Densho Digital Archive - Charles Z. Smith Interview (denshovh-scharles-01-0013)

<Begin Segment 13>

TI: And going back to when you first came to Seattle, I realize this was probably -- Seattle has a fairly large Asian American community, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and Filipino Americans. And I'm guessing, sort of, growing up on the East Coast, you did not come into much contact with Asian Americans.

CS: None at all.

TI: So when you came to Seattle, what was that like, when you met Asian Americans?

CS: Well, I have to follow on an old cliche, "some of my best friends are..." [laughs]. And so I have to identify individuals in the Asian community who began to open my eyes and ears. The first Asian that I met was Ike Ikeda, then the new director of the Atlantic Street Center. I was a Boy Scout troop leader or something, and we held our meetings at the Atlantic Street Center when I was in law school. I was head of a Hi-Y group, which also met at the Atlantic Street Center, and I met Ike Ikeda, the first Japanese American I had ever met. And then in law school, Wing Luke, a Chinese American, was one year ahead of me in law school, and we became very good and close friends. The first Chinese American I had ever met. That is to say, to know and to have conversations with. And then one year behind me in law school was Liem Eng Tuai, the Chinese American, who became a very close friend. And so Ike is still my very dear friend, we're in touch with each other, he follows me and sends me photographs and newspaper articles. And I was on the board of the Atlantic Street Center for a number of years, and then Liem Tuai is now dead and Wing Luke, of course, died. But these were the three Asian Americans who opened my eyes and ears to the Asian community in Seattle. And all of this happened in the first year I was in law school. Well, with Liem Tuai, my second year. But with Wing Luke and Ike Ikeda in 1951, 1952, and with Liem Tuai, 1953, and that was the beginning of my awareness that there was this significant community in Seattle, most generally associated with what we called the International District at that time. And so that was the opening of my eyes, and opening of my ears to a recognition that the world consisted of other than blacks, whites, and Cubans.