Roy Hirabayashi | Interview 1 | January 28, 2022

FARRELL: Okay, this is Shanna Farrell with Roy Hirabayashi on Friday, January 28, 2022. This is our first interview for the Japanese American Intergenerational Narratives project, and we are talking over Zoom. Roy, can you start by telling me where and when you were born and a little bit about your early life?

HIRABAYASHI: Sure, thank you. It's a real pleasure to be talking with you today. The actual city I was born in was in Berkeley. At that time, my parents were living in Alameda, and, let's see, that was in 1951. I'm a New Year's baby, so I was born on January 1, 1951. My early years, I didn't even know Alameda because shortly afterwards and I'm sorry -- I don't know exactly when -- but when 00:01:00I was very young, my parents were able to move to Oakland, more on what I call East Oakland. Growing up for me was basically in Oakland, and going to schools from elementary to high school was all in Oakland basically.

FARRELL: What are some of your early memories of East Oakland? If you remember, what cross streets you were on or maybe some of your sensory memories like sights or sounds or smells that you felt like were pretty emblematic of where you grew up?

HIRABAYASHI: Sure. I always like to specifically say East Oakland. I grew up near the main intersections of 90th and East 14th Streets. The street I actually lived on was Walnut Street between 90th to 92nd. The elementary school I went to is E. Morris Cox and I went to the nearby middle school, which was Elmhurst Junior High 00:02:00School. The high school that I was supposed be going to was Castlemont. Growing up there, from my memory, I always felt it was a safe neighborhood. It was really a changing neighborhood as far as demographics of those living there, a mixture of a lot of the immigrant families, Mexican, Portuguese, Italian, Asian, Chinese, Japanese, and white, and actually still was very mixed when I was very young. As I was just going through basically elementary school at that point, it really rapidly started changing to a predominantly Black neighborhood. During my later elementary school days and middle school days, the neighborhood drastically changed in that way basically. That's what I remember.

Our neighbors next to us, growing up, was a Mexican 00:03:00family and as young kids, it's very different than what it's like today. We were just out on the streets playing, just having fun after school on the weekends, and just hanging out with just different neighbors. Our playground was the streets and the sidewalks, and actually in the streets whether it's playing baseball or tag football or just running around the streets basically. It's just how we grew up as kids in the neighborhood.

I felt like one of my protectors was actually my neighbor who was again a Mexican family, but he was the oldest son there. He was a little bit older than I am. His sister and younger brother was about my age and the age my sister, so he was one that was, I felt, looking out for us basically as we were doing things, taking care of 00:04:00us in his own way. A big heavyset guy, but he was -- looking back -- he was like a gentle lamb who just took care of us. He would stand up for us whenever we were being challenged by other folks. I grew up with that. When he finished high school, he joined, I believe, it was the marines actually, and this was right when the Vietnam War was happening. Unfortunately, he was killed in Vietnam and so I never really saw him after that. Our families did stay in touch especially with his mom and dad. His dad had passed away early, but my mom and his mom really stayed in touch as we were growing up after. Anyway, that the neighborhood.

There were Japanese families in the area, but it's really spread apart. Naturally with our family, they were really connected to whatever Japanese 00:05:00families were there so that sort of our network of folks that we were really in touch with quite a bit, and they weren't necessarily in my immediate neighborhood but within a few blocks around. We pretty much knew who was around and we would always be helping them or they would be coming over and those kind of things or my parents would visit.

Growing up, my parents are, I guess what you would call Kibei, which means they were born here in United States, but their families -- both families -- went back to Japan early on, so they were raised in Japan from early childhood. All of their schooling was in Japan and then after their schooling, they came back to the US or were sent back. My grandparents on my mother's side never did come back after that, and my father's parents did come back. Basically after World War II, they would come back on occasion. 00:06:00But my father came back first and then my mother was sent back over here, and it was pretty much an arranged marriage between my father and mother at that time. She came back -- I believe it was around 1939 -- just before World War II broke out and she was in probably one of the last boats to come over from Japan that was allowed in. And actually, during the war she was interned. They were married and both my parents were interned in Topaz and so that's how they ended up there. I'm not quite sure exactly where they were living when they were first here. I know my mother's sister was here, the oldest sister was already here, and they were living in the San Mateo area, so they might've been helping them from that point over there.

FARRELL: Can you tell me your mother's name and some of your early memories of her?

HIRABAYASHI: Sure, her maiden name is, Shizue Miyagawa, and 00:07:00she was a small build woman. She's the middle of five kids, which is the like our family. In my family when I grew up, I'm the middle of five kids, so I really identified a lot with her. She had two older sisters and two younger brothers, a little bit reversed than me; I had two older brothers and two younger sisters. But she was vocal in her own way, motherly naturally, but a very strong woman, and had a lot of values that I feel really taught me at least about my own heritage of being Japanese American. She spoke primarily Japanese, and actually for her, it was a little bit difficult. She learned English as best she could and they were just to get around naturally, so she did speak. She wasn't totally non-English speaking, but you could tell that was not her first 00:08:00language. Growing up, she would -- most of the time -- will be speaking a lot of Japanese to us or at least to the older of us, my brothers and myself. When my sisters came along a little bit later, I think it was a bit more mixed Japanese, English. For me, I grew up listening a lot or being spoken to in Japanese and I would be responding primarily in English so that was my way of communicating with them. But my mom, she really valued the traditions of being Japanese and so things like -- what? At that time, we would celebrate what was called Boys' Day and Girls' Day, which is now referred to as Children's Day here. The New Year's naturally was a big event for family gathering. There were different foods that were made during that time. She would spend days laboring over making them, making sure all the different things were 00:09:00prepared. Those are all traditions that she really valued and felt was really important for us all to do.

She felt it was important for us to learn Japanese, so she required that we go to language school on Saturdays. I don't even know if my brothers actually went, perhaps they did, but I know me and my sisters had to go when we were growing up basically, so every Saturday morning basically, we had to go to language school. It ended up also where we were going to this one Japanese community center, after the language school, they would have church services. We're Buddhist, but the minister from the Oakland Buddhist temple would come there on Saturdays to give a service mainly to the kids there. They were involved with the Japanese language school and so that's how we got tied into the Buddhist temple pretty much within that respect. Also, because this was all taking 00:10:00place at the Eden Japanese American Community Center or the Japanese American Citizens League that was the main facilitator of that building, a lot of the activities there were built around the Japanese communities especially in the San Leandro, San Lorenzo area or the East Oakland area.

FARRELL: Do you know where in the US your mom was born?

HIRABAYASHI: In the Bay Area.

FARRELL: In the Bay Area.

HIRABAYASHI: Yeah. Her parents came to Oakland basically, so I believe it was the Oakland area.

FARRELL: Okay. Do you know what brought her parents here?

HIRABAYASHI: From my understanding, it was the farming, but she became involved, I believe, with a market, grocery type of activities, but they, from Japan, tied into the farming scene. My father's family definitely were farmers in Japan.

FARRELL: 00:11:00Okay. When your mom moved back to Japan, where was she living?

HIRABAYASHI: Yes, I forgot about that piece. Both my families, father and mother's side are from the Hiroshima area. My mother's family, it's probably a little bit closer to the center city of Hiroshima, at least at that time, and father's family were little bit more outside the area.

FARRELL: Do you have a sense of when she moved to Japan, like how old she was?

HIRABAYASHI: No, I just know that all of her schooling, so it had to be pre-elementary school, was in Japan. She did not go to school at all; both my dad and mom did not go to school here.

FARRELL: Did she ever talk to you about what it was like for her to go to school there and essentially spend her childhood and youth there?

HIRABAYASHI: Just a little bit because I guess for 00:12:00her, the memories of what Hiroshima was like at -- in that early days to what happened during -- after the atomic bomb and everything, she never really wanted to go back and really didn't want to talk much about that. She would make references on occasion, and if you know Hiroshima, at least right now, there's that historic monument, the building that they have preserved that to remember what happened with the atomic bomb. She would refer to the fact that, "Oh, you know my school was close by there and we would go by that building or there and a lot of my friends and families were in that area." Things like this. They definitely were tied into what was going on in that and then she would just say, "But all that's gone." For her, it was not something she wanted to try to bring up or remember.

FARRELL: Yeah, yeah. When you were growing up, did she work outside of the home?

HIRABAYASHI: 00:13:00No, she pretty much took care of the family and she did not really work, at least early on. After a while in order to help with the finances of the family, she would start to take on small jobs and things. It was things like sewing and then even going out and sort of like a housemaid, cleaning houses in different areas, but that didn't start until probably when I was in junior high school or something, I guess when naturally we were a little bit older. Up to that point, she didn't really drive and so wasn't able to really get around that much. At that point, I just remember she did finally get her license so that was like her big accomplishment, to get a license and pass that test and start driving and things, and actually, she was able take us more around. But I remember early when I was very young, elementary school, in order to go anyplace -- we lived in East 00:14:00Oakland but on occasion, we would go downtown to where the Chinatown and Japantown area was or the downtown stores -- and basically, we would take a bus all the way down there and come back. I just remember it being a really long trip. It probably wasn't that long, but for me just thinking of it as a long, long day trip to go out and do the shopping and come back home after that.

