Entrevistas

1. Birthplace

2. My image of America as a child (Japanese)

3. Longing to be an imperial soldier as a youth (Japanese)

4. Boarding house life and the Issei (Japanese)

5. My father’s venture into the hotel business (Japanese)

6. (Japanese) My children’s education

7. Luckiest Issei

8. The situation after the war (Japanese)

9. “Junior Issei” (Japanese)

10. Working in America

11. Struggles with English (Japanese)

Horikiri,Edward Toru

(n. 1929) Kibei Nissei

“Junior Issei” (Japanese)

(Japanese) For the first half of my life in America, I walked the exact same path as the Issei; I think I’ve done the same kind of things as the them. For the first 15 years, even after I got married and had three children, for over ten years until my father died, I continued to send money home. So, no matter how hard I worked, I had almost no savings. My three daughters in elementary school – and I as well – never had any fun memories of vacation or anything like that.

So, for me, you could say the Kibei are “junior Issei”. That’s where I place them.

Like the Issei, I’ve done everything – from gardener’s apprentice to houseboy, from truck driver to vendor at a tiny shop. I worked by doing things that were around me, one after another. Because of that, I couldn’t really go to school. No, not “I couldn’t really go”; I didn’t go at all. So, the same went for studying English. This is my failure – that I didn’t go to school.

gerações imigrantes imigração Issei Japão Nipo-americanos Kibei migração Nisei

Data: January 31, 2012

Localização Geográfica: California, US

Entrevistado: John Esaki, Yoko Nishimura

País: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Entrevistados

Edward Toru Horikiri (nascido em 1929), kibei nissei, nasceu em Little Tokyo, mas mudou-se com sua família de volta para o Japão quando tinha 18 meses de idade. Ele foi criado e educado no Japão durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial, mas decidiu voltar para os EUA em 1952 a fim de restabelecer os negócios da família, que foram interrompidos pela Guerra. No entanto, na falta de uma língua inglesa suficiente, ele atuou em uma variedade de trabalhos, incluindo jardineiro, servente, motorista de caminhão e funcionário de mercearia e de supermercado. Continuou envolvendo-se em atividades culturais através de organizações comunitárias de língua japonesa e amizades com artistas como Taro Yashima. (Junho de 2014)