<Begin Segment 51>

MA: One kind of final question I wanted to ask you is, reflecting back on your life, you've done so much, is there anything else you want people to know about your story? Any final words?

GM: Well, yeah, as far as the Japanese people is concerned, I'm very proud of 'em, very proud of 'em. And as far as their life is concerned, they didn't stay in a place as a group, Japantown or something like that, and they went out and assimilated with the rest of the country. They were accepted, they've come a long ways. And one thing about 'em is that although they went out to different areas, they always been quite prosperous what they're doing. They've always been a pretty good success, and it's good to see that. And I thought in my own self in turn, I quit my, I got out of selling cameras and stuff like that and went into my own business, and made a very good, comfortable living at that.

But I see my son go out and get a good education, and had a rough time going to University of Washington, but, because he fooled around more than I did. Took him a little bit longer to get out of college, but at, when he reached this point where he was making a hundred thousand a year, it blows my mind, because I never seen money like that, you know. And when he lost his job, he had a job for sixty-six thousand or something like that waiting for him, and he wouldn't take it. And again, the kids are shooting for bigger money.

MA: It's great, though, that you're, you're so proud of, of who you are and what you've done and what your family's done.

GM: But he did find one thing, he wouldn't believe what I tell him. When he lost some jobs here, this last job, he was a comptroller for a computer firm. And they decided to go online, and they wanted somebody other than just an accountant, they wanted somebody with CPA and all the title that goes with it, so they fired him. And he looked for a job, there was three jobs that he -- you know, these jobs, big-paying jobs, there's about two hundred, over two hundred people applying for these things. On three jobs he come right up to the final two, they told him, "You're the final two," on this, and he got aced out on it. And I told my son, I says, "You know, that's very easy to understand, because if I was the boss, I'm thinking about the bottom line, the money involved." I said, "You take somebody that's white and somebody that's Japanese or an ethnic, and you are equally qualified, you're equally good, it's hard to decide which is, which one you want, they'll always take the white in most cases. Because the people, the public is not ready for the ethnic group." And he lost out on these three, and finally he, he decided to do his own stuff and his, he's starting a business right now, very good. I looked at the plans and everything, it's very good, very profitable, but right now he's having trouble with the City of Bothell because he wants to tear down a wall in the warehouse, and also open up for business. And the City of Bothell says you can't do it because you have to have an architect drawing, this, that, that, and it's got to be approved by the engineers, electrical, water department, everything, and pass all these tests before we'll let you break down this wall. Yet the owner of the building says you could tear down the wall, but you have to have a permit to build it down, break it down, and now, here's where government come slow like they always are, take their time about it, and hasn't got the okay yet. But then now, just to tear down the wall, he's finding out it's going to cost him ninety-three thousand dollars just to tear down the wall. And I said, "That's not, I don't think that's necessary to tear down the wall," but he wants it, I guess.

MA: It sounds like he's learned some important things from you, I think.

GM: Well, he worked for me for quite some time when he was going to school, and he had his other jobs. Well, he went to college, and very high, has a very good knowledge of computer systems, and his jobs he took with the computer companies were in the financial part. And being a head of that... at one point, he was one of the top three men in the computer company. But the computer companies change their bosses, the boss sells the company and some other boss comes in and wants to do certain things. And, but he got the qualifications, and this is why I'm looking at him, and then I'm at NVC, and I'm talking to these young kids, a little bit older than my son, they're terrific. They're really up in the high end of the scale there as far as certain jobs are concerned, you know. There's people like Cheryl Narasaki, and Warren Higa, and Bob Kiga, and Bryan Takeuchi, they're really, I'm proud of the Japanese kids and what they're doing. When I get to know them -- I don't know everybody because I don't know what they're doing, but it's really something. And in the twenty years I worked for Tall's right downtown, I used to have also people coming into the store and says, "George, could you find me a girl to work as a secretary?" And I said, "You mean a Japanese girl?" Says, "Yeah, a Japanese girl." And so, and even in those days, the demand was great. But then demand for Japanese girls for secretary was great, but the supply was limited. Most all good gals had pretty good secretary jobs and stuff like that. And you can look even at the schools. At one time, there were all Japanese secretaries in all the schools. Not today, but, 'cause they all retired and most of the girls, if they went into the school system, instead of being secretaries, they were teachers.

<End Segment 51> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.