Densho Digital Archive - Mii Tai Interview

<Begin Segment 1>

MA: Okay, so today is March 14th, and I'm here at the Museum of Arts & Culture in Spokane, Washington, and I'm going to be interviewing Mii Tai. And Kazue Yamamoto is listening in, and Dana Hoshide is our cameraperson today. So thank you so much for doing this, it's really great. I wanted to start by asking you a little bit about your parents. Where was your father from in Japan?

MT: Kochi-ken.

MA: And do you know how he ended up in Spokane?

MT: No, I don't know.

MA: And what about your mother, where was she from in Japan?

MT: They're from the same, Kochi.

MA: And do you know how they happened to meet?

MT: No, but then they did say at the church, they did have a program of "picture brides," and they had my dad's name in there, so I don't know if she's a picture bride or not.

MA: Oh, so at the church, they did, like, a play or something, about picture brides?

MT: Yeah, who were picture brides and fixing, putting their faces together. [Laughs]

MA: So it's possible that your mother could have been a picture bride?

MT: Well, that's what they did, but I never heard anything from my parents.

MA: So, when were you born?

MT: September 20, 1923.

MA: And what is your full name?

MT: Mii Tai.

MA: And how did your parents decide to give you your first name, Mii, because it's spelled M-I-I, right? It's quite unusual.

MT: I was born in a church that my parents were caretakers of, the Japanese church, and being the third... fourth child and being a girl, my father told his friend to name me, and he named me "Me" for Methodist Episcopal, M.E. M.E. Church, kyokai.

MA: But your parents spelled it M-I-I?

MT: Mii, yeah, uh-huh.

MA: Oh, so like the Japanese way? So a little bit more about your parents, you said they were caretakers for the church?

MT: Uh-huh.

MA: Do you know how they got involved with the church?

MT: No, uh-uh. They never told me.

MA: Could you name your siblings in the order they were born?

MT: Do I know?

MA: Can you name them?

MT: Kimi, K-I-M-I, Saji, S-A-J-I, Ida, I-D-A, she was born in Idaho. [Laughs] And then Mii, and then Kozo for the last. He's the last boy.

MA: So there were four girls and then one boy?

MT: Uh-huh, that's right.

MA: And you said your sister, Ida, had an interesting history behind her name, too.

MT: Born in Idaho, so it was Ida, Ida in Nihongo.

MA: Wow. Where exactly were you born?

MT: In, within the church, midwife.

MA: Oh. What address was that?

MT: It was on Third and Howard, and what's funny is that they were in, the Japanese church was there on Howard, then they turned around the block, and then the next time they moved was on the same block but on Third Avenue, in the middle of...

MA: Oh, so they had the church on Third and Howard, and then a couple years later moved it?

MT: They had it here, then they would turn around the corner and that Central Methodist Church is there, and then we were right next-door, almost.

MA: What was the name of the church?

MT: Central Methodist Church. Those were the days they had a shoe, shoeing, shoeing horses on the same block. I used to go there after kokogakko and watch them, ping-ping-ping, the back of the heels of the horses, putting shoes on 'em. That was interesting.

<Begin Segment 2>

MA: Can you describe a little bit about the neighborhood that you grew up in? What was it like?

MT: Oh, let's see. Downtown when we were, we lived behind the laundry, the Oriental Laundry, and then from there I would go to the next block where quite a few Japanese were, and we played in the alley. And behind my place, my father's place was a gambling place there, too, Chinese. But it was Chinese and Japanese around there.

MA: So that was kind of the ethnic makeup, was Chinese, Japanese?

MT: Uh-huh.

MA: Did the Chinese and Japanese kids play together?

MT: I don't remember too much playing with them, but we stuck close to Japanese.

MA: So most of your friends were...

MT: All Japanese, uh-huh.

MA: What sorts of things did you do for fun with your friends?

MT: Oh, jintori and... we used to play Annie-Annie-over. Tengoku was with marbles, and just baseball or hopscotch. We had a good place. That was after, after a while we grew a little older, my parents moved into a, rented a house on this, uptown on Third Avenue. And there was lots of Japanese there, too, and we used to have a really good time. There was lots of Japanese, just about every, most of it was Japanese, but then there were apartments, but there were no Japanese in there.

MA: Did most of the people own, like, restaurants and small businesses around that area?

MT: No, none. There was a, I remember there was a house that had, in those days, she did odori, taught odori and she had a large family, then next door was the Yamamotos, Cho-san's and Sachi's father, they had the other half of that. Then there was Mr. Nozaki and his family, Mr. Yamada, Kawai, Nozaki, and then come around to our house, yeah. There were a lot of them.

<Begin Segment 3>

MA: And your parents, they ran a laundry, right?

MT: Uh-huh.

MA: Who, I guess, who were the customers that would frequent the laundry?

MT: Hakujins. They were people who were retired or something, they were living in the hotel downtown.

MA: What was the interactions like between the customers and your parents?

MT: Oh, okay. They needed something for us to do and we were lucky to get it at ten cents a shirt. [Laughs]

MA: Is that what it cost?

MT: Yes.

MA: What were your parents, I guess, what were their days like working there? Like, what was a typical day of work for them at the laundry? What sorts of things did they do?

MT: Oh, my dad would get up real early and he'd wash it and then he'd hang it up in his dry room, which is a cement place, and then he'd stoke up the stove there. And then by noon, they would be dry, and then he would sprinkle water on it and then put a heavy thing on it and make it sort of moist. Then they start with those irons.

MA: How long would it take to wash and then press one shirt? Was it a really long process?

