ClickOkinawa.com - Oral Histories

Higa Takejiro
published Oct 12, 2018

An Oral History

Takejiro Higa's interview courtesy of the Center for Oral History.
Photographs courtesy of Takejiro Higa.
The Hawaii Nisei Project © 2006

Well, my sister was already married at that time, yeah. So she and my brother-in-law scraped up enough [money]. And luckily, there was a Mr. Kiyabu from Hawaii — from the same village — based in Okinawa. Same time. So, with him, I came back in Hawaii. He was my escort. I was lucky. He went to Okinawa to visit the family for a few months, so he brought me back with him.
[So all those years when you were in Okinawa, and the rest of your family, your surviving family, was in Hawaii, you folks were able to still correspond, . . .]
Oh, yeah.
[. . . keep up the relationship.]
And every now and then, my father used to send few dollars, you know. Very little, but still is big money. Every now and then. The letters used to come in quite often. And I used to write to him, write him back. Because, oh, Japanese, yeah. So, not too many kanji, but at least able to respond to Daddy. I don’t know my father. I don’t remember my father. The last time I remember seeing him is five years old. The only thing I remember about him, looking at the picture, he had a small moustache. Black moustache over here, like Hitler.
Just was over here, that’s all I remember. I don’t know anything about my father, unfortunately.
[And then so, when you came back to Hawaii in June or July in 1939, . . .]
Thirty-nine.
[. . . what was that reunion like with your family?]
Well, with my sister, I guess, instant rapport, yeah. I call her “Në-san [Elder sister],” yeah. My brother, I don’t know, no more close feeling. We never grew up together, yeah. So just like a stranger. Ooh, that’s my brother, okay. But my sister, I used to write to her all the time, you know, Në-san, Në-san, yeah. So much, much closer feeling to my sister. And then, not knowing one word of English, I wanted to go back. In fact, three or four times I think I complained to my sister. “Në-san, I think I want to go back to Okinawa.” Because Uncle told me, “If you don’t like Hawaii, come back anytime. I’ll treat you like my son. So come back and live with us.” So, not knowing one word of English, I told my sister, “You know, Në-san, I want to go back Okinawa. Bakarashii koko [Useless here].” Because even young kids insult me and take me cheap. Japan bobora [bumpkin], eh. Japan bobora, bobora. Not knowing one English. In fact, the first English, I mean, the first Hawaii language I learned was “F” words. That’s the thing you hear all time when the kids talking among — lower kids, below my apartment, eh. So one day, my father’s cousin came to visit me just because I came back from Okinawa. So I greeted her with “F” words. Yeah. She look at me, “What did you say?”
I repeat the same thing.
So she’d grab my neck. “You know what it means?”
I said, “That’s hello, or ikaga desu ka [how are you?].”
(Laughter)
“What?”
So she explained to me what it was. Ho, I wanted to hide under the table. And I never used that word again until I went into the army.
(Laughter)
I can never forget that incident. I never used that word until I went in the army. Once in the army, it’s everyday language, yeah. Every other word is “F” word. So I began to use it shamely. Although I tried to avoid using that word even now, but. . . . That was a real sad experience. She grabbed me by the neck, explain to me. And I wanted to hide under the table.
[And then you mentioned that when you came here, you were in an apartment. Where did you live when you first came?]
Vineyard. It’s part of the Mayor Wright Housing area now. There’s a Salvation Army on Vineyard Boulevard, yeah. Little bit toward Kalihi side, and right across. Above the Muranaka Store, grocery store.
And not used to sleeping on beds, quite often I fell off from the bed, katonk! (Chuckles) Next morning, when I go tell her Muranaka Store to buy bread. “Yübe ochimashita, në. [Last night, you fell, huh.]”
(Laughter)
Then she used to laugh at me.
[They would know if you fell off your bed, huh?]
Yeah. Katonk, middle of the night, eh? And our apartment was right above their store, see. And the Muranaka people used to live in back of the store. Those days, small store frontage, and a family used to live in the back of the store, yeah. A lot of them. Small family store. Grocer - hole-in-the-wall store. But bread was an everyday stuff so I used to go down. My sister tell me go buy bread, eh. I go down buy bread.
[So, when you came back to Hawaii, what did you do then? You’re, you know, about sixteen years old or so.]
