At the age of three Haruko Sugi Hurt's parents moved from Parlier, Calif., to Reedley, Calif., and settled down to farm in the Central Valley. The closest family to their house was the Stauffers. The fathers of the two families took turns taking the children to school, and when she turned 10, her family moved to Southern California.
Hurt graduated from Gardena High School in 1933 and had difficulty finding work. Finally, in 1939 she started domestic work in Beverly Hills. Although she had many Caucasian friends in school, she came to realize that those relationships never grew deeper. They never entered each other's homes.
Every day after school she attended Japanese classes, and continued this through high school. Only two other students graduated with her, so to celebrate their accomplishments her teachers took them out to Grauman's Theater to see a Charlie Chaplin movie.
When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Hurt was working as a domestic for a Beverly Hill's family:
When I heard the news, I didn't know where Pearl Harbor was. I was that naive. "Pearl Harbor-where's that?" That was the kind of reaction that I had. I would stay the weekend at home and would return on Sunday.
She [Her Beverly Hills employer] was very nice to me. She was kind and treated me very fairly. But it was strange. Hysteria was fomented by the news media and everyone was suspicious of all Japanese. One day, the lady of the house, half smiling, but serious too, said to me, "Haruko, you don't have a radio transmitter under your bed, do you?" [Oral History]
She was single, a businesswoman. She voluntarily offered to take care of the family home--to pay the taxes, rent it out, and generally care for it. At the time, of course, we didn't know how long our exile was to last. My parents were so grateful, that they told her to keep whatever was left after expenses were paid. My parents owned their home and felt that they would lose it if there was no one to care for it. When my parents notified her that they were returning, she had the tenants move out, the furniture that she had stored, replaced, and the utilities reconnected under my father's name. She even met them at Union Station. Mother was surprised that their home was home-like already and when she opened the refrigerator, she found that the refrigerator was replenished with fresh food. [Oral History]