MT: Well, within a day, it's, but it's, it's quite full a process. Yeah, it's a lot of work for ten cents. [Laughs] Yeah, my dad would, they would come in and they'd put their package there and sign, get a ticket, and then he'd, in the evening, he would open it up and put their names on the neck place and then throw it in different spots, ready for the wash in the morning.

MA: Did your mother also work at the laundry?

MT: Uh-huh.

MA: Were her duties the same as your father?

MT: When I was there, my brother was born behind the laundry, so she'd strap my brother on her back and she'd be ironing with him on the back, with him on the back. I remember that.

MA: Did your siblings also help out at the laundry?

MT: We all took our turns except for the oldest one. She was able to find outside work.

MA: What work did she do?

MT: She was sort of the bookkeeper for the Spokane Vegetable.

MA: Was that a Japanese company?

MT: Yeah, that's all Japanese, brought in their produce and put it in this place that they line 'em all up and sell it. Spokane Veg.

MA: And she was the bookkeeper? She was the bookkeeper, you said?

MT: Uh-huh. That type of work.

MA: She must have been very studious.

MT: [Laughs] Well, yeah.

<Begin Segment 4>

MA: And I'm curious if you, did you live in the same building as the laundry, or did you live in another place?

MT: There was a, it was like this, and we, the laundry's here, then there's other businesses here like that. There's storerooms, you know. But we took one of those storerooms and we could run from the back door and run around in the back so people don't see you running in the back. We took a bath at the laundry because we had a couple of bathtubs that... we kept one for ourselves and then one for the hakujins to take a bath. And then we'd run in the back to get into where we slept, and seven of us were in one, one room. [Laughs] I was in the crib, I still remember that, though. Isn't that amazing? I remember I was in the crib, and we had one, the piano my father bought for my sister to learn, but we just all lived in that one room. Isn't that amazing?

MA: Yeah.

MT: It really is. And I remember when my brother was being born, they called it... they have a name for it, huh, Kazue? Anyway, she gave me an orange and told me to go outside -- [laughs] -- and then he was born.

MA: That's funny. So you all lived in one, one room, but then you said you had your bath in the laundry?

MT: Uh-huh.

MA: And then you also had another bath for your, the laundry customers of yours?

MT: Uh-huh, right next to each other, uh-huh.

MA: I'm curious, how much did that cost for a bath?

MT: I don't think it was very much. I betcha it was thirty-five cents or something, but it wasn't very much.

MA: And was that common, to sort of have a public bath, or a bath for the public to use?

MT: Uh-huh, yeah. Because Maeda-san, Shimura-san was her name before she, her husband died, but they had a barber shop on Trent, and then behind they had baths for people to take baths in the back room, and then that's where I used to deliver laundry when I was, I'd pull the wagon and deliver laundry and then take the dirty ones back to my father's place.

<Begin Segment 5>

MA: So you, then you did a lot of, you ran a lot of errands, then, around the neighborhood?

MT: Yeah, uh-huh. And my mother would send me out for kokogakko, they used Ichikaiei or one of them, I collected money for them. And I'd, she'd give me a bag to put the money in, and then she had a book. I'd carry a book with a pencil, and they would write their name and how much they gave to the... you know. If it's for the cemetery, Busankai, they would ask for contributions, I would go get it and write it.

MA: So then would you take the laundry, most of the businesses you would deliver laundry to, was that the Japanese business, the Japanese-run businesses? Like when you would go deliver laundry and pick up laundry?

MT: No, those, well, the one laundry that I always got on Saturday was from the farmer, brought in laundry, sheets and everything, and then I'd load that onto the thing and take it to my dad's place. But most of the place that he did was hakujin. It was all Caucasian people.

MA: Was that typical for that area? There seems to be a lot of, sort of, Japanese restaurants and laundries, but were most of the customers Caucasian?

MT: Uh-huh, uh-huh. All those restaurants, too. Oh yes, it's real, it's amazing how they, it was laundry or hotels or restaurants.

MA: Was there much sort of racial discrimination at that time? Did you witness anything like that as a child?

MT: No, not as a child, no. Because they don't show their rage against little ones who don't understand. But when the war broke out, well, I felt it then, yeah. The Chinese would wear their little buttons that says "We are Chinese" and then the others would... [laughs].

MA: So were there other, so there was Japanese, Chinese, Caucasian, were there other ethnic groups around, or that kind of passed by?

MT: Oh, yeah, Indians. And those Indians were real, real honest-to-goodness Indians with moccasins on their, real moccasins, and wearing their gowns with all the things on it, and papooses on the back. Yeah, there used to be a lot of 'em come in, and there'd be a sportsman show, and then lots of Indians all over would come in with blankets over them. The real stuff.

MA: So they lived kind of far away, but they would come into town periodically?

MT: Wherever, yeah. But Spokane used to be quite a center. In the old days, way before all the Caucasians took over, it used to be quite a fishing area, downtown, Spokane River was very much used, very much used by Indians. One of the real good fishing grounds. But they got kicked out of everything else plus that.

MA: How were the relationships between, did you ever witness anything between the Indians and the Caucasians?

MT: Caucasians? Well, the usual. It's very degrading, very degrading, and it's, I felt real... well, at that time, I didn't realize what was going on, but I'd think about seeing these women and they're being pushed around by the hakujins, you know. I saw a lot of that and they'd get 'em drunk and stuff like that. Oh, it was... I think about it now, it was pretty raunchy, you know. But oh well, the Indians don't know any better and they drink the stuff, and then you know what happens after that.

MA: And I guess when you're little, too, you don't really realize what's going on.

MT: What's actually going on, but I remember those things.

<Begin Segment 6>

MA: What did your family do for fun? Like maybe you had a day off from the laundry, or a holiday...