FARRELL: It's an excursion.

HIRABAYASHI: Yes, it was for me. [laughter]

FARRELL: How about your dad? Can you tell me his name and some of the early memories of him?

HIRABAYASHI: Sure my dad, his name is Yoshitomo Hirabayashi, again, also his family is from the Hiroshima area. His parents were more definitely farmers, so when they came here, they were actually in different areas. I know he had some connections with Palo Alto, so when he came back from schooling in Japan, that's where he ended up. He just had talked about 00:15:00where he was with a family and then he just said, "You know I was their houseboy, basically just doing the chores around the house." They let him live there and then took care of him while he was trying to get settled in. I believe early on, my grandparents, they came over as farmers. I know later on, they would come back on occasion after World War II to visit or just to perhaps live for a while, and they were farming or going out to work on farm, say like even Salinas or Watsonville, basically strawberry picking and that kind of the agricultural work. That's what I can remember of my grandparents in that sense from my father's side. His parents, actually, they came back and forth like I mentioned several times, but they ended up just going back to Japan and living there. They both 00:16:00passed away in Japan basically later.

My mother's parents I never met because I was told that when I was very young that they both passed away from cancer. Again, not until many years later, I finally pieced it together because I was told right after the atomic bomb happened, my grandfather -- my mother's father -- would go into the center city, like I mentioned, where they were doing a lot of things, looking for friends and relatives and trying to help. They both passed away, my grandparents on her side; her parents passed away from cancer early on.

FARRELL: Do you know how old your father was when he went to Japan? Because I know he went to school there and everything too, right?

HIRABAYASHI: Yeah. He was also preschool, I believe, when he 00:17:00went. From my understanding, his upbringing was in Japan also.

FARRELL: Okay, and did he ever talk about his experience there?

HIRABAYASHI: Just that in school, he would say -- well, in Japan during that time and this is like in the say -- especially when he was getting into junior high school and high school for him, so it must be in the '30, the late '30s or so, he would talk about, one of his favorite sports was actually kendo, the Japanese martial art, kendo, and so when he came over here, he actually came and brought his kendo stuff. He talked about when he was being interned, that was the first thing he had to destroy and get rid of because he knew he couldn't take it with him, even though he practiced with the sword they used, which is bamboo 00:18:00stick, he got rid of all that just thinking he didn't want to have people think that he was trying to do something. But that was his favorite thing that he grew up doing apparently.

Also during that time when he was at that age and in Japan, the military was really ramping up. They're invading in Manchuria and in China and things and so boys his age, or men his age, were naturally being drafted or taken away into the military, which I never really talked to him about this or my grandparents or things, but I'm assuming maybe that's why my grandparents wanted him to come back knowing that, well, he's an American citizens, so it's a little bit of a tough situation for him because he was born here, but to have to go and serve in the Japanese military at that time considering what was going on was not what they wanted. He was sent back pretty much right after high school as soon as he could leave 00:19:00 there.

FARRELL: When he came back to the States, do you have a sense of what he was doing for work?

HIRABAYASHI: That's when he was a kind of adopted into a family in the Palo Alto area and served the houseboy thing and just to get resettled and started at that point.

FARRELL: Oh, I see. Got it, okay. And then at a certain point, he started to work for Bethlehem Steel, right?

HIRABAYASHI: Yes, and that was after World War II after returning.

FARRELL: Okay, got it, great. Yeah, so he came back around '37--'38 and your mom came here at around '39, right?

HIRABAYASHI: Correct.

FARRELL: Okay, so they were married for a few years before incarceration?

HIRABAYASHI: Correct.

FARRELL: Yeah, okay. I can ask a few other questions about your family but do you -- since it's already come up -- do you feel like you want to talk about incarceration now 00:20:00or later?

HIRABAYASHI: Yeah, I guess it doesn't matter because again, my parents really did not share much about that whole experience, just little bits and pieces. At that time when they were incarcerated, they both were pretty much just Japanese speaking and so I know they just said it was difficult for them because people would question where their loyalty was. Because some even though they're US citizens, because they hardly spoke English, people wondered, well, you grew up in Japan, so where would you end up or what's your choice, where do you belong?

My father has a brother -- well he's passed on -- but he has a younger brother and so my uncle, he actually was actually in the military intelligence, MIS. He served during World War II in the 00:21:00military intelligence. My father didn't do that, and that was I think unfortunately it was actually a big disagreement for my father and his brother about what happened for him to be involved with that. To the extent that growing up when I was very young, I didn't even know I had an uncle because my father stopped talking to his brother and so I had no clue until much later. It wasn't until almost high school that I found out that we had an uncle.

FARRELL: Do you have a sense of what the argument was about?

HIRABAYASHI: I think one of the key things -- again, I'm just speculating -- my uncle in military intelligence and he was in the Pacific theater since he was bilingual, English, Japanese. Actually, when the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, my father's parents were 00:22:00there and so my father really questioned how could you let that happen. My uncle had no control of that naturally, but he was just basically, "How could you let that happen?" I think and that along with other things perhaps, it was just really a difficult situation.

FARRELL: Yeah.

HIRABAYASHI: It's like the civil war that happened here in the US where families, brothers were separated simply because of political line in a way unfortunately or an incident.

FARRELL: Sure, yeah. I was going to ask if -- because your parents with their Hiroshima connection and then they were incarcerated, so it's like a double whammy -- but if that impacted their feelings about the US or if they ever talked about it?

HIRABAYASHI: My parents, even though they were culturally and linguistically very 00:23:00Japanese, they felt they were very American and so no, I never heard them really question or say, "It was a mistake for us to be here, we should've stayed." I never heard that at all. Again, my father's parents would come back and forth and so I'm sure there probably would've been an opportunity for my parents to go back and follow them, but they never did to the extent that both my mother and father never went back to Japan until -- my father never went back. The only time he went back was when his father passed away, and so naturally he went back being the oldest son to take care to funeral, but he only was there for a very short time just to do that and came back. My mother, she would not -- she didn't even go on that trip, she didn't want to go, and it wasn't until much later, even after my father passed away, that finally my 00:24:00sisters convinced her we should go to Japan just to see what's left there. My younger sisters and her went at later -- much later on.

FARRELL: Do you know how old she was when she went?

HIRABAYASHI: Gee whiz, I have to ask my sisters, but she had to be probably late seventies, early eighties perhaps.

FARRELL: Okay, so it took a long time.

HIRABAYASHI: Yeah, it took a long time.

FARRELL: Yeah. When you were mentioning that there was some distrust, that when they were in Topaz, there were people who were bilingual and were distrusting [of them] because they really only spoke Japanese?

HIRABAYASHI: Right.

FARRELL: Did they ever talk about their experience there and what that was like to be questioned?

HIRABAYASHI: No, I guess both my mother and father, they would say, "It was just cold, it was dusty, it was 00:25:00dirty, it's very hard." Both my brothers actually were born in the camp there. My oldest brother was born in '43 and my next brother was born in '45, so it was just before they left the internment camp. Actually, giving birth and having young children like that there was just, probably I'm sure, even harder for them in a different way. I guess there were rumors that perhaps at the time that if you have children, young children, then your chances of having to go and be drafted like others were being that were less, that you would be released. I'm not quite sure if that's the reason why they had my brothers in internment, maybe it was, but my father was never a person to talk about wanting to be in the military or 00:26:00being supportive or something like that. He just didn't like any of that, both my parents and so they're, if you want to say, pacifist in a way. They just didn't not like violence in that way, and so they just would not talk about it or would not deal with it all really.

FARRELL: Did your mom ever talk about what it was like for her to be pregnant in the camp?

HIRABAYASHI: No, other than in fact that it was just hard to get, naturally, resources that you would need in order to have a baby and raise a child, that food, milk whatever was not always available.

FARRELL: Yeah, and did she ever talk about the medical care?

HIRABAYASHI: No, not really no. I don't remember any of that.

FARRELL: Yeah, and what's your sense of the impact that incarceration had on 00:27:00 them?

HIRABAYASHI: As Japanese-speaking citizens here, I just felt that they really wanted to make sure we, the children, understood who we were as Japanese, Japanese American, and so that's why the language, culture things were really important. But they really wanted us to understand that we are Americans and so they never talked about, "Oh, we should make a trip to Japan, so you can see your ancestors," type of thing; that never came up at all. For one, probably because we never had the money to do something like that, perhaps, but it was never an option to think about even though my father's parents were coming and going back and forth a bit. It was always not really encouraged at all 00:28:00that that you should go to Japan just to learn about your family and history and whatever. But naturally we were, like I mentioned, expected to learn Japanese in language school and things like this and so they felt that was really important that we do that. Growing up at that point though for me is like, well, okay, you've got to do this but I'm not -- why? It never really stuck and that's unfortunate. Most of my friends my age, a lot of us had to do that. We were in language school and we were just all, "Okay, we're here, but well, whatever." We didn't really pay attention unfortunately as much as we should have perhaps.

