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AI: Well, I'm wondering if your mother or your father -- although he wasn't around as much -- if either of them ever discussed discrimination or prejudice with you, in relation to employment or anything else?

EH: I think they never, my parents just never approached that kind of subject because I think they didn't want us to build a complex. And I think that's also true of a lot of black families. They don't go into it. I remember being in, there was an organization fairly well-known here in Seattle, relatively well-known, because it was kind of a pioneering group called Christian Friends for Racial Equality. And I remember a Jewish psychiatrist coming as a speaker, and a good black friend of mine stood up and said she was always in a dilemma about, not, whether to tell, prepare her son for discriminating, discrimination experiences that would come his way, or not tell him because she didn't want him to get, have a complex. And, you know, from that, and she did a remarkable job, she was a well-known piano teacher, and she taught, she taught several Nisei students because she was on Beacon Hill for a while.

But anyway, that kind of discussion -- I think before the war we really almost never touched the subject, even at the young people's conference. And then I was telling you that there was a junior high/high school conference that we -- I came across a negative and not the picture the other day -- and the name of that group was Christian Fellowship Conference, something like that, where the Young People's Christian Conference was well-known up and down the coast because each area district had their young people's, and those were more high school group or college, and young people, really young adult conferences where we had a separate one that we kind of got an early start at doing that.

AI: Well, I wanted to, I just had one other question about your experience at Milwaukee-Downer in relation to race dynamics. And I was wondering, at many colleges at that time, there were housekeeping help and people who did cleaning and cooking, and I was wondering what the racial composition of the, the workers, the housekeeping workers at Milwaukee-Downer was.

EH: There weren't even, there weren't even black domestic help of any kind. I think that's how restricted it was, you know, right up to the war. I think it wasn't until the servicemen came back from service that it really irked them, that they fought for democracy and they come back and things are just the same, and they have to face the same discrimination. When I was working for American Council on Race Relations, one of the articles that I came across, or issue, was that at New York's major railroad station, what is it? Anyway, the porters all had to have college degrees, but they were porters. And that's the level of, you know, discrimination that existed.

AI: And at that time, these were all black porters, African American porters.

EH: (Yes), (yes). Seattle is unique in that a lot, the porters here were Japanese, Niseis, a lot of -- Aki Kurose's father was a porter at the railroad. That never happened in Seattle -- I mean, in Sacramento. That was kind of surprising to come up here to find out. But...

AI: And let me ask you also, when you first got to Chicago, and that would have been the summer of 1944 and you were going to work at the Curtis Candy Company, which you told us some about that, but I was wondering, about, what was your first impression as far as the racial composition of the workforce there at Curtis Candy?

EH: Well, that's interesting. I was trying to remember whether there were black factory workers. There may have been but I certainly, you know, if there were, we certainly didn't associate. I think in some of the colleges, and the Quaker colleges, for instance, there may have been a black student or two. I know that the other, another correction I think I have to have you note is, Mrs. Redfield, the family I went to from Tule Lake to help with the wedding, Lisa Redfield's wedding. Lisa's, Mrs. Redfield's parents' names are Robert E. Park, Mr. and Mrs. -- somewhere it seems to me I said Burns, so I want to make sure that that gets corrected. He was one of the pioneers in, for urban sociology. And he was -- when I met him -- he was teaching at Fisk. 'Course, I think he was well into retirement, he might have been about eighty, but he was still teaching. And Fisk was a well-known, probably one of the best-known black colleges. They started, there was -- you ever seen the documentary on the Fisk Jubilee Singers, that immediately after the Civil War, the only way that they could finance or raise any money was for the, this chorus from Fisk -- immediately after the war, it's remarkable that they were able to garner that much finances to even be able to travel and dress appropriately, and they were very popular, and these students really sacrificed a lot of time and cost because they knew they were a major fundraiser for the university so they continued to sing all over the country. And that kind of spirit is remarkable, I mean, coming from slavery into upfront, prestigious white institutions, and that, fortunately, they have that skill.

AI: Well, let me ask you another question about that, when you first came into Chicago, and some people still today are, say that Chicago is one of the more racially segregated cities, but certainly at that time in 1944, but when you were, when you first arrived in Chicago, were you aware of that reputation of Chicago as being a black and white segregated city?

EH: Probably not, but I, there were so many other urgent issues. But see, when I came into Chicago, Dr. Redfield met me at the station and just whisked me off to Des Plaines, and then I was at Petoskey, Michigan, and then came back to, right straight to Milwaukee-Downer, so I was kind of sheltered, from observing --

AI: What about -- so you were sheltered at that point -- but what about when, after Milwaukee-Downer, when you actually moved back into Chicago proper, and you were at Curtis Candy Company. What was your impression then of the, of the racial dynamic?

EH: I, I don't, I don't think we saw many blacks. Even on, when we, when Mabel Sugiyama and I were sharing an apartment on Drexel, there really weren't blacks on the street much, there were, just a block away, that's kind of a borderline area, and a block, block away was maybe the heart of south side, which is totally black -- considered totally black. But around the University of Chicago, it's very, it's always been fairly well-integrated, but University of Chicago probably had a lot to do with the housing development, and the quality of upkeep and that kind of thing. And I don't think I really ran into any mixing experience in Chicago until I went to American Council on Race Relations.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.