Summer months, so I went to CPC [California Packing Corporation] pineapple work with my brother. And so he and I worked in a warehouse stacking cased goods. Cased goods, you know, you get a little more pay and you don’t have to know the language, eh. So I worked in the cased goods department. And, I think warukatta, you know. [I think I was naughty.] Lunchtime, we go to the cafeteria, yeah. I steal straws and bring with me to the working area. And I had the small nail, eh. Cased goods juice department. I’d make a puka [hole] (slurps).
(Laughter)
Every now and then. If you think about it, oh, real warukatta, no?
(Laughter)
[You were naughty.]
I did it quite often. I don’t know how many times I did, but more than five times, I’m sure. So somebody who buy the case and then found one can empty.
(Laughter)
> Think about it, how bad I was.
[And then, so you worked CPC during the summer. And then what did you do after?]
And then September, I started going to a special English school taught by Mrs. Suehiro. Nu‘uanu Day School. This school was on Nu‘uanu Avenue, part of Japanese[-language] school. Nu‘uanu Day School was right next to what is now Foster Gardens. Between Foster Gardens and Nu‘uanu Day School, there was a Hosoi Mortuary. Original Hosoi Mortuary was more up to the upper side, yeah. Then just north, I mean, well, east of that, the Nu‘uanu Day School, I mean, Nu‘uanu Chüö Gakuin, Japanese[-language] school. So eight [A.M.] to twelve [P.M.], the special school, taught by Mrs. Suehiro and several other teachers, basic English. Started off was just like kindergarten, yeah.
And in the meantime, I got the job as dishwasher at Nu‘uanu Y [Young Men’s Christian Association] Cafeteria. Twelve [P.M.] until dinnertime, yeah. About seven to eight o’clock [P.M.]. And luckily, we had a two-hour period between lunch and dinner preparations, see. Two to four, yeah. I used that period to join Nu‘uanu YMCA [Young Men’s Christian Association], young men’s club. My age group, they don’t even bother with me, see. So I play around with the little kids, the smaller kids. And I grabbed one of the kids — I don’t remember this kid’s name anymore — but I believe he was the son of Dr. [Shunzo] Sakamaki. I’m not sure. Dr. Sakamaki was a professor at the university, yeah, history. I think that was his boy. I grabbed him every day, practice on him what I learned in school. And if he doesn’t understand me, next morning, I go back to school and ask my teacher, Mrs. Nash. She’s a haole lady. I believe she was a wife of a serviceman stationed in Hawaii. I’m not sure of that. But anyway, she was part of our teachers. There were two haole ladies, Mrs. Nash and Mrs. McGruff, besides Mrs. Suehiro. Mrs. Suehiro was the headmaster. Mrs. Nash was my teacher, yeah, assigned teacher. So I asked Mrs. Nash, “I said this to this kid, he didn’t understand me, what did I do wrong?” So she corrects me. So that same afternoon, I grabbed the same kid, repeat what I said, and this time he understood. So after that, I put new one. I repeat that day after day after day, every day. And so I picked up fast. At the Nu‘uanu Day School, I skipped the second grade and the fourth grade. So when the December 7 came, I was at the fifth grade already (chuckles). And because it’s run by a Japanese lady, school got closed up by the military. So I got stuck. Where am I supposed to go, you know.
Then I found out, Hawaii Mission Academy, run by SeventhDay Adventist people, had a special school for guys like me, taught by Mr. Gima. Not the newspaper Mr. Gima, but Mr. Gima. And I found out that there was a special school so I applied. So principal told me, “If you can pass the minimum aptitude test, we’ll let you in.” I get nothing to lose, so I took it. I don’t know how I passed, but somehow I passed it. So I was admitted and I was put into ninth grade. Ninth grade, okay. Start studying hard. I studied about three, four times harder than the regular student. Then one day, I was minding my own business in my class, I was eating a sandwich, lunch, Spam sandwich. My English teacher saw me eating Spam sandwich. She reported me to the principal’s office, Mr. Rice. So I got called into the principal’s office. I got scolded, you know, “I understand you were eating Spam sandwich.”
I said, “Yeah.” And I said “Why, why am I being reprimanded for this?”
“Well, we Seventh-Day Adventists believe it’s not necessary to kill animals to satisfy your stomach.”
But by then, one of my father’s cousins, a Seventh-Day Adventist believer, knows that they can eat fish and chicken. So I asked Mr. Rice, “For Seventh-Day Adventists, is it okay to eat chicken and fish? Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Then I rethought it, you know, “Why, chicken and fish, not animals?”
He got kind of stuck. So anyway, he said, “Okay, as long as you’re in this school, please refrain from eating meat items.”
I said, “Okay, yes, Sir.” I was dismissed, I went back to school.
Then several weeks later, one Monday, composition class, I was told to write something what I did over the weekend. See, I couldn’t think of anything interesting to write about so I wrote about going to a cowboy movie.