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TI: So during this period, so the war had started, the redcaps lost their jobs but they were brought back on, this incident with your father, were there other things happening in Spokane that you could remember that, that made it harder for the Japanese community during this period? Like were they restricted from doing certain things?

RY: Oh, yeah, we were restricted from going, going to certain buildings like that, we had to stay away from the telephone building, we were supposed to stay away from the railroad, we're supposed to stay away from the railroad station, railroad.

TI: Wait, wait. So you were supposed to stay away from the railroad station, but your father was a redcap. So how did that work? [Laughs]

RY: [Laughs] They had to let that go, so they can go back to work. We weren't supposed to go to the, you know, Great Northern mail department either, but that one went haywire because all the mail started going where they weren't supposed to go, and so they called them back. And so that, they were called back after, after the redcaps were called back to work. But they said the mail was going from here to there, and they weren't getting, getting to places where they were supposed to go. And we weren't supposed to go by the, you know, by the telephone building, we weren't supposed to go close to the courthouse or anything like that. But like, like I, it didn't bother me because I was working at the farm most of the time, and I didn't think much of it. One time I did think something of it was... which I shouldn't have even spoke up at that time, and it was when we, we were Japanese, group of us were at the bowling alley where we'd go, where we were going bowling. Every year, every year we were going bowling there, and this time I thought to myself, I thought, hey, we were supposed to be going up there, so I don't know why, but I'm not, I'm not the type that goes up to argue anybody, that, "Hey, it's our turn." And, and the guy says, "No, these guys were ahead of you." I says, "Oh, okay." That was the only time I ever blew up.

TI: So you thought that someone was sort of cutting in line in front of you --

RY: Yeah.

TI: -- and so you spoke up, but you were mistaken, that they weren't really cutting in line. But you were just sensitive to people, perhaps taking, taking advantage...

RY: Yeah, I was getting, I was pretty touchy at that time, but I shouldn't have been. But you know, that's the funny part of me, I don't, I don't usually get up to do that kind of stuff. But that, that day, I don't know, something must have got me. I saw these other, other parties going up before we were going up. Other than that, I never had any, any problems, you might say, problems. I never noticed anymore after that, I never noticed anybody kind of... because most of the time I was at, I was at the farms, working on the farms.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.