<Begin Segment 12>

MA: And you talked a little bit about this earlier, but I wanted to know what were some of the effects that you felt after Pearl Harbor in terms of, like, discrimination, you had that story about the restaurant.

MT: Uh-huh, that was the biggest one that, very personal. [Laughs] So I know it's true.

MA: Did you notice, I guess, people's attitudes towards you changing as well?

MT: Oh, yeah. There were that, uh-huh. It's just, and it's amazing how far it's reached. It reached down to my son, who, he's the youngest, he's about forty-nine now, thereabouts, but he was a debate speaker, and then he and his partner, and the partner was, mother was Japanese but hakujin for a... and they asked him on TV, or was it radio, I can't remember now, if... wait a minute, let's see. "Did you, do you feel any discrimination," to them. And it surprised me when my son -- at that time he even said that he felt discrimination. I never knew that, I thought he was immune to it, being a young kid. And the other one that surprised me was he says, "I feel discrimination from both sides, the Japanese and the Caucasians."

MA: Was he, like, half Japanese and half Caucasian?

MT: Uh-huh, yeah. So he even felt it. So it was enough for even those young kids to feel it. That's what's amazing. For me to feel it is, yeah, it happened right then, but, and I think, you know and I know, I think, that there still is an undercurrent of discrimination regardless, that doesn't show. It's just all hidden, but until you get to know them, and then you wonder sometimes, too. But it'll get better, it'll get better. [Laughs]

MA: How did, I guess, how did you see Spokane change during the war?

MT: How did I see...

MA: The city, I mean, there must have been different kinds of people coming...

MT: Yeah, it was, the closeness left, and it sprawled out more. It really did. When you mention it, it really did. And we lost that, you know, kind of closeness.

MA: Do you mean the Nisei community, or just in general?

MT: The community in general. Now, now you think about it, and golly, they're so darn all over, that you can't even get them to come to church as one solid, solid group. They're so far-flung now that they could go to a hakujin one or whatever. That's, that's okay, but then they should remember. And the JACL tries to do that, but it's hard in Spokane.

MA: And you saw that really kind of start during the war?

MT: Oh yeah, after. Don't you think so, Kazue?

KY: Uh-huh.

MT: Yeah, it is.

MA: And then again about the Niseis who came over from Seattle when the camps closed and all that, did you, so did they fit in okay? You know, was it kind of tense at first?

MT: No, I married one of 'em. [Laughs] They had a dance somewhere or the other, and he went with my sister and I went with somebody else, but after that we got together.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.