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AI: Tell me a little bit about what Spokane was like at that time, because the war was still going on.

MW: I had friends that were from Marcus. You know, when I told you the city was flooded out? Some of them came down to Spokane. And so I met them. And we would go places together. And there were signs, "No Japs Wanted." And I said, "We can't go there." And they said, "Oh yes, we can." So we'd go in, and I could see them asking. And they said, "Oh, she just came over from Hawaii," or, "She's a Filipino," or, "She's Chinese." And they never knew the difference, and that showed me right there that people don't know what they're prejudiced against. It's, I think prejudice is a fear of something that they really aren't aware of what they're fearful of. They don't have the knowledge of what they are really prejudiced against.

So we went, met in the Davenport Hotel. Sometimes when we were meeting to go to a movie or something, that was one of the places that we weren't allowed. But I still went. We'd go eat somewhere where the sign was in the window, but we went anyway. But that's when your true friends come out because they were there for me when I came back to Spokane, and I still have contact with them today.

AI: Well, so now, tell me then when your family joined you, how were they? Was their health all right? Your father had been going out to work, and...

MW: He got a job. He got a job as a laborer, and he worked for about a year -- then he had a heart attack. And he had to take a early retirement. And my mother was able to get his retirement because she had a child under eighteen. So that was income, small income there for them. And I worked and my brother helped out. And so we managed.

AI: And so did you decide as a family that you would stay there in Spokane, that you would settle there?

MW: Yes, we did, uh-huh. We saw a house that was for rent -- I mean for sale, and we borrowed the down payment and we bought the house. And we kind of got started from there.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.