But again, I guess some even now, I can basically understand most fundamental conversations because of the conversations I was always having with my parents. When my wife PJ and I, like many times, I'll understand more about the 00:29:00conversation if someone is speaking that it's in Japanese that then she would. But she lived in Japan for a period of time, so her speaking ability is much better than I because I refuse to respond in Japanese, so I never do. We communicate with Japanese friends -- I am listening to what they say and she's responding [laughs]. That's the way we were, PJ and I. But again, it's like my parents, they really wanted us to understand that the culture for us was really important, but we needed to also understand that we were living there in America and here in the United States and to understand what that meant to be that and to do our best. Naturally, education was a high priority for them for us to do well in school; they really emphasized that. Both my parents did all they could I believe for all of 00:30:00us, me and my siblings, to get the education that they thought we should try to get.

My oldest brother and my two younger sisters, they all went to Cal [UC Berkeley] and graduated from Cal Berkeley, so they're Cal grads. My other brother, he went to what was called Cal State Hayward. I think it's Cal State East Bay right now. But he went there for little bit but never really finished school there, but he just basically began working after that. But all of that was still important, to do well and to support your family as best as possible in that sense.

FARRELL: Yeah. When they came back to the Bay Area after Topaz closed -- because they were at the camp until it closed in '46, right?

HIRABAYASHI: Pretty much, I believe so.

FARRELL: Okay, so when they came back to the Bay Area -- I 00:31:00think when we had talked before, you mentioned that they had a hard time finding housing and so they were really only able to find a place on the naval base in Alameda.

HIRABAYASHI: Correct.

FARRELL: And your brothers were there too, and it sounds like they were there at least for five years because that's where they living when you were born. Did they ever talk about what that was like to live on the naval base?

HIRABAYASHI: My dad never did, but my mom would just say, "People just didn't like us there" and things like this. Even my brother, my oldest brother who was at that time young, getting into kindergarten and he didn't even speak English when he entered kindergarten. He will even talk about, "Yeah, living in Alameda at that time was really hard, people didn't know who we were, they didn't trust 00:32:00us, and just gave us a hard time."

There's a Buddhist temple in Alameda, so the minister there at that time was really the ones that helped my parents and family at that time to get through all of that. They're very supportive in helping them resettle, just providing whatever help necessary and especially since my mom had two young kids and everything. Again, it was tying into the Japanese community those that they knew in order to help each other, and that's how they supported each other to survive basically. It wasn't a larger community at all. My father, he had started to [work at Bethlehem Steel]. Bethlehem Steel was based in Alameda and so that's how he started working there. The steel company was basically around where the naval station was and so that's how he started working there basically early on. But in order 00:33:00to just support the family, my father always did a side job. He basically was a gardener on the side and so after working his shift at the steel plant, he would go out and do a round working in different homes, working on their yards and things.

There's a lot of Kibei families. When they came back, that's the business or that's occupation they got into. A lot of them were barely bilingual, primary Japanese speaking, and that was their main skill set they could really do to learn a living was to do gardening, or if they're lucky, get into landscaping type of work. Our network of family friends was basically all gardeners from Japan. I remembered growing up. All their children were my friends and we all grew up together the same way 00:34:00basically. For us, we didn't really think of it as being something different or bad, we just understood that was what our fathers did, and that's the way they supported us. I guess the only thing we do remember is that we all had to go out and help our fathers during that time, which we didn't all like to do, and so, which is one reason I will do gardening and I guess I'm okay at it, but I hate it. [laughs] So that's what it is.

FARRELL: Yeah, that's funny. [laughter] By working at Bethlehem Steel and then on the side as a gardener, your family was about able to save enough money and then eventually moved to East Oakland?

HIRABAYASHI: Yes.

FARRELL: Yeah, yeah. I do want to ask a little bit about your brothers too because we haven't talked about your brothers or your sisters. Can you tell me a little bit about [your brothers]? Your two older brothers' names and some of your early 00:35:00memories of them?

HIRABAYASHI: Sure. There's about an eight-year difference between me and my oldest brothers. His name is Yoshito. Actually, when he was born, he only had a first name, was his Japanese name, Yoshito Hirabayashi and then later on -- I need to ask him how he came up with the English name of Steve -- but basically his English name is Steve; he goes more by Steve. My other brother, he also only had a Japanese first name, Osamu, but he went by the name of Sam, which sounds like Osamu, I guess. But that's why I need to ask Steve how he got Steve out of Yoshito. They were more closer together because again they both were born in camp just a couple years apart and so growing up for them, they were 00:36:00always close in activities and friends and just doing things in school even and overlapping in school, even, versus me where there's eight years' difference and almost six years' difference between my other brother. I never overlapped with any schooling with them at all; they were always ahead of me. My younger sisters, the sister just below me is not even quite two years apart from me, and then my youngest sister, I believe, just about six years apart from us.

FARRELL: What are their names?

HIRABAYASHI: Oh, my sister under me is Kimie and my youngest sister is June.

FARRELL: Were you given a Japanese name?

HIRABAYASHI: Yes, I have. My first name is Roy, but my middle name is Japanese. Both my sisters have Japanese middle names basically and so it was much different than my older brothers' situation as far as names. How I ended up with a name Roy as a first 00:37:00name? I only could think of the fact that -- and my father never really admitted this, or my mom -- but he loved cowboy western music for some reason. Maybe because of working at Bethlehem Steel, I'm not sure, but he would listen to that a lot. Actually early on, Roy Rogers was a big western show and that's the only reason I could think of how I ended up with Roy. Anyway, I don't know.

FARRELL: That's really interesting, too. With your early life, we had talked about how Japanese was the dominant language at home and your parents had a Kibei community. I'm thinking about the stuff I'm familiar with, more contemporarily, like I live in San Francisco and in the 00:38:00Mission [neighborhood], there's a lot of shops where Spanish is the most dominant language. Because your parents were primarily Japanese speakers, were there any stores, or did that dictate where they shopped or their patterns of who they were supporting, where they were going, and where they felt welcomed, that kind of thing? Do you have any knowledge of that?

HIRABAYASHI: Growing up, well no, actually, I guess in the Chinatown, Oakland Chinatown, it was kind of a Japantown area. I think, again, my mother's parents -- my grandparents -- that's where they were, in that area working. There was a Japanese market there that I remember going to when were very young and that's where they would go to pick up their Japanese grocery supplies. When I was growing up in Oakland, there used to be this one man 00:39:00who would drive around -- and I'm not sure if he's independent or who he actually worked for -- but he had a truck. He would drive to the neighborhood and know which Japanese families, where they were, and he would stop in front of the house and then honk his horn, and my mom would go out and he would open up the sides. He would have the Japanese vegetables, the tofu, fish, and all kinds of things. When that started happening, my mom wouldn't have to really go downtown to pick up things because she could get it off of this truck that would come about once a week or something and supply all those basic things. I just remember that happening when I was much younger too because it was just like, wow, all this stuff, you just see it on the truck that was going on. I know that was at least for the Japanese families in our neighborhood, they pretty much depended on that truck to come 00:40:00by and help deliver the Japanese goods to them and that was happening for them in that way.

FARRELL: You had also mentioned that your family is Buddhist and were involved with some of the local temples. Can you tell me a little bit more about your family, what the role of Buddhism or being part of that community played while you were growing up?

HIRABAYASHI: Sure. It wasn't like at home that they really made us study the religion in a sense, but at least for me and my younger sisters, we were required to go to these services as I mentioned early. I don't think my brothers really had to do that as much; they were growing up in a whole different situation, I believe, unfortunately. For us 00:41:00though, naturally, we had a Buddhist altar in our home and things like this, and so my mom would -- especially for memorial services for her parents and things and holidays -- she would always have that set up. She would be telling us, "Well, we need to honor our ancestors," so we'd be doing this. Once I started naturally going to the church services, the ministers would talk more about that. For me, the church actually became a great peer network place because that's where I started meeting a lot of [Japanese people] besides those gardener kids who we grew up with but actually doing things. From the temple and in the language school basically, and the youth programs there that we were getting involved with 00:42:00 basically.

Those families up, especially in the San Leandro, San Lorenzo area, a lot of those families were tied into the flower-growing business and also the agricultural world in a way. Again, a lot of those folks are also Kibei and so it was kind of real similar backgrounds that all of us were sharing in that respect. But the church, I guess I felt really was providing that anchor for me as far as understanding what community was all about and how important it was to really support each other within the context of what community is. Doing things together, activities, just helping each other generationally, but with your seniors, your grandparents and just your own parents and your own family.

FARRELL: Teaching the values of respecting your elders, making sure you're taking care of 00:43:00 them?

HIRABAYASHI: Right.

FARRELL: Yeah, respect, that kind of thing. Was language school through the temple?

