<Begin Segment 10>

TI: Well, how about friends? When you came back to Seattle, were you able to... were there people that you knew, friends that you can get back together, and what were they like?

ET: Well, of course, I didn't know any, any old friends, because I was too young. When I left, it was about six years old. So, so yes, we did have new friends, but then half of 'em were Kibeis, they grew up in Japan. But others were Americans, and others were Nisei Americans and so forth.

TI: So do you think -- I'm talking like within the Japanese community -- do you think there was discrimination against Kibeis from the Niseis who didn't go to Japan? I mean, the ones who just stayed here, what --

ET: Yeah, I think that definitely there was that, not real bad, but then there was certainly a feeling of you don't belong in the same society.

TI: And how did the Kibeis, when you guys got together and talked about that, what did you think? What did you talk about?

ET: I think I always felt that, "Why are we living in this kind of attitude?" Like we have to submissive type of life. Because we didn't know how to live that, like that, as a Kibei. But when I understood that, I was much better associating with each other.

TI: Let me make sure I understand this. So you thought in general, like, all the Japanese were kind of being submissive, but having grown up in Japan, you thought, "There's no reason for us to be in that submissive" --

ET: That way.

TI: That way. But then you were saying that, but after you sort of understood that more, what does that mean? Do you think understanding that that's just the way the United States is, or...

ET: I think that's, it didn't take too long for me to realize that we have to belong to this society, we have to belong to the rest of the country, and how we fit into this society as a group. And the Japanese are certainly, was not doing enough for the country or the society. I remember my friend, first of all, the Clarence Arai become a board member of the library. And I thought, "Wow, that's great. I think we should have more people doing that." So that would be a kind of a natural thing as far as I was concerned. I grew up to actually belong to this society in Japan, and be active in the society. That's, that was pretty much lacking because of the fact that maybe we were all suppressed by the rest of the group, I don't know what it did. But then I started to realize what is American community, and Japanese, and how are we doing and so forth. I think I wrote in Spokane Magazine, I told them that we were so young and immature as far as our political savvy and other business, understanding, business and industry, understanding and so forth, we were too young. But we, I think I concentrated more because of the fact that I found Spokane community, I'm gonna reestablish completely new. And I don't know how much I contributed, but I'm sure that a lot of mayor kind of give you the feeling that they needed me to support, you know, all these associations, organizations, schools. I'm pretty involved in that kind of thing.

TI: But so I guess the way you look at this is to not be subservient. I mean, if the community, if the Japanese community got involved politically, socially, business-wise, that's, that's how you break down those barriers? Is that kind of how you --

ET: Well, not only that, but then we find there was no way that I'm gonna join a political force without all of us taking advantage of this type of thing. So I encouraged a lot of these ethnic associations to join me. I joined Hip Sing club in China, China here, and I joined the Black People's Club.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.