MT: My dad was a fisherman, and he used to go fishing every chance he got on the weekends. So he would take us to, Hayden Lake is a real pristine lake at that time, and then we had Pend Oreille Lake is a beautiful, beautiful place. And quite a few in the neighborhood, we would all go as a caravan over to those places, and some of the ladies would make the rice on a camp stove. It was fun days. That's the kind of... we didn't do much -- except there was a lot of theaters, five-cents, Unique, Tommix. [Laughs]

MA: What kind of theaters, like, movie?

MT: Movie theaters. We had a lot of them around in there, and also above, well, at the end of the block on the block where my laundry, my father's laundry was was a hotel named Galax, and then that was quite a fancy place, and they had ferns growing inside, real pretty, even had an elevator. Then you go up the block, one block up, and there was a theater named Empress. And all these famous people, famous movie stars would come, they'd perform there and stay at the Galax.

MA: What sorts of movie stars? Who came to Spokane?

MT: I betcha, I can't remember because, but I know that that's what happened. They'd stay at that hotel and they'd go perform up above at Empress. And my dad would take us sometimes.

MA: To the shows at the Empress?

MT: Show, uh-huh. And you know, like I say, the theaters were five-cents, ten-cents in those days. Then it got be a little bit more, and we'd get out of church and make a beeline down to, down to town to go to Liberty Lake -- Liberty Theater where they let us in cheaper if we got in at a certain time. [Laughs]

MA: What about things like, did the Japanese American community have, maybe, festivals or any sort of big community picnics?

MT: Yes, we had that picnic I told you about, and I have, remember this one fellow, Mr. Yoshida, Harry Yoshida, would get a big megaphone and he'd da-da-da-da, he just staccato-like, say, talk in Japanese, whatever's next coming on. And they had one where the women all lined up. It's amazing, and they'd have a lantern -- no, they don't. They have a match, I guess, and then they run down to the end there and get the lanterns, the kind you pull up, accordion, and then light the match and then bring it to the thing, and whoever gets to the other end wins. Yeah, and I won some pearl necklace or something, not real, but you know, the cheap stuff. But they were fun. At Audubon, Audubon Park was where they had a lot of them. Minnehaha, we have a place called Minnehaha, and they used to have a park, our undokais and things there.

MA: Is Minnehaha, that's the name of the park?

MT: Uh-huh. Minne... and then, I don't know if it's one word or not. I don't think so. Well, anyway.

<Begin Segment 7>

MA: So when you were growing up, your parents, you said, were caretakers of the, was it the Methodist church? Were you heavily involved with the church as well?

MT: My parents were very involved with it, to a point where they and then Mr. Okamoto, a group of them were the nucleus of starting the church and making it go. So my mother spent an awful lot of time contributing to the church. All those women did.

MA: What sorts of things did they do to contribute to the church?

MT: Oh, they went to church every Sunday, but then, well, everything was centered around the church, everything. Matter of fact, I was telling somebody that we had a church down there on Third Avenue, then we had to move out of there. So they moved into, going to buy this Grant Street Methodist Church, and they asked for a contribution from everybody. And Mr. Kasai -- this is what I heard parents talking about -- insisted that the only way that he would help get people to contribute to it and everything -- he was sort of the leader of the group -- was if they allowed, forget about being Methodist and let it become a Japanese community center. So we held everything there. So we'd get, in those days the kids were growing up and they wanted to have dances and stuff, so they got to have their mixers at church.

MA: So the church kind of became a community...

MT: Community center. Community center on Grant Street. Reverend... oh, golly, I forgot. Anyway, he was a hakujin minister during the war years, and he was a wonderful fellow. Spoke real good Nihongo. [Laughs]

MA: Wow. Do you know how he learned Japanese?

MT: He, I think, taught or something in Japan, but he... what was the name of the Reverend? [Addressing Kazue Yamamoto]

KY: Cobb?

MT: Cox?

KY: Cobb?

MT: What was his...

KY: The name Cobb, C-O-B-B?

MT: Oh, Cobb, Cobb, C-O-B-B, yeah, Reverend Cobb. That's right.

MA: So it sounds like, then, the church became so central in the community.

MT: Central. They had dance, we have dancing and everything, programs with dancing, and then movies, real old, "(47 Ronin)," remember that one? Yeah, and all those shows and all those tearjerkers? [Laughs] Make you cry every time. All of us young kids were all upstairs fooling around, but then all those parts we'd be crying. [Laughs]

MA: So there was the Methodist church, was there also another, was there like a Buddhist church as well?

MT: There is now, uh-huh. But then the Catholics, the Catholic people went out and searched on the farms and picked them all up as Catholics there for a while.

MA: You mean they...

MT: [Addressing KY] Remember that?

MA: They searched, they wanted...

MT: Well, make 'em Catholics. [Laughs] That's what the Catholics do, that's why they get big, big, big. And then so there were Catholics and then there were the central Japanese, but other people might be going in a little group of their own, but there was none that I saw. Just our church, and then [addressing KY] when was the Buddhist church started, do you remember?

KY: After camp, so 1945?

MT: After camp, oh, '45.

MA: So it sounds like, then, before the war, the Methodist church was really the central.

MT: Oh, the major, uh-huh, central.

<Begin Segment 8>

MA: I wanted to ask you about your experience at Japanese language school.

MT: Oh, language school?

MA: Did you go to language school?

MT: Yes, I did. Didn't absorb too much, but just enough to get by. [Laughs]

MA: How often, how often did you go?