HIRABAYASHI: No, the language school is tied to -- I've just mentioned that the community center I went to was sponsored by the JACL, the Japanese American Citizens League, and so it was from that but hosted there.

FARRELL: Okay, that makes sense. How long did you attend language school for?

HIRABAYASHI: I started when I was in elementary school. I think I stopped when I was maybe like a junior in high school.

FARRELL: Okay, so for a long time?

HIRABAYASHI: Yeah.

FARRELL: Yeah, especially as you get older, it's like extra school, so it's hard to be motivated to want to go. But do you feel like that later in life that that chunk of time you spent at language school was useful to you?

HIRABAYASHI: Yes, looking 00:44:00back, yes, because like I said, certain words or phrases that I understand, and I can piece it together basically the conversation and real simple, basic conversations. I'm glad that we had that experience even though again I didn't enjoy it at the time. Later on, actually, when I got into doing Taiko more, that became really helpful in that way.

FARRELL: Right. You also were involved with youth services through high school as well. Was that something that you chose to keep participating in through high school, or was that something your parents wanted you to do, or was it both?

HIRABAYASHI: By then, it was really more my choice in a way I guess. Most of those affiliate to what was happening to the church and the youth organizations at the temple, and 00:45:00the ministers there getting us involved in service projects in different ways, or also the adult advisors helping do different things. I just remember early on in, say, junior high school and high school, we would do things like go to the -- I guess it's still there in Berkeley -- there's a school of blind and deaf there. I'm sure the name probably has changed since then, but anyway, we would go there to do service projects to work with different students there also just to interchange with them. Later on, working with seniors, really got involved with that, mainly did the first generation Japanese who were still living in the area to help them in different ways.

FARRELL: You mentioned a couple times that the Eden Township Center, the 00:46:00affiliation with the JACL community center, and that you had spent a lot of time there. What were some of the activities you were participating in, and what was the significance of that for you?

HIRABAYASHI: Well, most of it again was around the language school and the church services. They would also, in order to support the community center, have an annual bazaar or their fundraiser. Since we were doing our activities there, we would go and help at those events. Because the minister was from the Oakland Buddhist temple, whenever they were doing their Obon or bazaar and things like this, we would be going to that to help in different ways, mochitsuki at the Oakland temple early on. But as I mentioned, my parents, because they came back from interment, the Alameda Buddhist temple was such a big help to them and they tried to support that temple also as much as 00:47:00possible. I just remember also going to that temple for different events because my parents would go there to help in whatever way they could. I wasn't really helping at that point, I think I was just more running around having a great time, but we would just spend time at that temple too. But just basically learning or seeing there was that sense of community and what the Japanese community was doing in different ways. The Alameda temple, the Oakland temple, and then the Eden Township Community Center kind of grounded me on what that meant to be Japanese American and that sense of community.

FARRELL: And service, did that play a role at all too?

HIRABAYASHI: Definitely because just helping people and just understanding how important it was to be able to help others because I think that was one thing my parents really understood because so many people helped 00:48:00them when they were having their hardships just surviving, too. They knew that without the help of others, they would have never made it here and so they would always do their best to help people in whatever way they could. Growing up even too, early on, my mom, she was like -- I guess going back to wanting to us to be the American way, so to speak, she got us into scouting. My brother just above me, Sam, he got into Boy Scouts before I did and then he actually went all the way to Eagle Scout, so he was really involved with it. For me when I got into scouting as a Cub Scout early on, my mom actually became a den mother in order to help support that and then when my sisters got into girl scouting and then she was helping them in doing that 00:49:00too. For her, it was just doing what it took to help us do what we were trying to understand and be involved within the community in different ways.

FARRELL: Yeah. I feel like that also weaves into your work later in life, too, with those aspects of community service and things like that.

HIRABAYASHI: Sure, yes.

FARRELL: I am curious to hear a little bit more about some of the rituals or significant celebrations in your family, Japanese American or otherwise. You had mentioned that food was a really big deal especially on New Year's. Do you remember some of the foods that your mom would prepare for that celebration?

HIRABAYASHI: My mother's older sister lived in San Mateo and so growing up for us, it was 00:50:00basically her family. I have three cousins in that family and then there's our family with the five kids. The major holidays, it was those two families that came together, usually, for especially New Year's or even early on, it was Thanksgiving. But the New Year's was the biggest event, and so. I remember early on every year, it would be alternating. We would go to my aunt's house one year, the next year, we'll be at our house, and we'd be going back and forth. Between my mom and my aunt, they would be making all the different foods that we would be having for the dinner and it was all the more traditional things like, the sushi and whatever, but there was also the different specialty Japanese foods that's really more for good luck and longevity and wealth and whatever else. You name it, they had some kind of a little item you're supposed to eat on New Year's 00:51:00Day in order to be a healthy and wise and whatever. They would be making all those different things every New Year's basically.

My sisters and I actually started to try to learn some of that as best as possible, and when it came later, actually when my mother and my auntie were getting older, they were saying, "Well, it's just really hard for them to do that." My cousins from my aunt's side -- my aunt and uncle's side -- were much older than I because they're older than my brother, and so they're much older. It was decided that the within the cousins -- basically there was eight of us -- that we would rotate every year to host the New Year's dinner so my aunt and my mom wouldn't have to do that. In that rotation every year, we would be 00:52:00responsible for one special Japanese dish that we had to prepare, so we would learn how to do that and be part of it. You only had to host once every eight years for the entire family, and we did that for several rounds actually, but that was for us to really try to keep the sense of family and the tradition going.

Looking back, I think when we first started, PJ and I had just gotten married and we started implementing. We were in our mid-twenties and actually my cousins were much older. Looking back, I guess at that time, my mom was only in her fifties, but she was saying, "I'm getting too old." Here I am seventy-one right now and she actually cut out early on things, you know? [laughs] Because much later, we're still doing it way past how old they were when they quit basically. Anyway, it was 00:53:00a wise thing for us to try to take on that responsibility and so my aunt and my mom were very crafty and wise in getting us to do that. But that was the shared experience that we all grew up trying to do so that was really something that was really important. Even though they weren't in charge, my aunt and my mother, naturally, they were definitely in charge when it came to directing how things were being cooked in and quick to tell us when it wasn't right. But that's how we were learning. They still, naturally, were making a lot of specialty dishes that some of us said, "Well, we really don't need that, right." They said, "No, you do," and so they would make it to make sure we had it at New Years. Our tradition, our family really lasted quite a while because that. Unfortunately, because they've all passed on and even 00:54:00some of my cousins have passed on, it doesn't really happen anymore in our family in that way.

FARRELL: Did you have a favorite dish to help prepare or learn how to prepare or inversely to eat? [laughter]

HIRABAYASHI: I loved everything, and so naturally, I would help my mom make the sushi and things like this. Tempura, I love to do that, and making the fried things and learned. Because my brothers didn't get involved with the cooking, I really wanted to learn and did get involved with all that. Again my sisters also, and they were starting to learn all that. I wish I had learned more of the other specialty dishes that was important. I'm aware of it. I guess if I had to make it between my wife and I, we could probably do that still, but it's not something we always 00:55:00do. Markets now, you could basically buy all that preprepared now fortunately, so you really don't have to make it or go through that trouble, but you can still have it. But I enjoyed everything from the black beans and the azuki beans, all that, so everything else.

FARRELL: Well tempura, it's hard, it's not the easiest thing.

HIRABAYASHI: No, the other thing that we started doing -- and I really wanted to take it on -- was making mochi, the rice cakes, every year. That's something my family didn't do actually growing up -- that was something that was more of a temple activity. We would go to the temple to help there. It's not something we did at home. But I decided early on that's something I want us as a family to do and so I started to collect the equipment to do 00:56:00that. That's some things that I still tried to do. The past two years, unfortunately, because of COVID we were not able to get together, but my brother and sisters would still try to get together to do that.

FARRELL: Did you use a press or did use the stone to do it by hand?

HIRABAYASHI: Yeah, no, we were using machines, so it was not like the pounding.

FARRELL: Okay, still it's a lot of work either way.

HIRABAYASHI: Yes.

FARRELL: Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing all that. Were there any other holidays or times during the year that were particularly important to your family when you were growing up?

HIRABAYASHI: Well, I mentioned the Boys' Day and Girls' Day, and my father's parents or my grandmother on that side -- she was the one that really encouraged it a bit. Because when we were going up every year, I know I remember for my sisters or for me and my brothers, she would send over some item that was part of that display that you would 00:57:00put up for that. I always look forward or wondered what is it that she's going to send this time. There was a collection of the different things -- there's one for Girls' Day and a separate one for Boys' Day -- that my mother would put up every year in our home. It became a large collection actually and so inviting friends over and things like this. I even remember when my younger sister was in elementary school, her class coming to the house just to see the display and things like this. That was something my mother was really proud of to have and showing off and different things. Celebrating the Boys' and Girls' Days with those things was really a big deal and an important part of what happened every year too. I would have to say those two days along with New Year's, those three events were for my mom at home, the real critical 00:58:00 things.

