Densho Digital Archive - Emery Brooks Andrews Interview (denshovh-aemery-01-0017)

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TI: So your dad was there, really busy. You were there several years. What... and over time, more and more people were starting to resettle out of the camps. But for your family, what was it that brought an end to sort of being in Idaho for your family?

EBA: Well, actually it was the end of the war. I remember sitting on the -- it was summertime, of course, in August, and sitting on the front steps of, actually the third house that we lived in. The second house, we had to move again, but, so this third house that we occupied on Main Street. I remember sitting on the steps one hot Sunday, or one afternoon and I heard all these sirens go off all of a sudden, which was unusual to hear all these sirens. And so I had a question. I said, "Mother, what's going on?" And she said, "Well, the war is over." And so it was like, oh, okay, the war is over.

TI: And how did you feel about this, because at this point you were what, about nine or so, eight or nine?

EBA: Uh, let's see, I was probably, yeah, eight or nine, yeah, right, exactly. And at the time I didn't think, well, okay, the war's over. We live in Idaho now so I just kind of assumed that we would stay there. But I think, as I recall, we moved back to Seattle early in 1946. And we drove back. We stopped in Nampa, Idaho and visited some friends there and they gave us a cat. And so we named the cat Nampa. So we just went back to Seattle and I enrolled at Bailey Gatzert School and life went on. And I saw my friends again and it was a great time, I'm feeling good and...

TI: So did your father reopen Japanese Baptist Church right away?

EBA: No, he did not. Part of the Seattle Council of Churches, which was an interdenominational group of churches -- in fact, in his papers my dad has some resolutions from the, typed resolutions from the Seattle Council of Churches about the returning Japanese and coming back to the churches in the area. And it was their resolution, their, their hot button, their hobby horse, was to integrate the returning Japanese into the Caucasian churches. And my dad was very much against that. And so it, after we moved back to Seattle it wasn't until a year later that finally Japanese Baptist Church was opened again and filled with our parish.

TI: So this is interesting to me. So, so upon return, your father wanted to reopen Japanese Baptist Church right away, but the, this church council -- and so I'm guessing not only we had Japanese Baptist Church, but we had Blaine Methodist --

EBA: Uh-huh, right.

TI: -- which was primarily Japanese as well as Japanese Presbyterian.

EBA: Right, Japanese Episcopal, yeah.

TI: So did all of them not reopen during the same period?

EBA: To be very honest, Tom, I don't know if they --

TI: But there was probably a pressure for them not to --

EBA: Well, obviously there was, yeah, from the Seattle Council of Churches. I can only speak for Japanese Baptist. It was a year before we opened the church again.

TI: And their stance was, was, that it would be good if the Japanese, to probably better assimilate into the, back into society --

EBA: Right.

TI: -- to be integrated with, amongst the churches. So with that, why did your dad want to reopen Japanese Baptist Church and not perhaps assimilate the Japanese back into the Seattle? What was his thinking?

EBA: That's a good question. I can only speculate about why he did that. I think part of the integration issue was maybe to, maybe to, first of all, to show the Caucasian community that, that the Japanese are not a threat to community, that they can be just as Caucasian as anybody else in the community. But I think for my dad it was, I think he had a huge ownership. He took a huge ownership of the Japanese community and especially of Japanese Baptist Church. And for him it was important that, that this Japanese Baptist tradition continue and not be compromised or, by assimilation, 'cause it was a unique group. And maybe he had some thoughts about the 442nd and, and what a special unit they were and didn't want to lose that heritage and that line of Japanese Baptist history.