Densho Digital Archive - Yasashi Ichikawa Interview II (denshovh-iyasashi-02-0012)

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[Translated from Japanese]

TY: By the way, you said this before, but in 1939 the temple had to move because of a low-income housing project on Yesler Way.

YI: Uh-huh.

TY: I'd like to ask some questions about that. How was it decided? Who made the decision and how were you informed of the decision?

YI: The temple we have now?

TY: No. Moving out. Because of the Yesler Way project, the temple had to...

YI: Oh, that. That land was owned by a Caucasian woman. So I think they returned the land to her.

TY: Were you leasing it?

YI: Yes, we leased the land. The temple owned the building only.

TY: Then, well, until a new one was built, you moved to the Budokan.

YI: Wait a minute. The Buddha statue was...where was it? Was it Dearborn? There was a big hall a little this way from Fourteenth over there. What kind of hall was it?

TY: You mean the building next to the Japanese Language School?

YI: Judo or something. We rented that.

TY: You were there until a new one was built.

YI: Until a new one was built.

TY: So in 1940 the land was purchased where the current temple is. And a plan was made to build a facility to accommodate various activities. On March 16, 1941, construction began on the main temple hall.

YI: Oh, is that right?

TY: Yes. Can you tell me more about these things?

YI: But somebody brought the temple history book and showed it to you.

TY: I saw it. About seven months later in October, the Buddha statue was moved. You said you remembered being pregnant with Shinya at that time. There was a Buddhist convention in the same year, 1941.

YI: Is that so? When we moved, when people carried the Buddha statue and moved the Buddha house to the new temple, I was pregnant.

TY: In October, you were about seven or eight months pregnant. You were pregnant with Shinya. But that year the temple experienced the moving of the Buddha statue, building a new temple and a convention one after another. It was a very busy year for the temple members, wasn't it?