We knew about Obon. We would go actually, but it was not something that was, I guess when I was younger, that I was really involved with actively. I didn't get really active in doing that until I came to San Jose and started college here and gotten involved with the temple here in San Jose. Understanding what that meant to be involved with Obon services and the celebration in the summer and understanding what that meant basically.

FARRELL: That makes sense, yeah. Starting down the path where you're getting towards San Jose, I did want to talk a little bit about your education. You went to grade school in East Oakland and that's also when you started to play music as well. I'm wondering if you could tell me a 00:59:00little about -- and at the beginning, too, you mentioned, which schools you went to, but in elementary school and junior high, can you tell me little bit about your experience?

HIRABAYASHI: Sure. Well elementary school, I guess depending on when you were born, you could start in January or start in September. I remember starting in that midyear of January for kindergarten. Although I was somewhat Japanese and English-speaking -- still Japanese was the dominant language that I hearing a lot -- I just remember going and starting and then a lot of my pronunciation for English was not correct. Early on, my teachers were always trying to correct me and telling me that I wasn't always able to speak 01:00:00correctly and so I was required to -- like in first, second, even third grade -- having to go to speech classes basically just to correct my pronunciation and things. For me, I didn't understand why that was until I realized much later it's because my mom, that's way she talked and so naturally, that's the way we talk. Certain words in English how she would pronounce was very Japanese and so that's how we would say things. I remember particularly the word "brother" and the word "butter," basically it would sound the same, and that's how my mom would -- for her it was same pronunciation. She knows it's different things, but it sounded the same. That's the one thing I realized early on and I ended up I think because of that 01:01:00split of being held back and being in first grade for year and a half in order to, I guess, suppose you kind of catch up, so to speak.

But it was in elementary school, it was in third grade that I started to play music. They had public music programs, which was great then, so I started playing on the trombone basically. I might have mentioned to you the reason I started with that instrument, even though I was really small and short and not very long arms and things, was the instrument for whatever reason, my oldest brother had started playing. We had this trombone at home, and actually, he had already stopped playing at that point. My mom says, "Well, you should learn an instrument, and here we have this, so learn this." So I started with that instrument to play. I enjoyed music, it was always fun and gotten in trouble sometimes because of 01:02:00that, maybe because I just liked it too much basically and things.

There's one story I like to tell for my elementary school experience of playing music. Here we're very young, fourth grade or something I guess it was, and there, I think three other friends who were playing music. We decided it will be kind of fun to play Dixieland music, so just to learn and just jam. We decided, here in elementary school right, that during lunchtime we were going to and the auditorium was cafetorium -- the same thing -- but there was a stage and it was a cafeteria. But during lunchtime, we went on the stage, got our instruments out, and we wanted to start playing "When the Saints Came Marching In," supposedly in our mind Dixieland style. We sounded horrible I'm sure, but we were trying to do this. We started playing and soon the vice principal comes 01:03:00up and starts yelling, "You can't do this, what are you doing?" We just, "Well, we wanted just to play." He says, "Well, you can't do this, so you have to report back here after school, I want you to come back here." We thought, oh man, we're really in trouble here. After school, we came back, and the vice principal says, "You can't be playing like this because it's during lunchtime. You should only do it in your class, and plus, you weren't playing it right." There was a piano there, so he sits down on the piano and says, "Okay, let's try it again." He starts playing the piano with us, and so it was a great experience. We got in trouble, but we're still playing music, so there must be a good thing about this, you know?

FARRELL: Yeah. Well, the timing of it and because in the grand scheme of trouble that kids can get in, that's really benign.

HIRABAYASHI: Yeah. I had to tell that story because that was a pivotal 01:04:00point in music for me It's like here was a person, a vice principal who could've just really yelled at us and just made us stop and not want to do music anymore, just saying, "You got to learn to do it right and this is how." That was a great experience for me that carried me through beyond that, after that point basically, and I think one reason is I really wanted to pursue it a little more. That was really, I feel, the launch of my music career even at that early age.

FARRELL: Did you feel like aside from him, your band teachers, people were supportive?

HIRABAYASHI: Early on, elementary school naturally and even when I'd start junior high school, when I first started junior high school, there were pretty much western white male 01:05:00band instructors, kind of your typical -- I guess looking back when it was being taught at that time from that style. I mean they're great teachers, they taught me stuff. It wasn't until I guess the eighth grade, my band teacher had to leave, so they brought in a new music teacher to my junior high school where I was at, and that was the Elmhurst Junior High School. His name was William "Bill" Bell and he came in, he had just graduated from college. I think he went to Ohio State. A Black man, very young, and so he just kind of took over. He started a jazz program and that's when I really started to say, "Wow, this is really different stuff and really interesting." He really got a lot of us really more excited about playing music 01:06:00 basically.

FARRELL: Yeah, I feel like that's really important. As you were talking, I was thinking about -- because I grew up playing violin and piano and ended up stopping later on in high school because it was just so classical music focused where we knew that there was a whole other world out there and why aren't we learning that, so it was way less interesting. It's interesting to hear that you had somebody who was like let me show you this other genre of music and what's possible where it's many influences and not the typical western, this is what you should be playing kind of thing.

HIRABAYASHI: Right.

FARRELL: How old were you when you started playing piano?

HIRABAYASHI: I think I started probably in elementary schools. Maybe about sixth grade or something I started to play. Definitely I was in junior high school, I was taking piano lessons, and again, that was all strictly western classical. My music teacher, I still remember the way she looked. To me, she looked like she was ninety years old at that time. She probably 01:07:00wasn't, but she was this older, white really thin, wry-looking, white woman but very very intense on the classical form, especially Bach. She was really strict on scales and technique and everything, which was important, so I feel that was really good but at that point, my musical interest was shifting, so it was not what I wanted to be playing. But I hung in there doing there doing lessons because of the fundamentals basically and I feel that was important too. But again on the side, I was just more interested in just doing other kind of stuff.

FARRELL: With the trombone -- and I know piano is percussion -- but were you ever at that point inclined to start learning other instruments aside from piano and trombone?

HIRABAYASHI: No, those are just the two 01:08:00simply. That was a lot and I felt especially the trombone was definitely my primary instrument. When I got into high school, my music teacher at the high school plus I continued with private lessons from my junior high school teacher because that was his instrument too, it happened to be, it was trombone, so I was taking private lessons from him. They both, my high school teacher and my junior high school teacher, would help me get into other orchestras beside the high school orchestra. They really encouraged me just to play in different ways, and so that was really my main instrument. Yeah, I didn't feel I had time or really there was not much of an interest to learn another instrument at that point.

FARRELL: I mean that makes sense, yes, yeah. You ended up going to Skyline High for high school. Can you tell me a little bit 01:09:00about how you ended up going there?

HIRABAYASHI: Sure. Well, the middle school, Elmhurst by the time I was there, was pretty much a Black school at that point, and so it was getting to be really kind of a tough area of school-wise. I was always being challenged by different kids there just simply for who I was. I felt being a little bit smaller kind of guy, being Japanese, not Black, and just more into music and other kinds of things like that, whatever it might be. I tried to excel naturally academically so naturally some kids really gave me a bad time because of that.

In junior high school, there was one day -- this is just before I was graduating from junior high school in ninth grade -- I was walking home, and I got jumped on by two students from this middle school and they just kind of roughed me 01:10:00up. At that point, my mom, she was naturally very upset, so we went back to school, reported it to the principal and things like this. Then my counselor said to me and to my mom, "Well, you're going to be graduating here, you're going to be leaving and going on to high school, and you're supposed to go to Castlemont, but maybe you might want to consider going to this other high school instead in Skyline." I was graduating middle school in 1966, and so again, things were blurry what was happening. I knew about the Civil Rights Movement was happening, but '64 was the civil rights bill was passed and so the schools had to start integrating at that point, and so that's exactly what was going on in Oakland basically. Skyline was pretty much an all-white school and so I was probably one of the first of students to be bused up there 01:11:00basically that was from what we called the flatlands from where I lived. Those who were not in the Skyline district to go up there and so that's how I ended up going up there.

But the bus I took, I would have to go to Castlemont, which was at that time pretty much an all-Black school. The bus I took would go right past Castlemont, and so on getting on the bus, there was Castlemont kids on there, and they would get off at Castlemont, and I would stay on, so they knew where I was going basically and coming home was kind of the same thing. I was on the bus, and they would be getting on, so they knew where I was coming from. That's what it was basically.

Going up to an all-white school, it was really a little bit of a shock and adjustment, just it wasn't my neighborhood, it wasn't kind of the 01:12:00stuff. But again, music was my interest, and they had a great orchestra, they had a great music director there, and he really helped and taught me a lot also, so that was the thing I really latched on to. I just did a lot of music up there, from mainly orchestra stuff but I got into the jazz band there and things like this because I was continuing to do work with my middle and high school teacher too. That was my interest at that point.