MT: After school. When school was on we went after school and went in. And my mother was one of the teachers, yeah. She, evidently, Isseis, women, it was very unusual for them to have any education, but she taught us. And the fude and the sumi, you know, and reading, writing. But yeah, it was, yeah, it was good because... and they, of course, we'd rather speak English, but it's good, I'm glad that they were there to... and my dad could speak English pretty good, but you have to speak Japanese to my mother. And it's good because even as I went to Japan a couple years ago, even with my funny Japanese, I was able to converse with them. I asked them to excuse me for having such poor Japanese, and that opened it up for, they knew I didn't know anything so that's, it worked out fine. [Laughs]

MA: Did you enjoy language school when you were little, going there?

MT: Oh, I was a naughty girl. Yeah...

MA: You were naughty? How were you naughty?

MT: Oh, I ran around with the boys and doing bad things, you know, tricks on each other and stuff. They get sent home and I'm with 'em. [Laughs] Yeah, I remember.

<Begin Segment 9>

MA: Can you tell me a little bit about your experience in high school? What was the name of your high school?

MT: Lewis & Clark High School.

MA: And what was, I guess, the ethnic makeup of the school?

MT: Well, it was rather... it was wide in the fact that there was wealthy people, and then there were the not-wealthy people. And then the Japanese people was just a sliver in there, but we never, I don't recall in my group or anything, us mixing with the hakujins. We stayed, stayed with Nihonjins and we didn't go dancing with them and this and that, at least what I saw.

MA: So in your group of friends, you, they were all Japanese?

MT: Uh-huh. But I had American friends, too, but, and I joined the Ti Girls, that's a cheer thing and stuff like that, and had friends in there, but they weren't Nihonjins, they were all hakujin. Very little bit of Nihonjin if you put it as a thing, whole thing.

MA: How did that feel for you? I mean, going to high school with so many, just, the Niseis were only such a little part of the population there?

MT: I didn't feel anything, no, I didn't. I don't... it was okay. I do, I do remember when war broke out, that I heard that some of the teachers were a little bit sharp with the Nihonjin kids, you know, made 'em cry and stuff. [Laughs] Yeah.

MA: Did the, so the Nisei seemed to fit in with the rest of the school in a sense?

MT: Yeah, I think they didn't know us well enough to feel that they could, how you do when you're, you can... they didn't, I don't think they pushed us around and stuff, no. I really don't. And I don't remember discrimination as such, like during the war when we went out with a carload of Nihonjin kids and we... this is what happened one time. We went and there was a restaurant named Nim's Cafe, and they said, "Let's go," somebody said, "let's go in there." Somebody else says, "No, no, they won't let you in." I said, "Oh, sure," and somebody says, "They'll let us in." "Okay, well then, you guys go in and see, we'll come in after you." They got kicked out. "No Japs allowed here," they got kicked out. I was with the group when we walked in there and we got kicked out. [Laughs]

MA: Did someone who worked there come up to you and say, "Get out"?

MT: Yeah. They didn't want us around. Yeah. So I remember that real well, I mean, I'll never forget that. And then others who, you know, they say things as they walk by you. But you just ignore 'em.

MA: When you were in high school, what, I guess, what were your sort of dreams for the future? Did you have any hopes and dreams in terms of like a job or...

MT: Yeah. Well, I -- this is gonna kill you -- but I took straight commercial class, and I hate numbers. [Laughs] But I figured that if I could be a secretary or something, but really I would rather go to college and learn agriculture type of thing. And that went to pot, too, because the war just broke, and 1941 I graduated. So the war broke out in 1941. Came home from church, on the radio they were saying that Pearl Harbor got bombed, yeah. So that was out, too. No college or... I did try going to Spokane Junior High, but it folded. But that's okay. I was busy raising kids anyway.

<Begin Segment 10>

MA: And I guess in high school again, what social activities did you do?

MT: In those days?

MA: Uh-huh, when you were a teenager.

MT: Oh, social, when we grew up to know better and know instead of being little kids, I used to go out with Kazue's husband. [Laughs] We used to go down to, a bunch of us would go to Natatorium Park, and that's where they had the carousel and the wheel and everything, and the name bands would come there. Name bands by, I mean by Kay Kaiser and Sinatra and stuff, they, Sinatra was nobody then.

MA: Did you actually see Sinatra?

MT: No, but I know that he was there. And I didn't go every time, I wasn't that... nobody was breaking down or breaking my door to get in. [Laughs] But yeah, and we did all those things, going there as a group. We went to formals, too, and everybody knew when somebody had gone out the night before because they'd come to church with a corsage on their choir robe. [Laughs] It was so funny. It isn't funny, it was nice. Advertising that they had a date.

[Interruption]

MA: Oh, so you're talking about when people from the West Coast, Japanese Americans, came to Spokane?

MT: To Spokane, and everything closed up in camp.

MA: What do you think about that? Was there, what was the relationship like there, between the, these newcomers and the...

MT: Oh, they had friends and stuff, yeah. It was good. But yeah, it was good. But I didn't know too many people. People like Kazue, she's been down in California and then she knows a lot of people in Seattle, I don't. I don't know outside people, so you kids, gee, they have all the dates, you know, I had to settle for none, just because of them, probably. [Laughs] Bad.

<Begin Segment 11>

MA: So I'm to go back a little bit and ask you, we talked a little bit about Pearl Harbor and what happened after Pearl Harbor, but, so do you remember hearing about it for the first time, that Pearl Harbor had been bombed?

MT: No, not before I came home from church, and then I put it on. Yeah, that was a shocker.

MA: What was going through your mind?

MT: We were just, just listening to it, not realizing what had happened, really. But, uh-huh, yeah, I think my father was very worried because right away, they took away Mr. Kasai and Mr. Hirata.

MA: The FBI took them away?

