<Begin Segment 18>

AI: Well, so going back to 1928 then, and Pat was born in September of 1928, and then you had said that you were at Fujin Home for a while, and then at times you would also then leave the home and live elsewhere, and then at times if you needed to go back to the home. What else was going on at that time? Because I think you had mentioned that at some point, your husband began working for Jimmy Sakamoto, who was starting up the newspaper, the Japanese American Courier? Was that about that time?

PB: Yes. He was working as a linotypist for the Courier. He was working in his dad's print shop prior to that when he went to California and left me stranded. I had no way of supporting myself because I had the two children.

AI: Right.

PB: I had some scary moments with them, because we were living in an apartment on Yesler Way on the second floor, and when I'd go shopping or something, I'd leave the children at home because it was too hard for me to try and handle two small ones, and they'd stand there at the window and they'd be rappin' on the window so hard, I was afraid they'd break the window and fall out. I don't know, the children used to do things that just scared me to death; they were playing with matches one day, and you know how Grandpa used to, they'd take a match and lit it and let the children blow it out. And here my son had caught onto that, and they must have lit at least a hundred matches and blown 'em out. When I came back, the floor was just full of matches. But fortunately, they had lit it and blown each one out after they lit it. But they could have caught that house on fire, and here they're locked in the second floor. Oh, it was terrible. I gave 'em a spanking that they never forget that, because I didn't want them to be playing with matches.

AI: Oh, how scary.

PB: It was real scary.

AI: Oh, my goodness. Well, at around that time, also, that's 1929, 1930, the Great Depression was also starting. Did that affect you much at that time?

PB: I didn't, I didn't think of it as a depression or anything. I never, I think when I was young, I was just too busy worrying about raising the kids, and I never thought about what's going on in the world. At least, I don't recall thinking about it.

AI: Were you involved much with the beginning of the Japanese American Citizens League? Because at that time, of course, Jimmy Sakamoto was also involved with Clarence Arai and other Nisei starting up the organization.

PB: Well, we did belong to the -- all my sisters, both my sisters and I belonged to the Citizens League, and let's see... we belonged to the Puyallup chapter, I think, at one time I know we did.

AI: And I think you also had mentioned that there was a, an early conference of the JACL that went on at about that time.

PB: I know we went to one big meeting over in Yakima or somewhere out there, east of the mountains, we went. And we were supposed to go to a dance that one night, they had the, that was, all the chapters got together. I had, I think that's the only picture I have of the big JACL meeting that we had. And I was supposed to go to a dance that night, we stayed with a family at their farm, and there were bedbugs there, and I'm allergic to bedbugs. And the bedbugs bit me on my face, and my face was all swollen, and we were supposed to go to the dance, and oh, that was horrible. But their farm was so different from our farm, and they were feeding the horses a big watermelon, I remember that. [Laughs] And I was thinking, "This is sure strange country here, they're feeding the horses a watermelon."

AI: Quite different.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.