But it was kind of a tough time because remembering Martin Luther King was assassinated in '68, I was in high school still at that time and there was a lot of activity just going on at the area. Prior to that, at UC Berkeley, the Free Speech Movement in the mid-s'60s, the antiwar movements was gearing up. I knew when I was turning 01:13:00eighteen -- that's when they implemented the draft lottery system for Vietnam. I was in that first lottery system for the draft when I was turning eighteen. All of that was on my mind during high school and getting out at that point.

FARRELL: What were your memories of the day that Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated?

HIRABAYASHI: I probably was in the class at Skyline and then our teacher just announced the news, which was a shock, especially for us of color up there. We're were just, "Oh, wow, this is kind of messed up," whereas most of the white kids there just says, "Oh, oh well." In my mind, I'm thinking, God, how am I going to get home, what's it going to like when I go home, what's happening down 01:14:00there? Going to Skyline was like in this fairyland thing almost because it was just such a totally different environment from where home was. Home was where the Panthers were patrolling the streets and was this very mixed community of color, and so naturally home was where my parents and our Japanese heritage was. That was not where Skyline was at. To me, I had a lot of questions when that happened, I didn't know what was going to happen next. Was there going to be this riot, were people are just going to be tearing up Oakland and would they come up the hill to where we are in Skyline? Or how do I get home, and even if I got home, do I come back here tomorrow, what should I do? type of 01:15:00things. It was really challenging I felt at that time. It was a little bit of a scary moment that was going on.

FARRELL: Do you remember what it was like? Did you end up getting home by bus?

HIRABAYASHI: Yes.

FARRELL: As you were coming back into neighborhood, was there anything out of the ordinary that was happening?

HIRABAYASHI: Fortunately, not really at that point. In the other parts of the city, naturally, things were starting to get agitated but fortunately where we were, it wasn't all that bad.

FARRELL: How did you end up navigating that, with the uncertainty around how you were going to get home, what it was going to be like, and then if you were going to back the next day?

HIRABAYASHI: Yeah. Most of the students that were growing up from my neighborhood naturally were Black growing up, 01:16:00so connecting with them when they're getting on this bus especially when those we were just started talking together and saying, "What do we do up here and how is this going to work and things and what should we be thinking about when we're on campus and how do we deal with this?" I remember this one friend who said, "We just got to have to kind of walk what we feel the right way and just hold up our head and just do what we have to do." For me, I admired him and said, "Man, that's so easy for you to say, but I don't know if can. I'm not sure if I'm that brave to do that." But I guess for him to be Black and to avoid that whole experience for him, it just empowered him to say we have to be strong, that's what this is all 01:17:00about. It's kind of a learning experience for me on that, that learning experience didn't happen right away. I hadn't really taken in and think about it and understand what that meant for me.

FARRELL: Yeah, and how did that impact you later on having had that experience?

HIRABAYASHI: Well, it impacted me when I was leaving high school and coming down to San Jose State, realizing this huge antiwar movement was going on on campus. Students were boycotting classes, professors were boycotting classes, they weren't even showing up themselves. All you heard was every single day, the antiwar rallies were going on, different segments of the minority communities were there, were just doing things, and it was the start of the Asian American and ethnic studies. Different groups were coming together, the Black students were organizing, the Latino students were organizing, and just all 01:18:00kinds stuff like that was going on at the same time. It was just this cultural shock for me just to realize, wow, I need to really understand who I am as a Japanese American. At that time, Asian American was very new term, it was just starting to come out, and so just trying to understand what does that mean to be Asian American even. It's how do you deal with this thing being a so-called hyphenated Asian American or hyphenated Japanese American, and how do you define that, what does that mean?

I just jumped into the whole scene basically. There were all these different people, and there's a lot of students on campus that was just starting to organize and just attending these different things and just listening to what was happening. I got really involved with the 01:19:00start-up of the Asian American Studies program at San Jose State because of that, just realizing this is really important, more important than other things I thought were important for life. It really shifted me in thinking in that way. Asian American Studies, when we're starting it up, also was not just the academic program, but we were concerned about the communities that we're representing where our families came from. For us, especially at San Jose State, the largest Asian community was actually Japantown, which is not that far away from the campus. Especially those of us were from Japanese American background, for us was really a key thing to connect with. Becoming involved and just trying to understand what's missing, what can we do to help Japantown and San Jose become a better place and connect to 01:20:00 that.

We started to do outreach programs into the community to establish that. We're all students, naturally there was a lot of questions from the local folks, who are you, why are you here, you didn't grow up here, what's your interest, what are you trying to do, and why and things like this? But we were able to convince a lot of folks that our intentions were honest and good and we just basically wanted to do different things to help in whatever way. One of the first programs that we really start to help launch, which was also starting up in other communities was the servicing the seniors, the Issei, the first generation, many of them who were just Japanese speaking, didn't have a lot of resources and so wanting to help support those folks by just providing recreational programs and things like 01:21:00this, just taking them out on an outing someplace. Programs in San Francisco were starting at the same time, Kimochi, and in the East Bay is a group started there was the East Bay Japanese for Action, now called J-Sei. My brothers and sisters were actually starting to get involved with the J-Sei program, they start there and actually my mom was very active with them. We're all just doing different things in different ways and on that same line.

FARRELL: Yeah, and well, I want to talk more about all of this a little bit more in depth when we get to San Jose State, but before we get further into that, a couple other things: during that time, you had mentioned that Free Speech Movement, and while you were in high school, your brother was at Cal and you would sometimes go to campus and see Mario Savio speaking. Is that right?

HIRABAYASHI: Yeah, I 01:22:00mean, actually the Free Speech Movement was, what, '64, '66 period? I was actually in middle school, junior high school, and my mom insisted that I needed to really study more and said, "Well, your brother needs to study too and he's going to the library at Cal, so why don't you go with him and stay at the library?" On the weekends -- on Saturdays especially -- I would tag along with him to do that. But again realizing, wow, we walk on campus in Sproul Hall, and actually just this first entry point, and there's this mass, there's the students, and all this stuff was going on. I just said, "What is all this?" And my brother explained. When I was there, I just tell my brother, "I need to go use the bathroom" and go sneak out, listened, just trying to see what's happening and just 01:23:00realizing all this stuff that's going on around the Free Speech Movement that was happening. This is a rare situational opportunity that in my life, I was able to see some of this stuff going on. Later on, realizing or finding out that my brother actually knew some of those folks because of different things he was involved with and so it was just interesting there was that kind of connection that was going on too.

FARRELL: Was your mom aware this was going on when she would bring you to campus or while she would tell you to go to campus?

HIRABAYASHI: Not really, I wouldn't tell her that. She thought we were staying in the library all day so yeah, no.

FARRELL: Okay. Yeah, but that was Berkeley. [laughter] What are your memories of the crowds or if you 01:24:00remember any of what was being said when people gathered, your memories during the period?

HIRABAYASHI: Yeah. Well of that that period on the Cal campus naturally, it's all college kids, much older than I was at that time since I was basically still in middle school and junior high school. The crowd that was pretty much a white crowd. I mean there were people of color but then you know what, the people of color were the ones that stood out for me at these things. "Oh wow, there's as Black guy there, there's maybe an Asian or Chinese person standing over there or Asian person standing over there." But it was pretty much a white crowd that was getting all excited about what was going on. That got to me a little bit early on saying, "There's all this action happening around this, but it's 01:25:00coming from a very white, liberal perspective on things." I was trying to understand what that meant. Actually, going to a middle school that was predominantly Black, having to deal with that scene, and then going in town to the Cal campus, which I guess at that time it wasn't really all that diverse considering. I mean the diversity was much different in the mid-60s than it was now, and so it was just a kind of a shock in that way too.

FARRELL: It's interesting because when we had talked before, it was around middle school, high school that you had mentioned you got a little bit more interested in history. Did being present for these things, larger things that were going on -- on campus but in the 01:26:00world -- did that influence your interest in history at all or was that more an outgrowth of the programs you were doing at the Eden Community Center?

HIRABAYASHI: I think they were probably all kind of tied together, just wanting to learn more about myself as a Japanese American and trying to understand how I fit in. Again, the term Asian American wasn't coined till about 1968 and so this is pre-Asian Americanist, if you want to call it that. The identity thing was really more of me being Japanese American, that question. I was really trying to understand myself in the context of living in a pretty much Black neighborhood and then going to a pretty much all-white school, and then having to navigate between all 01:27:00that. A lot of my family friends are basically Japanese and then hearing a lot of Japanese language being spoken at home and with the friends and their parents and just having to navigate what that all meant.

Growing up early, I guess one thing I have to say, even when I was in elementary school, the point about shame or being aware of being Japanese was, for me, a big point. Because it was taught basically by my mom. I'm trying to say just because sometimes for lunches we would have the normal sandwich, whatever, but sometimes my mom would say, "Well, I didn't have bread, so I gave you these musubi instead with the pickle inside." For me, okay, no big deal, but when I got to 01:28:00school and took this thing out, people were wondering, what is that? This is in elementary school, just being questioned, "What are you eating? What is that? It's stinky and it smells and it looks funny. How can you eat that kind of thing?" Those kind of things just started to make me realize, wow, am I Japanese or am I American? I love eating this stuff, so I'm not going to throw it away, but how can I say this is okay? Those little things would start to make me question who am I, how do I justify who I am, and what does that mean, and so it just grew on me as I was going through elementary, junior high school into high school.

