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Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Frank Miyamoto Interview IV
Narrator: Frank Miyamoto
Interviewers: Alice Ito (primary), Tatsuya Fukunaga (secondary)
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: July 7, 2003
Densho ID: denshovh-mfrank-04-0023

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TF: What was Japanese reaction toward Dyke Miyagawa or George Taki? What was their reputation --

FM: Yes.

TF: -- in the Japanese community?

FM: Dyke Miyagawa was intelligent, well-respected by Nisei. I don't know what the Issei feeling about him was, because... and in a sense it didn't matter. The Issei no longer functioned effectively within the worker population. As far as Nisei were, went, they were likewise, no longer an effective worker population in the sense that they didn't have enough stake, as much of a stake in the system to insist that this should be rather than that and so on. They were going along as students, mainly, who needed money or a means of savings for the summer. And that's the nature of cannery work for most of the Nisei at that time. So, but, Dyke and George Taki were socially -- ah, I should mention... in due course, the offices which Nagamatsu as contractor and Jack, his foreman, used, which was part of this bunkhouse set-up, which I'll describe a little later -- when Nagamatsu and the contractor left, I can't... there was some point at which they no longer came to the cannery and Jack no longer was a foreman. Then George Taki and Dyke Miyagawa were in those offices. So, there was some point at which a transition occurred and I can't even remember clearly just exactly how that occurred. But, you could see that something had happened. You know, the people who are running the show are no longer the same people. Okay, coming back to your question, George Taki was looked upon... he had to be, so to speak, a person who was really not quite a part of the Nisei, even the Nisei system. He had to be different enough to be, you know, out there gunning for a union, which is not the kind of thing which Nisei of that time were engaged in. So, to be different in that sense, he had to, he was not fully a part of the Nisei system. Now, Dyke Miyagawa was also different in that sense. He was more of an intellectual than most Nisei were. But I think he was also better aware of what the Nisei system or Japanese system was like and functioned more easily within the Japanese system. So I would say he was better-liked, or better-accepted. George Taki was looked upon with a certain suspicion as to, or a certain question as to what he was trying to do, and many of the interpretations was that he's in there for his own good, his own interest type of thing.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.