—

Hattori Yeah, Mm-hmm. I—:Yeah, Mm-hmm. I—

Lisa And we’ll also send you a copy of this—:And we’ll also send you a copy of this—

Hattori Well, I ramble on, but I think the next generation is really interested in their history. And their mixed-up history, too. Yeah.:Well, I ramble on, but I think the next generation is really interested in their history. And their mixed-up history, too. Yeah.

Lisa Are there other things that we haven’t touched on today that you want to make sure to share?:Are there other things that we haven’t touched on today that you want to make sure to share?

Hattori Hmm, let’s see… When I was looking for the material, I thought of things, but it doesn’t come to you when you want it to. Uh, yeah, I think the Japanese School really reinforced things that our parents tried to teach us by example, rather than by telling us things. And I remember Mr. Yamasaki used to, uh, well as I said, he emphasized--:Hmm, let’s see… When I was looking for the material, I thought of things, but it doesn’t come to you when you want it to. Uh, yeah, I think the Japanese School really reinforced things that our parents tried to teach us by example, rather than by telling us things. And I remember Mr. Yamasaki used to, uh, well as I said, he emphasized--

(End tape 2):(End tape 2)

(4119):(41:19)

(Begin tape 3):(Begin tape 3)

(0000):(00:00)

Hattori Tacoma, I understand, had a pretty good reputation. It was supposed to be quite a good school, and I think partly because, uh, you know, at Japanese School we weren’t Buddhist or Methodists or anything. We were just studying Japanese. And I think that…well, like my grandchildren haven’t had anything like that, you know. They’re all American (or all-American [?]):Tacoma, I understand, had a pretty good reputation. It was supposed to be quite a good school, and I think partly because, uh, you know, at Japanese School we weren’t Buddhist or Methodists or anything. We were just studying Japanese. And I think that…well, like my grandchildren haven’t had anything like that, you know. They’re all American (or all-American [?])

(0030) But they look different. And so, it’s good for them to realize that they have, uh, history. The Chinese were here before the Japanese, way before the Japanese. They have a different history. I think their history was worse than ours. I mean, being treated—they were treated worse than we were. Camp was, uh…unfortunate, but in some ways it was good. You know, we met people from all over, and you realize that Washingtonians are different from Californians.:(00:30) But they look different. And so, it’s good for them to realize that they have, uh, history. The Chinese were here before the Japanese, way before the Japanese. They have a different history. I think their history was worse than ours. I mean, being treated—they were treated worse than we were. Camp was, uh…unfortunate, but in some ways it was good. You know, we met people from all over, and you realize that Washingtonians are different from Californians.

Lisa How are they different?:How are they different?

Hattori Uh, Californians were, uh…we were not as discriminated against as they were in California, you know. People who farmed near railroad tracks were accused of being ready to blow up the tracks or something, you know. People didn’t treat us that way in Washington. And we came here, and we found out that Californians really are a little different. And I think I was lucky to grow up in Washington.:Uh, Californians were, uh…we were not as discriminated against as they were in California, you know. People who farmed near railroad tracks were accused of being ready to blow up the tracks or something, you know. People didn’t treat us that way in Washington. And we came here, and we found out that Californians really are a little different. And I think I was lucky to grow up in Washington.

Mary So, you learned about the differences from hearing stories, or from actually experiencing the differences from Washington to California—:So, you learned about the differences from hearing stories, or from actually experiencing the differences from Washington to California—

Hattori Oh, from just experience. You meet people, and they have a different way of looking at things, you know. We never think in terms of discrimination. Although, when I finished high school—in those days you could take post-graduate—you could go to high school after you graduated, and I went and took some business courses, because I had taken an academic course before, and when I realized when I wasn’t going to go to college I took business courses. But anyway, it never occurred to me to apply to Weyerhaeuser Company to get a job. I just…just nobody did, you know. But then I think now you do. You have people in all fields. But it wasn’t because of discrimination; it was partly hesitation on my part. You know, we just weren’t used to being that aggressive and going to a big company and applying for a job, even though I knew I could do it. It was uh… But then that’s a generation thing.:Oh, from just experience. You meet people, and they have a different way of looking at things, you know. We never think in terms of discrimination. Although, when I finished high school—in those days you could take post-graduate—you could go to high school after you graduated, and I went and took some business courses, because I had taken an academic course before, and when I realized when I wasn’t going to go to college I took business courses. But anyway, it never occurred to me to apply to Weyerhaeuser Company to get a job. I just…just nobody did, you know. But then I think now you do. You have people in all fields. But it wasn’t because of discrimination; it was partly hesitation on my part. You know, we just weren’t used to being that aggressive and going to a big company and applying for a job, even though I knew I could do it. It was uh… But then that’s a generation thing.

Lisa Well, breaking those boundaries can be a very difficult thing to do.:Well, breaking those boundaries can be a very difficult thing to do.

Hattori Mm-hmm, yeah. That’s true. I’ve been retired for over twenty years now, and I wonder what on earth have I been doing all these years. (laughs) I went to college. I finally got my degree.:Mm-hmm, yeah. That’s true. I’ve been retired for over twenty years now, and I wonder what on earth have I been doing all these years. (laughs) I went to college. I finally got my degree.