MT: Uh-huh. Just dragged 'em right out.

MA: What was the reaction in the community after that happened?

MT: Well, I don't know what the community, but we were, everybody was getting very scared, what's happening. They thought everybody's gonna get dragged. In fact, my dad thought that we were gonna have to go to camp, too. So he got scared and he burned all the pictures of his nephew and stuff that were in the Japanese army, thinking that that would be bad. Yeah, I remember that.

MA: And were you scared yourself? I mean, did...

MT: Well, not really shaking and scared, but knew that something bad was going on. I was in, see, '41, see, so I was in high school. Oh, yeah, that's my senior year, I was seventeen probably. But it was good; it wasn't good to put all the people in camp, but all things bad like that had a silver lining in that it dispersed them and they became more what they wanted to achieve in life. Because I hear a lot of the people in Seattle couldn't even find jobs after they graduated out of the U of W.

MA: So you see the camp experience as kind of positive in a way, because people could move all over the country?

MT: Uh-huh, yeah. Yeah, I heard that the fellow who made the beautiful, for your World's Fair, that lace work, he built that big building back east. Yeah, he was one of those who built it. Yamasaki or something?

MA: Do you remember, you said that the FBI had taken away Mr. Kasai and Mr. Hirata. Do you remember the FBI presence in your community?

MT: No, I didn't, no. They kept them, you couldn't find them, no, but they were there to see if we were up to no good. And I wasn't in that group, you probably heard about Sumi and Joe Okamoto's wedding, and see, they're older than I am, so I, all I heard was what happened afterwards, that they were all locked in the...

MA: So what happened at the wedding? Can you...

MT: Oh, the FBI came and wouldn't let them out, they couldn't go out. So they got held up there, but I wasn't there because they're older than I am.

MA: And this wedding happened to be Pearl Harbor, the same day, right? Or a day later?

MT: I don't know exactly... was that the same day? Same day, Kazue says same day. Yeah, that was, I'm sure that just upset everybody, scared the dickens out of 'em. But, you know, it's good and bad. You look back and you could see the good that it did, but it's not so good the way it was done.

MA: How much were you and your family and your friends aware of what was going on, like in Seattle, with the evacuation and camps and all of that?

MT: We knew something was going on there. You know how it is when you hear something like that happening, you hear about it, and oh, but you don't know the real full impact of it until you really get, you're mixed in with it in some way. Yeah, no... but yeah, there are a lot of Japanese from Seattle came after they were incarcerated, and then they came back to Spokane under sponsorship, yeah. Then we had fun.

MA: Did you hear from those people about camp? Did they talk about it?

MT: Some, but not that much, no. Yeah, even those soldiers, just like the soldiers, they don't like to talk about it, so they just don't say anything. But I know it wasn't good.

<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.

<Begin Segment 13>

MA: So tell me a little bit more about your husband. How did you meet him? Was it at this dance?

MT: [Laughs] That's sort of funny. Well, there was a, there was a Caucasian who sponsored quite a few Nihonjins, quite a few. And Division and Sprague, very busy little street, but it was right there. And they took tires off and put 'em back on and this and that, that kind of work. And I had to, we passed there to go down to the laundry to work, my sister and I. And they'd look at us and we'd look at them. [Laughs]

MA: These were the Seattle Niseis?

MT: Yeah, that were there, and then, well, I, during the summer and stuff, I used to work at the greenhouse.

MA: Which greenhouse was this?

MT: Gothman's. Well, it's one that's not there anymore, but Gothman's Greenhouse. And I used to make cuttings and things like that, but the boys, some of them transferred from the tire shop up to there because he would accept Nihonjins. So I met them there, too. Bill Yorozu, you remember him? Yeah. He was there and his brother Henry, "Popo." And all those fellows, Henry wasn't here, but Bill was. Then he went to WSU, I guess, so they'd come through town. But yeah, that's how I met him. After that date, my sister said, "Well, at least he's a good dancer." [Laughs] But that's okay. And I'm a lousy dancer. [Laughs]

MA: And he, you were telling me earlier that he had been incarcerated, right, at Minidoka?

MT: Oh yes, he just got out to work with the sponsor.

MA: So he was sponsored by the tire shop to work?

MT: Tire shop first.

MA: What did he tell you about Minidoka?

MT: He didn't say too much. They don't say too much. What they... what I hear more from is from the shows. That show from that... Snow...

MA: Snow Falling on Cedars?

MT: Yeah, uh-huh. And my friend says that's pretty close to the truth, the way it was done. He says camp life was just like that, yeah, and then the others say, the men would be behind there and you're in a line to eat, and they go... [laughs] That's funny.

MA: And you're husband's, so he came over to work in Spokane, but his family was still in Minidoka, right?

MT: They came out, they came out when everybody was told to get out, and came and lived with us. We got married and then we had an immediate family. They stayed with us several years, and oh, I'll betcha five years, ten years, maybe somewhere around there.

MA: And you, but you never visited them while they were in Minidoka?

MT: I was just going to go there, and then his mother, then their daughter died. I was just, he and I were, just made plans to go there so they could see who I am, and his sister died in camp, so that just ruined it. I wished I had met her. But anyway, they're, and the husband of Kimi Tai was a woman... and the husband was Ted Saito, but his kids did very well. He's a dentist and she's working for the government and has been back in Washington, D.C. She's married and he's married. Did very, very well.

MA: And who is this?

MT: Saito. My niece and nephew.

<Begin Segment 14>

MA: So you... when, what year did you and your husband get married?

MT: '45. And we had our fiftieth. [Laughs]

MA: Where did you live? Did you live with your family?

MT: When?

MA: Right when you got married?

