Discover Nikkei

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/240/

Little interaction with parents

When you ask me about my connections with my parents, at first, you know, when we were on the farm there’s hardly, because the parents are so busy, it’s only mealtimes and night times that we had any interaction. And when I see how we’re raising our little daughter now, my wife read to her every night, you know, since she was...when we got her at one year old, she was constantly being read to. Well, my parents were so busy with the farm that that didn’t happen. And of course, their first language is Japanese. So, a few times I got some fairy tales and maybe some songs that I remember from those days. But the interaction between parents and children, particularly in reference to school work, was not there at all.


education families languages

Date: January 7, 2004

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Art Hansen

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum.

Interviewee Bio

James Hirabayashi, son of hardworking immigrant farmers in the Pacific Northwest, was a high school senior in 1942 when he was detained in the Pinedale Assembly Center before being transferred to the Tule Lake Concentration Camp in Northern California.

After World War II, he earned his Bachelor of Arts and Masters in Anthropology from the University of Washington, and eventually his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Dr. Hirabayashi is Professor Emeritus at San Francisco State University where he was Dean of the nation’s first school of ethnic studies. He also held research and teaching positions at the University of Tokyo, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and Ahmadu Bellow Univerity, Zaria, Nigeria.

He passed away in May 2012 at age 85. (June 2014)

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