<Begin Segment 7>

MA: Well, I think that was a problem for a lot of the Japanese Issei especially, is they, some unions wouldn't let them in 'cause they were all white, so they couldn't join the union but they couldn't work either, so it was a tough position.

GM: Yeah, it's... but, of course, after the war is no problem. Just during that period... well, the white was white and Japanese was Japanese. There was no... you knew it and you just took it as it came along. It's hard to explain, but the discrimination was more or less set.

MA: What do you mean by "set"?

GM: They didn't come out and say, "You're a Jap, stay out of here," or something like that, you know. If you're a Japanese, you just didn't go there. It wasn't as bad as the blacks in the South, but it was just sort of an understood thing. You didn't go looking for a job where you knew you can't get one.

MA: So it was understood among all the Japanese Americans where you could go, where you could find a job?

GM: What you could do, yeah. But in those days, the Japanese were all growing up. The older ones before the war were just a little over twenty years old. The Issei parents were there, but the, the Niseis were just still growing up. And one of the things was that I lived, one of my neighbors was the Yamamoto family. And they lived on this farm, and... the McLear farm, and they inherited the farm when Mr. McLear died. A big farm in Wapato and Yakima and Fife. And when they inherited the farm when their older son Ray got to be college-age, they sent him off to Stanford. And the story always goes that Ray was a very smart guy, and he went to Stanford, graduated out of Stanford, but when he got back, he couldn't find a job and he got back on the farm. And they used that sort of like an example. I know when I got out of the army, I told my brother-in-law that I was going to try to get into University of Washington, and he says, "Well, you remember Ray?" He says, "You know, when you get out of college, it's going to still be hard to find a job, and nobody will want you." And that was the way it was. A lot of kids that got out of the army with the help of the GI bill and everything, was able to go to college and get that education. And by that time, lot of firms were ready to hire Japanese, but... reluctantly, but I think it was, a lot of 'em, because of the veterans preference that you got for getting a job, they were able to get in. And when they got in, it was a fast road to, for other people to get a start.

MA: When you were growing up, it was different.

GM: I'm talking about right after the war, between the ages of twenty and thirty. There's a period there where Japanese girls who worked for, as secretaries, had a hard time getting good jobs. And after they got in, after a few years, other firms watched these girls and they, they really started hiring a lot of 'em, Japanese, into the business as bookkeepers and secretaries and things like that. And school secretary was one of the good jobs that's around, and for a while there, practically every school had a Japanese secretary, believe it or not. Probably around 80 percent of schools, the better schools, hired secretaries. And prior to the war, you know, or right after the war started, they fired all, about twenty-two of 'em that were working for the city. And that may be a start of it, too.

MA: Did you go into Tacoma ever?

GM: Oh, yeah. I used to go shopping with my mother from a, when I was really young.

MA: And what was the, I'm curious about the difference between, you know, being in Fife where it was more rural, and then when you would go into Tacoma, just in terms of race relations and how that worked, discrimination.

GM: Well, I think in my younger days, growing up as a little tot, you know, and my, being dragged around by my mother, I got the impression that they liked me a lot, because I was a little mischievous in most cases and they took to me. And as I grew up, it was that way all my life. People liked me, and it was a lot easier for me, because I never felt that people didn't like me. That was the whole, whole thing. You know, if you think that people don't like you, then you kind of shy away from, and you go back into your own shell. But I made more friends than friends made friends with me. But I never looked at discrimination in that sense. That somebody didn't like me, if somebody didn't like me, it's okay. I didn't like everybody, too. I liked friends, but I didn't like all of 'em. Some of 'em are different, and that's the way it was.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.