MT: Oh, I was with my mother and dad and my sisters, yeah, and brother.

MA: And then did you move into your own place?

MT: We moved into an apartment, there was quite a few Nihonjins there, and then as soon as possible, we moved into a house. I have a greenhouse that cost more than the first house we lived in. [Laughs] Yeah.

MA: And what did, what did your husband do for a living, I mean, after he worked at the tire shop?

MT: Oh, we, as soon as we got married, we took over my dad's laundry. I wish he had gone to school instead, now, after the matter, you know. But he had a, we had a laundry, and then after so many years, the Issei said, "Oh, you'll make more money at a hotel." So it was one of those -- excuse me -- "flophouses," and we had that for a few, several years and then he had a heart attack. So that was a blessing in disguise, because after, it was way back when, they didn't do too much of the heart thing, Spokane was the leader. And so they got 'em fixed up, and then he went back to school. He went to business school, and then there, when he got through, his boss, he worked, he got hired by a boss who was looking for a woman, but the teacher said, "Why don't you try Mr. Tai?" So he did, they did, and that's where he got on his two feet. Real good, did real well. So it's a stock and investment firm. I wished he had started there in the first place. [Laughs]

<Begin Segment 15>

MA: So then going back to your, so your parents sold the laundry to your husband?

MT: I think he did, but I was never involved in anything financial. He did it all. I mean, I'm not much for wanting to, numbers, remember? [Laughs]

MA: But you basically took over the laundry from your parents.

MT: Yeah, uh-huh, that's basically what we did, I'm sure. And then the hotel was, it was hard. Because --

MA: What years did you run the hotel?

MT: Gee, I don't know the exact year. I really don't. It's a blur.

MA: Like the '50s?

MT: '45... yeah, it had to be.

MA: And what was that hotel like?

MT: You don't want to know. [Laughs]

MA: You described it as a "flophouse," what does that term mean?

MT: [Laughs] Well, that's what Nihonjins ran. They all ran those things, and gee whiz, it was a pretty good... hotel, the next door place is still there, but the hotel itself is gone. This hotel was three floors, it had 130 rooms in it, and sometimes it was full with these people. And you could get a room, just a bed, for fifty cents. Bargain. [Laughs] And then that's the inside rooms. Then on the back side, next to the alley, you got the, it's seventy-five cents, 'cause you got the outside window. Then you could get a room in the front, which had sort of a suite. It's got a front room and a bedroom and a bathroom, and that's a dollar and a half. Oh, golly. [Laughs] But it was just too much. I didn't like that job, but we did it seven days a week. Every day we had to go there and make the beds. Then we got out of that because of the heart attack, and then we went on. But that was good in a way, that the kids knew that we were broke, and they all, most of them went on scholarships to school. They, we just didn't have it. But we could have had it if he had gone to school, you know what I mean, but we didn't have any money then, either.

[Interruption]

MA: So we were talking before about your hotel that you ran with your husband, and I was wondering who the customers were. Who stayed at the hotel?

MT: Lumberjacks and those who worked in the mines, and apple pickers. Oh yes, we always had apple pickers. In the fall they come in and they get a good room, seventy-five cents, and the next morning I go in there and all the quilts are gone. [Laughs]

MA: So they would take stuff from the rooms?

MT: They'd take it so that, yeah, so they could sleep wherever they are when they're picking apples. Every fall that happens. Isn't that something?

MA: And then the, you said the lumberjacks and the other people?

MT: Miners.

MA: Were those all Caucasian?

MT: Yeah.

MA: Men?

MT: Yeah, and... yeah, uh-huh. Just Caucasian.

MA: What was the atmosphere like in the hotel? Was it loud, was it sort of...

MT: Well, those who were just retired fellows, and they sit in the front room, they, they're good, they're good. During the day, they were pretty good, but then when they come in with money in their pocket, then they get noisy, you know. They buy, first thing they do is buy wine and drink it. Below was a tavern.

MA: How many rooms was the hotel?

MT: The hotel?

MA: Yeah, how many rooms?

MT: About 130.

MA: And it seems like you had a combination of people who, did people live there?

MT: Yes.

MA: So people long-term and then short-term.

MT: Yes, yes, correct. Uh-huh, by the month, yeah. We had a couple of Nihonjins that lived there.

MA: Were those Isseis?

MT: Huh? Issei, uh-huh. Well, you might call them that. They used to belong to, you rented the hotel from a Caucasian, but the people ahead of us, Mr. Katayama and his wife.

MA: They owned the hotel before you?

MT: Well, you don't say owned the hotel building, but the business.

MA: What was your job at the hotel?

MT: I was the chambermaid. [Laughs] Honest to goodness chambermaid, and I made beds and chamber as it says. Well, you don't want me to go into detail. [Laughs] But anyway, yeah.

MA: Were you, were you the only one that did that?

MT: I and -- if I had a helper, like sometimes my mother would come, but she had another hotel. But, you know, it was nice to have somebody on the other side of the bed, then it's faster. Yeah, we had the trick of the trades.

MA: And then, I guess, what was a typical day like for you at the hotel for you and your husband?

MT: Yeah, we'd start nine o'clock or whatever, when people get out. Yeah, and just start making beds, going room to room, and then go up the stairs room to room. It used to be three floors, yeah, three floors. I don't know, I never dreamed I'd be doing that kind of job. And a hakujin fellow said to my husband, he says, "You can do better than that." He was an agent for the building, but he said to him, "You could do better than that," and he did. I'm real proud of him. I think about it now, and he did good, real good. Fifty-two, he had to go back to school, that's pretty early. I mean, you know...

MA: He was fifty-two years old?