FARRELL: Did learning the history about Japanese American history, about American history -- or conversely Japanese 01:29:00history -- did that help you with some of the identity questions you were grappling with?

HIRABAYASHI: Yes, it did, and that didn't really start more so in depth until college though, getting into the Asian American Studies type of things where academically, really starting to look at that and what that meant. Prior to that, it's just basically stories within the family or friends, whatever, or perhaps the temple and things like this.

FARRELL: Yeah, and that makes sense too. When you were in middle school, high school, did you ever learn about incarceration? Was that something that came up as a topic?

HIRABAYASHI: Not in school, no, not really. Yes, naturally just knowing from what my parents -- what little they would say and or perhaps the defensive my parents feel, they would always refer, "In the 01:30:00camp," "In the camp, we had to do this." For us, we didn't understand what camp meant.

FARRELL: Hearing those conversations but also you're not learning about it in school, that probably had to be a weird thing.

HIRABAYASHI: Right.

FARRELL: There's no representation of the textbooks about these things.

HIRABAYASHI: Right, right.

FARRELL: Yeah, yeah. As a bridge to get us to San Jose, so you were still playing music in high school. You were in the orchestra, you participated in, you said, symphonies and playing some concerts, and you were interested in pursuing music as a career. Can you tell me a little bit about the conversation you would have with your parents about turning music in a career and studying it college?

HIRABAYASHI: Yeah, I mean, naturally, my parents, they really wanted us to academically succeed and get into that something that 01:31:00would put us on a financial track so that we'll be successful in our lives. When I started to ask a question, "What if I went to music school? What would that be like? Is that possible?" Actually the schools I'm thinking about were back east, so financially it would be a big question. I had no idea whether or not I could actually get into something like that, and I'm talking about Juilliard or something like this. That was on my mind and so my mom said, "Well, I don't know what that is and I don't think you could do that, what are you going to do with it afterwards? You can't do that." I guess there was that piece of it, but there was that financial question too -- how would I even be able to pull this off financially too knowing my parents really didn't have the money to do that and how would I be able to do it on my own? There was a question if I'd even get in, 01:32:00 right.

So that's when I decided, well, okay, then I'm going to go to a school where I could get into engineering program and do something that probably is more what my parents would like. I chose San Jose State because I didn't want to live at home because my older brothers, they commuted from home to go to school and so I didn't want to do that. I wanted to get away at least, but I didn't want to go so far away that I couldn't come back home. San Jose, even though I had never really even been to San Jose prior to that, I just said, "That seems like far enough away but close enough to still come back home on the weekends." When I was looking into so-called programs, I really thought engineering -- actually it was chemical engineering -- I thought would be really interesting and San Jose State really had a great engineering program. IBM was thriving down here, so a lot of 01:33:00that influence was happening on campus to the engineering department and things like this. I should've gone into electrical engineering at the time, but I didn't know what happened. Anyway, so that's what I chose. But I realized quickly the first semester that math and calculus and physics was not my forte, and that's what we had to study or any of those things and so I gave that up real quickly. I wasn't a very good student.

FARRELL: Yeah, so you started in 1969 as the chemical engineering major and you were in that major for about a semester, is that right?

HIRABAYASHI: Right.

FARRELL: And then you switched to pre-med?

HIRABAYASHI: Correct.

FARRELL: How long were you in pre-med for?

HIRABAYASHI: Another semester I guess because I realized I still had to take the same calculus and physics classes, which I hate. 01:34:00[laughter] Plus because of what was going on in campus and just the whole identity stuff, that didn't make sense to me anymore to be taking those classes and doing that, going into that kind of field.

FARRELL: Yeah, and when you got to campus in 1969, can you tell me a little bit about what the climate was like there?

HIRABAYASHI: As I mentioned, the antiwar movement was at its peak on the campus, and what I didn't realize was that nationally, there was all these things going on other campuses. But San Jose State was the so-called declared student central for the antiwar movement at that time, especially the student union, basically the students had taken it over. They're just making posters or whatever and all kinds of stuff that's just constantly being 01:35:00produced and handed out or people just talking and just rallies just happening constantly almost every single day all day long it seems like almost. Different people were coming on campus to also organize in different ways. I remember in that first year, Cesar Chavez was on campus, organized the farm workers movement, and then actually the Black students were organizing different things, and just trying to get different programs or different platforms were being pushed forward.

But one thing I really noticed was there was all this other stuff happening, but not really an Asian or Japanese presence in that way. I discovered this group of people who were starting this organization -- I believe it was called the Progressive Asian American Coalition -- and it was a group of students and they were just trying 01:36:00to politicize on campus basically. They were also really involved in trying to establish the Asian American Studies program on campus. When I got involved with them, I felt, wow, okay, they're speaking more what I want to learn and understand and they're talking more about things that I should try to learn and understand. At that time, being Asian was very political in sense -- it wasn't just being Asian American, but it was understanding what was happening in Vietnam or Southeast Asia but also in China with the cultural revolution going on, everything like this. Being so-called politicized in different ways was the important thing for being Asian at the time, understanding all that. 01:37:00Folks I was getting to know were really in different levels of all of that basically.

FARRELL: The people that you were meeting, did you find that they were grappling with some of the same questions about identity?

HIRABAYASHI: Yes, we were all. Some of us were much more articulate in being able to talk about that naturally, but others, I think we were all searching for own identity and what that meant and trying to figure out how we best fit into that.

FARRELL: Did you find it pretty easy to create or to find a community there when you first started even when you were doing engineering and pre-med?

HIRABAYASHI: Yes, I mean I was discovering what was being said and what they're doing made more sense and it was really important to understand better. I realized that for me, what I was good at doing is 01:38:00doing not like the front-end organizing but more the back-end organizing of stuff and so like the paperwork details, just getting stuff done and that kind of thing. That's how I got involved and especially when the Asian American studies program started up, when I started to helping out there, I just got really involved with the actual administrative part of it versus the other operational sides of the things. I got really good at that I felt just organizing and keeping things together in that way. That skill set I guess just helped me all along ever since then, just understanding how to manage things in different ways.

FARRELL: Were you ever involved in any of the boycotts with boycotting class or any of the rallies?

HIRABAYASHI: Yeah, especially when we were trying to 01:39:00institute the Asian American Studies program. It was interesting because at that same time, San Jose State was a little bit behind what was happening at Cal Berkeley, especially San Francisco State, because in '68 is when you had the Third World Strike and that the Third World Liberation Front strike that was happening. They were able to start their programs basically in 1969. We were at San Jose State, the Asian American Studies program and the Black Studies and then they actually had a Mexican American Graduate Studies program were all starting in 1970, so we're a year behind all of them. What was interesting for us is again, the Latinos got a graduate program, the Black students got a BA program -- Black Studies instituted -- but for the Asian students, we only got a minor 01:40:00program. That for me was, trying to push that because I came a little bit after that, but I was always questioning why do we only have a minor program? The Black students had a BA program, much more faculty allotment, they have a really nice office building at this facility. The Latino students or the Mexican students, they had this graduate program, they also have all this other faculty, and we were struggling with not even one faculty allotment. We're dividing this up with five people basically. So what happened? There was a lot of naturally volunteer effort just to make things happen in order to make the programs survive, which is why I jumped into the admin side of things.

FARRELL: Can you tell me a little bit more about what it was like to make sure the program survived, how you were working with the administration, how you were trying to pull 01:41:00faculty so they could figure out what the coursework would look like and all that?

HIRABAYASHI: Right. There was a faculty coordinator, Dr. Kichung Kim. He actually didn't even teach really in Asian studies classes, but he was the coordinator for the program, and he was actually in the English department. He was the person that lead the program administratively on paper basically. But he allowed the students really to run the program, which is why we as students were really actively involved. Even in going out and finding out what faculty members we should try to bring in, to hire in to teach the different classes, the students were heavily involved in looking at who that was or even sitting in on interviews to do that and just organizing on campus in different ways. As a student, as an undergrad 01:42:00student, a lot of us were involved in that process and also questioning why were there such inequities between what we are getting at the Asian students versus what the Black and Latino students were getting.

At that time also for the educational opportunity program, what they called EOP, it was a very segregated program. There was a Black and a brown program, but there was no Asian American EOP program and so I raised a question why isn't there an Asian American program? They were basically, well, there isn't enough Asians here, you're all getting in, you're academically sound. We were arguing against that but we had to lobby to just create our own smaller but at least an Asian American component. We ran it through the Asian American Studies program, which was different than say the other EOP 01:43:00programs. We were just trying to build that structure around what it meant to be having an Asian American Studies program on campus, but that was all student driven basically.

