<Begin Segment 33>

LH: Again you were talking about how your father had continued these ties to Japan by having these students come work for him and live in the house. But I want to go to the period right after he returned to Seattle and started his business, started his work back up. And how did the Nikkeijinkai reform after the war ended and people were starting to come back?

FG: I think the Nikkeijinkai, like we were saying, it sort of contacting each other again probably, maybe not entirely of the connections of the church -- I mean, at camp but then it probably helped. And they, Mr. Mihara was the president of Nikkeijinkai for a long time and then he brought in, he pulled in a lot of the people together. And I think many of the people that right after the war that were, was active in Nikkeijinkai, I think they were from previously, from before the war.

LH: From before the war. So it was just a matter of getting back together and getting into the community.

FG: And then finding out who was left and who was still here in Seattle and adding more people on the roster and things like that, but they worked very hard in re-funding themselves so that they could start the Japanese school again. And actually it was Nikkeijinkai that was, that started the Japanese school and so the Japanese school was under the auspices of Nikkeijinkai. It was kind of hard to tell where the line is because Mr. Mihara was the head of the board for the Japanese school, and he also was a president of Nikkeijinkai so I don't know where the division was. But, anyway, they, it was amazing, they really got together. I don't know for sure whether they were involved at the time the Japanese school was using, was being used as a hostel for returning families. I don't know for sure if Nikkeijinkai had an awful lot to do with that. They might have. I don't know.

LH: But Mr. Mihara did have a lot to do with that because he was still overseeing the school at the time, right?

FG: I think so.

<End Segment 33> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.