MT: Uh-huh, went back to school. They called it Kinman Business University, and he did real well, to a point where the hakujin lady wanted him to have the job instead of the woman. That's good.

MA: Was your, just another question about your hotel, where was it located? Was it sort of downtown area?

MT: Yes, yes. It was the next block after the Chinese block.

MA: What was in the Chinese block, was it restaurants?

MT: Remember? There was Clem Hotel, that's a block, Clem Hotel way over to Washington. Then from Washington, that next block was where the hotel was. Lots of hotels.

MA: Mostly run by Japanese?

MT: Japanese. Yeah, it's amazing. But her husband's family ran a meshiya, too, isn't it?

MA: What was that? What did they run?

MT: Meshiya, which is an eating place, or a restaurant or something, but that's the, yeah. But I have a, quite a vivid memory of where everything was. When I, in our day, and I realize maybe what you, the map you showed me is before that, but it still doesn't sound right. [Laughs] Sorry.

<Begin Segment 16>

MA: So you said you've lived in, you've lived in Spokane your whole life, right?

MT: Uh-huh.

MA: What are the changes that you see in the Japanese American community, I guess, over the years and then now? What are some of the biggest changes? I mean, you said that they have kind of dispersed, but are there other things?

MT: Well, we're all, my age, we were the children at the beginning there, and now I'm near the end of my lifespan. And you look back and let's see, what do I think? Yeah, I'm proud of the city, our Spokane, I really am. Because they produced real good kids, really. And try to find a bad one, it's hard, really. Isn't that right, Kazue? It's very hard to find one that you'd say that was really bad. And they all did well.

MA: Why do you think that is? Why do you think that your generation and then the Sanseis just did so well?

MT: Well, discipline. I definitely say that we were disciplined the way that the Isseis felt that we should act, and they kept us pretty close together. I don't know why we didn't break into the hakujin -- well, they weren't ready for us either. But it's discipline and what they taught us, we conveyed. Like my boy, my young boy was a paper boy. And I used to tell him over and over, I says, "Remember, if there were a hundred boys and you were one Japanese boy there and somebody threw a rock and broke the window, they wouldn't remember any of those ninety-nine boys, but they'll know darn well that there was a Japanese boy there." In other words, you've got to behave accordingly, and when you hurt, if you hurt the family, if you do something bad, you hurt the family and our reputation and everything. But not only that, the city will be ashamed of you, and it'll go all the way down the United States, down to California, I told my boys. Especially him, Roddy. [Laughs] He was always sick, but then he's a musician. But I wanted him to understand that, and I told the others that... haji. You know haji? What do you say, haji?

KY: Shame. Don't bring shame.

MT: Shame, don't bring shame. Don't bring shame. My mother used to tell me every time I left the house, "Don't bring shame to the house." Pounded it in here. [Laughs] That's why we, I try, in my house, I may be screaming all the time, but it was one of those things that I was trying to get them to be sure and to be an example to the other people. You've just got to be good. Some of the other people, they have no respect for anybody. And that's another thing they made you do, is respect the emperor, and that's not bad.

MA: Respect, what was that?

MT: Respect the emperor and learn that certain, you respect people and their stuff and whatever. Then you should be pretty well on your way to not stealing, you know. You at least respect their stuff so you don't want them to do it to you. That, right now, that's all there is going on. But the Japanese are pretty good staying out of trouble in our town.

MA: And you feel like that has a lot to do with what the Issei taught you?

MT: Issei taught. I don't think, I know. If they hadn't pounded it into our... and at kokogakko, at our Japanese school, they would tell us.

MA: The same thing?

MT: Uh-huh. And you know, we had to stand at attention when the opened up the emperor's message, and that's all the same, respect. Well, yeah, Bush being like he is, it's hard. And it's really, he's showing what you could get away with, and everybody's learning well how to get away with tainting the words a little bit this way, and it sounds good, you know. Too bad.

<Begin Segment 17>

MA: Well, I'm curious to ask you about September 11th.

MT: September?

MA: September 11th, you know, the attack on the World Trade Center?

MT: Oh, that.

MA: And sort of the aftermath of that and how you feel about that? Some people are saying that it's similar to what happened after Pearl Harbor.

MT: No, no. Well, yeah, maybe, yeah, maybe so. Maybe so. My parents, my father told me that they had pushed Japan into a corner, and restricted them all the way around so they were isolated completely. There's nothing to do but to come out fighting. But the United States, well, they got to think about those things. Sort of hard, I don't know. Bad. [Laughs] Poor Mr. Bush, huh? [Laughs]

MA: So you, how many children do you have?

MT: I have six. I had six; two I lost, but the rest are still with me. Three and three.

MA: Do they identify strongly, I guess, as Japanese, do you know? Do they talk with you about that?

MT: No, no. They're American. And it's good, that's where you are. But yeah, no, they -- well... well, yeah, uh-huh. My daughter is working on a project herself and trying to organize women in something to do with, back East they're trying to make it into a... oh, I can't, her husband just got through telling me about that, that she's pushing for helping women do something or other. But anyway, I hope she gets, does what she's aiming to do, it's something good.

<Begin Segment 18>

MA: Is there anything else that you want to say, or is there something that you want people to learn from your story, from watching your story or listening to your story that you're telling me?

MT: The... long time ago, it was sure fun. I think back now, it was sure fun and it was very unusual. We had horse-drawn mail carriers, and those ice trucks going by, and when they stopped, we knew they'd stop and give somebody some ice for their ice box. And they'd go chip-chip-chip and all these little pieces would fall and we'd all make beeline and we'd stick it in our mouths. [Laughs] It was fun. And we had fun, we had fun the old way, roller skates, the honest-to-goodness roller skates, not the fancy ones.