FARRELL: With the program, was that establishing the minor or was that taking the minor to being now a major?

HIRABAYASHI: Basically, it was still a minor program only, yeah.

FARRELL: How were you finding the faculty, especially since it was so student driven?

HIRABAYASHI: Yeah, well again, we're being very active in the community and not only just San Jose but also what's happening in San Francisco or the East Bay side like at Berkeley, at Cal, and also Los Angeles. Through the community, we're looking for faculty members who taught at least in the Bay Area within that context of community. We looked at a lot of people who, especially at San Francisco State at that time, were teaching there 01:44:00also or at UC Berkeley and trying to lure them to come down to teach a class for us in San Jose.

FARRELL: Was that effort pretty successful in drawing them?

HIRABAYASHI: Yeah, because they were only coming in for one class to teach so for them it was a very part time. It worked, and most of them would just do it for a semester. We were rotating all the time who was coming in and so there was no permanent faculty member on board basically.

FARRELL: So then were you technically an Ethnic Studies major with a minor in Asian American Studies?

HIRABAYASHI: Myself? Not really. I think I spent more of the time just doing that but not so much. No, I wouldn't say that's my major or minor. When I shifted out of the engineering stuff or whatever, I shifted into philosophy and psychology basically thinking, well, because there was no major program in 01:45:00Asian American Studies, had there been one probably I would've maybe, but that wasn't really an option basically.

FARRELL: Okay, that makes sense. As the minor was being created, what kind of classes were being taught?

HIRABAYASHI: Within Asian American Studies?

FARRELL: Yeah, sorry, within Asian American Studies.

HIRABAYASHI: We were offering a lot of the community-organizing type of things, and actually, we had a Japanese American history class, a Chinese American history class. The three major Asian ethnic groups were Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino, so we were trying offer history classes within the community around that and then also community organizing. We brought in, mainly it was some teachers from San Francisco that are heavy into that also, to teach organizing in the Asian American communities context and doing those kind of the 01:46:00entities. A lot of it was still around history, organizing, and then there was the social justice pieces.

FARRELL: Did you ever take any classes in the African American Studies?

HIRABAYASHI: I actually did because I was curious about actually what are they teaching and how is that different from what we're probably offering and who are they over there. I remember taking two different classes. One was like the Black community organizing class and we had to write and do a project. Naturally for me, it was Japantown, so I don't know if the professor enjoyed that because he was trying to push a Black perspective, but anyways that was where I was coming from, so he had to understand that, right. But the principles and the philosophy and the 01:47:00understanding of the organizing skill sets were basically all common, so it was still a great experience.

FARRELL: Yeah, and I too am thinking about coalition building as well, being able to support each other even though you're coming from your own perspective.

HIRABAYASHI: Right.

FARRELL: Yeah. As you were doing that, were you starting to learn more about American history as it pertained to Japanese Americans, including some of the stuff like about incarceration or like prewar, postwar -- that kind of thing?

HIRABAYASHI: Yes, definitely. Collectively as students, we were all trying to learn more about that bringing in and actually through the department, the different speakers who we would try to host on campus or different events that we would host on 01:48:00campus. It was all focused around folks that could present that. At that time also, there was a start-up of Asian American studies conferences or gatherings and different kind of events in that way on different campuses and so we were trying to go to all those different things.

Also in those days actually, there was just the whole start of what was happening within the -- especially in San Francisco and a little bit at Berkeley, but San Francisco Japantown and San Francisco Chinatown, Manilatown -- there was so much going on around mainly redevelopment and we were really trying to help and support that even though they were in San Francisco and that wasn't happening in San Jose, but we just wanted to understand what that meant so it wouldn't happen in San Jose. But as you know, San Francisco Japantown is so different than what it is. I don't know if you've ever been to San Jose? Oh, that's 01:49:00right. It was so different, and the two are just so different in style and look and everything.

FARRELL: Yeah, it's really interesting. I feel like with redevelopment -- so I'm from the East Coast and people talk about redevelopment a lot and how it really disrupted neighborhoods -- but it's interesting when you come to the West Coast, it's pretty buried. People don't talk about redevelopment and the impacts that it's had very often. It's interesting that was wrapped into some of the stuff that you were doing while you were at San Jose State.

HIRABAYASHI: Yeah, that's a big issue.

FARRELL: Yeah, and some of the things that you were learning from looking at San Francisco as like a case study about this. How were you all thinking about applying that to San Jose to make sure it didn't happen there?

HIRABAYASHI: I was realizing for myself at least that San Jose Japantown was just structurally very different than San Francisco 01:50:00in the way -- I guess there was no big corporate entity that came in to try to develop it as a tourist entity spot, and that's what was happening with San Francisco Japantown. That's what Chinatown was really like before in a sense. Although San Francisco Chinatown has more shops and independent things happening, but it's really this touristy atmosphere that's going on there and so definitely San Francisco Japantown went heavy in that direction. For San Jose, we never felt that was really the purpose or the reason why we have a Japantown and what people came to Japantown for. I always felt that San Jose Japantown is a destination, but it's not a tourist destination. It's a destination for our community to hold our community together. The church there, the Methodist Church, the Buddhist church, the community 01:51:00festivals all happen there, the restaurants, the stores, key agencies, the senior center, the JACL, San Jose Taiko. We put our footprint into Japantown basically.

FARRELL: Yeah, that's really interesting. I do want to talk a little bit more about some of the community work that you were doing and the service but probably next time since we're running out of time today. I do want to talk more about your involvement in music, but maybe we'll start with that next time.

HIRABAYASHI: Okay.

FARRELL: I do have a couple of reflective questions but is there anything else that you want to add to this section of what we've talked about so far?

HIRABAYASHI: I guess only that for us growing up and living in that time, it was just so much happening. For me 01:52:00personally, just trying to learn so much about identity and what that meant. As I mentioned, being called out, "Are you a socialist, are you a communist, or are you really an American? Who are you and what are you and where do you stand?" Some of my friends at the time were very strong pro-Mao folks at the time and so just following that, that became like a big theme for a lot of Asians -- the younger Asians -- at the time just understanding that. Actually the antiwar situation what was happening in Vietnam was the big issue because around the early '70s and shortly after, Asian vets were coming back who had served in Vietnam, coming back and also starting to live or work in the community. The issues they were 01:53:00having, having the experience of having been in Vietnam and in the war and then some of them came back pretty messed up and so just having to deal with that and just helping folks get through all that. It was just a big learning experience for us all.

FARRELL: Yeah, it's quite a time. I mean you were by circumstance involved in so many such significant historical moments especially in the Bay Area too, that's all this stuff is happening at a time in your life where you're old enough to be thinking about the impacts and that kind of thing. Given the things you experienced when you were growing up and identity questions, what did it mean to you to find the community when you got to San Jose of people who were going through the same things, thinking about the same 01:54:00 things?

HIRABAYASHI: To me, it was really exciting and I really felt comforted that there were people that were actually asking similar questions that I was asking. When I started to share this naturally with my parents, especially my mother, she always fearful that, "Well, you don't want to rock the boat. You don't want to be the person standing out. You don't want to get arrested definitely, you can't be doing anything bad." She was always afraid that we would be out there rioting and getting arrested and things like this. But at the same time when the service program started up in East Bay and she became involved with a similar type of programs but in the East Bay within the Japanese community, I would be to tell her, "This is what we're doing in San Jose too, so it's no different than you going to help other seniors to make origami 01:55:00or flower arrangement or something. So here, you're supporting the same kind of causes that we're trying to do." I think she better understood what that meant basically under the term of community organizing and supporting the larger community, and that didn't mean that we were being hoodlums on the streets and so just creating a bad time for people basically.

FARRELL: Yeah, and with the community in mind and the aspect of service and helping people, how do you feel like or what was the meaning of that for you that you grew up with these things, that you grew up with a community, that you grew up with service in mind, and then you were, as a young adult, these formative years that you're carrying this idea with you? What did that mean for you to be able to use something that you learned in your younger life into your adult 01:56:00 life?

HIRABAYASHI: I guess it was an important time for me to decide what direction to do, what was more important. It started out, like I mentioned, engineering just to make money basically and then music because that was my passion and then community organizing because realizing, wow, we're really helping people. I do have to mention that during this time in the early '70s after I started college or going to school and got involved with the San Jose Japantown community and I got involved with the San Jose Buddhist Temple, there was a period of time when I was actually working for the Buddhist church that I was seriously thinking about becoming a minister. That was on my mind too, what that meant, how do I fit into that realm of work and what would that mean. Is that something should I do or not to do and why or why not? So that was all going on at the same time 01:57:00 too.

FARRELL: Yeah. Well, I'm definitely excited to continue the conversation when we talk next time because I feel like we're on the verge of so much stuff happening after that. But thank you so much for sharing all of this. It's been a real pleasure to talk to you and I appreciate how much you shared about everything.

HIRABAYASHI: Oh, thank you.