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TI: Well, now that you, you did the book about the Tacoma, Pierce County Japanese Americans --

RM: Yes.

TI: And then Mukashi, Mukashi, which is more focused on the Seattle Japanese Americans, I'm curious, for you to do comparisons between the communities. What, what do you see are the same or different between the two?

RM: Oh, I would say the Seattleites are socially conscious, where the Tacomans are less interested in social concerns. And I, I know that may, there'll be arguments over that, but in, the historic record shows that. And it's not only true, say, for the Japanese American community, but for the longshore world. Now, there are noticeable exceptions that, to that rule. There were people in Tacoma every bit as interested in civil liberties and social concerns as they were in Seattle, but there seems to be much more concern about civil liberties here. The, the movement for equal opportunity of employment in the late 1940s, the open housing legislation, the movement, in general, for minority rights, much stronger push here in Seattle than in Tacoma. It could be just the size of the communities. Remember, there are only 150 that came back to Tacoma. And, and there were more than 150 Tacomans who came to Seattle after World War II.

TI: And partly for that reason, too, I mean, I've looked at it a little bit, going back to Tacoma after the war was very difficult. I mean, there was a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment.

RM: Yes. The Remember Pearl Harbor League was far stronger in, in the suburbs, in King County and Pierce County and Tacoma than it was in downtown Seattle. In fact, in Seattle, when the Remember Pearl Harbor League tried to have a meeting, I believe it was in Bellevue, they were shouted down by students in the University of Washington, Caucasian students. It was a very important event, they just heckled 'em, and the Remember Pearl Harbor League never had much success here. There was a... and a lot of that was the Nisei Vets organization, and the fact that so many had been killed in World War II from this area that, that turned the tide.

<End Segment 33> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.