MA: What did those look like, the old ones?

MT: They had metal wheels. Matter of fact, we've got a whole box full of 'em, we're putting it out for whoever, to clean out the house. But we had fun like that, we had fun playing baseball in a vacant lot and Annie-Annie-over and stuff like that. And these kids don't know that; they don't know that. You try and tell 'em, they bring out their violin and start playing. [Laughs] But no, it was good, it was good. Don't you think so, Kazue? I think so.

KY: Age of innocence.

MT: Age of the infant?

MA: Innocence.

MT: What did she say?

MA: Age of innocence.

MT: Oh, innocence, yeah. I was happy, yeah.

MA: Do you still feel like you are very close with the other Niseis you grew up with?

MT: I feel I have a connection with them. I don't go to church as often as I do, I just go on my toban day. But then, no, I value my Japanese friends very much, I do. So...

MA: It seems to be a strong community in Spokane, Japanese Americans.

MT: Uh-huh. Yeah, so, but it's not like it used to be a long time ago when we used to, it was really nice.

<Begin Segment 19>

MA: What do you see as the future of the Japanese American community?

MT: I think they're going to be just like the kurochans, the black people. They're just going to mix and going to be one -- which is good. Then it'll be, there'll be no more discrimination, but they'll figure something else out, but then... yeah. They have a harder boat to row.

MA: Who has?

MT: The black people.

MA: But you envision the future as sort of, a lot of different races sort of intermarrying?

MT: Intermarrying. My two girls married Caucasians; the boy that's helping me clean out my house now is a Caucasian. But they're good Caucasians; I appreciate 'em both. Real good kids.

MA: When they both first wanted to marry, the Caucasians...

MT: They were worried. [Laughs]

MA: Were you worried, or how did you feel about that?

MT: No, I just watched. And the oldest one, he just went ahead, and I don't know what transpired between the two of 'em but that was the biggest hurdle. He was worried, I'm sure. And the second one, Jim, he's a, he's really cute. [Laughs] He went and actually asked my, Dad for her hand, I guess he was scared to death. [Laughs] He's a good kid. Oh gosh, they're both real good. Jim is a very, mother is very, in church, so very gentle fellow. He's in, he's in Taiwan right now working for Boeing. Stays there a month at a time. Yeah, he says he wishes he'd be over here to help me, ha-ha-ha. [Laughs] But he would. I know he would. Yeah, they're good kids. But it's, we're just going around and gonna come around and it's gonna be one circle of everybody I think, eventually. But what I'm scared about is there's so much evil in this world. It's just, every day somebody's killing somebody or something, and I don't know where that's going to take us. I'd like to read some things about the last days of whatever, how they were all evil and they... but anyway.

MA: How are you able to deal with that, sort of seeing all of this, what's going on today?

MT: It bothers me when I read it, it really does. I think, "What in the world's gonna happen?" And you can't even walk, you read that somebody went, you're minding your own business and walking through the store, and then as soon as you get outside they grab your purse or something. I just can't fathom it, and they don't want to work for anything, they just want to take it. No respect. No, in the schools, you can't slap 'em. Some of those kids need a good whipping, I would give 'em. Yeah, I would. In the old days, they used to just cut your hands off or something. Now, that's, that's extreme, but if you stole, they would do... that's extreme. But some of them don't understand what you mean.

MA: It sounds like what you were talking about earlier about discipline and respect, and those are sort of the values that you have that maybe aren't in a lot of people now.

MT: Uh-huh. I listen to people like the fellow that's with Oprah.

MA: Dr. Phil?

MT: Dr. Phil, and you could see that out of the, you just can't imagine how in the world they can't comprehend that what they're doing is wrong. They just can't seem to think that anybody's, that anybody would have the nerve to say that you're wrong. I just can't believe it. It's scary, isn't it? You just don't know what's gonna happen. Maybe I'm gonna be going at a good time. [Laughs]

MA: So what are your plans for the next few years?

MT: Well, this is going to be the last chapter of my book, I say, at eighty-two, or eighty-three this year, but I'm going to... I used to do dahlias and go to shows and everything, so I'm going to stop all that and then I'm going to go the other way. I'm going to go to some symphonies and some of the other things that I've missed. You know, the period between having children and then the children leaving is a blur. I can't remember. I can't remember, and you ask a lot of these mothers what happened between there, they can't remember. Because it's nothing but work, work, work, and keeping the shoes on and mouths to feed. So I'm gonna... but that's what's wrong, is that we come to this point but we've already made the circle. And like your kids are treating you because you're dependent on them. [Laughs] Circle. So that's sort of hard, but I'm glad that I get to, that I'm in a position that I could go to this Rockwood and have a house.

MA: Is this your new, your new home?

MT: Uh-huh, have my own house. And it's really good, I met another friend today at the other meeting. Yeah, I'm real excited about it. [Laughs]

MA: Is there anything else that you wanted to say, any messages for...

MT: Well, I enjoy thinking about these old days; that's a sign that you're really old. And I relish 'em and I think about 'em and I think, gee, I used to do this. And those grasshoppers, we used to catch a lot of 'em and cup like that and get 'em in there. The grasshoppers, and oh, some of the icky stuff we did. I even skinned a snake. Yeah, I went to the lake to baby-sit for the summer, some kids, but at that time, I caught a snake and I skinned it. [Laughs]

MA: You weren't scared?

MT: No, I was a tomboy. Yeah. But I like -- I haven't got the brains for anything else, I guess, but anyway...

MA: Well, it sounds like you had a great life.

MT: I enjoyed it, yeah.

MA: Great. Well, thank you so much for the interview.