<Begin Segment 16>

TI: Now, during this period, the West Coast had been, all Japanese Americans, Japanese had been removed and put into camps. Was there ever a sense that people in Eastern Washington and in particular Spokane, that that might happen to them also?

FS: Oh, certainly. My dad used to talk about it all the time. He says, "We just, we don't know what's gonna happen. I think we should be ready in case something happens, or if they take me away, the family has to be ready to take care of itself." Now, I recall this conversation several times at dinner, that he was concerned that we were next.

TI: So what was the plan? If they, if they took your father away...

FS: Well, yeah, well, my father, we, my rest of the family would have to run the laundry. That was the plan, we had to keep the family alive. So he was definitely concerned that something might happen, and we weren't ever sure that they wouldn't, wouldn't evacuate Spokane.

TI: So it was kind of just, in some cases, it might have been hard just not knowing what was going to, that uncertainty.

FS: Oh, yes. It was, that was the, we didn't know what the heck was happening, and of course, war news wasn't good in those early days, and again, we didn't, didn't... weren't the subject of any really harsh discrimination or anything. Those people who didn't like us, didn't come in my dad's shop, and that was just as well. He had many, many old friends who finally came back and did business with him, and I guess we were isolated. We were one of the few families out in that part of town.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.