Lisa Oh, fantastic!:Oh, fantastic!

Mary What did you get your degree?:What did you get your degree?

Hattori When? I graduated in ’89.:When? I graduated in ’89.

Lisa Oh, congratulations!:Oh, congratulations!

Mary What was your degree in?:What was your degree in?

Hattori Human Services, which is, it’s uh, you know, psychology and sociology and how to deal with people, and all that stuff. I volunteered at the senior day care center for about ten years. But, uh, it’s a good experience.:Human Services, which is, it’s uh, you know, psychology and sociology and how to deal with people, and all that stuff. I volunteered at the senior day care center for about ten years. But, uh, it’s a good experience.

Mary What did you retire from?:What did you retire from?

Hattori I retired from the school board. I used to work for the Los Angeles Unified School District.:I retired from the school board. I used to work for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Lisa Oh, wow!:Oh, wow!

Hattori I worked for one of the board members. She was—:I worked for one of the board members. She was—

Mary As an assistant?:As an assistant?

Hattori Uh, I was, uh, her secretary. Well, I guess, what do they call them now? I don’t—:Uh, I was, uh, her secretary. Well, I guess, what do they call them now? I don’t—

Mary Administrative—:Administrative—

Hattori Assistant. Yeah, that’s what I… when I left, I was the administrative assistant. But that was an interesting place to live, but I decided there was a world out there. I wanted to do something different. I wanted a college degree. That’s what I wanted.:Assistant. Yeah, that’s what I… when I left, I was the administrative assistant. But that was an interesting place to live, but I decided there was a world out there. I wanted to do something different. I wanted a college degree. That’s what I wanted.

Mary Where did you get, go to school then?:Where did you get, go to school then?

Hattori I went to Cal State Dominguez Hills, because that’s the closest. Mm-hmm. It’s only about five miles from home.:I went to Cal State Dominguez Hills, because that’s the closest. Mm-hmm. It’s only about five miles from home.

Mary We teach… At the school we teach at, at UW-Tacoma, there are a lot of older students returning for some reason. They’re the best—:We teach… At the school we teach at, at UW-Tacoma, there are a lot of older students returning for some reason. They’re the best—

Hattori Mm-hmm, yeah. It was funny because my political science teacher wasn’t even born (laughs) when we were talking about the Roosevelt years, you know. He wasn’t even born! (laughs) Anyway, but it was fun. I enjoyed it. Because, you know, you have nothing but time, the kids were gone, and I had time. So, you could do your studies, you know. Anyways, it was worthwhile.:Mm-hmm, yeah. It was funny because my political science teacher wasn’t even born (laughs) when we were talking about the Roosevelt years, you know. He wasn’t even born! (laughs) Anyway, but it was fun. I enjoyed it. Because, you know, you have nothing but time, the kids were gone, and I had time. So, you could do your studies, you know. Anyways, it was worthwhile.

(0518):(05:18)

Mary Well, and think of how… Well I look at it this way Think about how worthwhile it was for the other people in the class who got to share your knowledge and experience—:Well, and think of how… Well I look at it this way: Think about how worthwhile it was for the other people in the class who got to share your knowledge and experience—

Hattori Well, yeah. One of my professors said that. She says, you know, it was helpful to her, because I’m way older than her. (laughs):Well, yeah. One of my professors said that. She says, you know, it was helpful to her, because I’m way older than her. (laughs)

Lisa Great.:Great.

Hattori Anyway…:Anyway…

Lisa Well, thank you. We want to thank you very much for taking the time to come today—:Well, thank you. We want to thank you very much for taking the time to come today—

Hattori It’s quite all right.:It’s quite all right.

Lisa I think, uh, you’ll—:I think, uh, you’ll—

(0548):(05:48)

(End tape 3):(End tape 3)

Title:
Fumi (Sato) Hattori Oral History
Creator:
Hattori, Fumi (Sato)
Date Created:
2005-01-27
Description:
Fumi (Sato) Hattori looks back on her childhood, her family, and the role of the Japanese Language School on the Japanese community in Tacoma, Washington. Hattori notes how central the Japanese Language School was to culture, community, and social life, and how the school was unique to the time and place. Hattori connects this history with the stories of her parents, her siblings, her children, and her grandchildren.
People:
Sato, Hidamaru Sato, Masahiro Sato, Toshiatsu Nakako, Yone Yamasaki, Masato Yamasaki, Kuniko Yamasaki, Tetsu Hattori Fumi (Sato)
Location:
Tacoma, Washington, United States; Ehime Prefecture, Japan; New Orleans, United States; Tokyo, Japan
Source:
Tacoma Japanese Language School Project
Type:
record
Format:
compound_object
Source
Preferred Citation:
"Fumi (Sato) Hattori Oral History", Tacoma Japanese Language School Oral History Collection, University of Washington Tacoma Library
Reference Link:
erika-b.github.io/TJLS/items/shattori.html
Rights
Rights:
This item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. Permission must be obtained for any use or reproduction which is not educational and not-for-profit. Contact the University of Washington Tacoma Library with inquiries regarding use.
Standardized Rights:
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/