<Begin Segment 20>

MA: So going back a little bit, you said that your father sort of experienced this discrimination, and that's what made him want to go to Chicago.

SE: Well, it's just this one man that said, "We don't want any more Jap money in downtown Spokane."

MA: Did you ever experience any, anything like that?

SE: No, that was the only, only time anybody said anything like "Jap" or anything, it was just that one man. As a whole, I've had very good experience. People have been good to me.

MA: And then what, what did your father end up doing in Chicago? Did he open a hotel or apartment?

SE: Uh-huh. He immediately got us started out with a small hotel or rooming house or whatever. Then as he got used to the atmosphere, the people and all, he was able to find a bigger place. So by the time that we visited them, he was already running a fair-sized hotel.

MA: So you were able to visit him in Chicago.

SE: Uh-huh.

MA: Was there a, do you remember if there was a large Japanese American community in Chicago?

SE: No, they were so widespread. But, yeah, there was no organization or any churches until, I think, the war. And then the different groups like the Buddhist groups, I think, that there wasn't any strong, Japanese were spread out, few Japanese.

MA: And then when did your mother and your, some of your siblings end up moving to Chicago to join him?

SE: My, my brother, when he got out of service, he joined him to help him run the hotel. My father was one never to stay put. [Laughs] He, when he was in Seattle, anytime he used to come home from school or anything, the minute I entered the door, "Oh, you're home. Bye," and he was gone. And sometimes I didn't see him for dinner, or 'til late at night.

MA: What would he do all day?

SE: He, his... evangelistic work. He'd go visit. I'd say, we don't have any money for anything, but somehow he'd scrounge up some money to buy flowers to visit somebody at the hospital, or somebody's... and then he was a good one for sitting with family when they had a death in the family. It used to, they used to bring the bodies home, huh? And he would sit with the bodies. And so many a time he'd be at somebody's home sitting with the family. 'Cause lots of times the family members didn't want to be in the same house with a body, and he would sit with the family. But you know, that was a tradition, huh, they used to bring the bodies home.

MA: So then your father sounds like a real, sort of, community leader.

SE: Uh-huh. So I think it was... he visited people whether they were church people or not.

MA: Did he end up staying in Chicago permanently after he moved from Spokane?

SE: Uh-huh. Well, the field was big. [Laughs]

MA: Did he ever consider moving back to Seattle?

SE: Oh, no, no. In fact, he started a church in Chicago.

MA: Which church? What's the name?

SE: He called it, I think it was the Church of Christ.

MA: Was it mostly Japanese people who went to the church?

SE: Oh, yeah, uh-huh. See, I don't know how he found the different Japanese people in Chicago, but he would visit them and talk to them about the Bible and things. So that was his life work.

MA: And then did, so they then sold the hotel business in Seattle, sold the U.S. Hotel, and sold the house?

SE: I don't know what they did.

MA: Your house on Beacon Hill?

SE: The house on Beacon Hill, he, they rented it out, and, because I remember they went back and they stayed there for quite a while. I forget when it was, they went back to Seattle, Mother and Dad, and, because I had a brother out at Firland yet. And so Dad and Mother stayed at the house on Beacon Hill. Yeah, and I went to visit them when they were there. In fact, the one year when they went to Japan, they went from that house.

MA: So they, they kept it, then, for a while?

SE: Uh-huh.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.