<Begin Segment 11>

MA: What about as, I guess, in 1945, as people started maybe leaving or talking about leaving camp? Do you remember how your parents decided where they would go? I mean, was there discussion about, oh, we'll go back to Wapato, we'll go here?

KY: Okay... we had nothing to go back to in Wapato. You know, we never had, we never owned the land anyway. So my dad knew this Mr. Otsuki from, I don't know, I think he probably knew him from the time he came to Seattle from Japan. And so Mr. Otsuki was here in Spokane, and I think he invited my dad to come to Spokane. We had no place else, nothing left in Wapato, so I think that's how we landed in Spokane, just through that one man.

MA: When did your family actually arrive in Spokane?

KY: September of 1945.

MA: So September of '45...

KY: There was, we were one of the last ones to leave camp. That was almost closing time, we were there 'til the very end. I remember half of our barracks were empty when we left. So the other people had places to go, we didn't have anyplace to go except to come here.

MA: So where did you and your family stay when you first arrived in Spokane, like your first nights here?

KY: Well, Mr. Otsuki knew Mr. Hirata, who owned the Clem Hotel, so we stayed there three months. And that's another one-room, five of us in one room.

MA: Were there other Japanese American families staying there, too?

KY: Quite a few, quite a few. Most of the camp people all stayed at Clem Hotel.

MA: Was there a reason why they, most people went to the Clem Hotel? Was it big?

KY: Well... I don't know why most of 'em went to Clem Hotel. Maybe Mr. Hirata knew a lot of people, I don't know. It wasn't a nice hotel, that's for sure.

MA: What was the hotel like?

KY: It was another one-room with, I think there was three stories. Maybe there was more, I don't know, but I remember it wasn't a very clean place. I hate to say this, but it wasn't nice. But that's another no-choice, we had to stay there. So after three months, we moved to another apartment house. Now, that one had two rooms. Actually, a little kitchen and living room and the bedroom, so that one had three-unit apartment, and that was owned by the Mukai family, and it was called the Insley Apartment. So we stayed there for a while, and then I went to do housework, and my sister went to, you know, to go over to high school. And my older sister moved to Seattle, and from Seattle she took a test and went to Japan in 1951.

MA: Where was the apartment located that you moved to after living in the hotel?

KY: Insley? Okay, that was on East Pacific. It was on Washington and Pacific.

MA: Was that close to downtown area?

KY: It is, uh-huh. So, like, six blocks from downtown, from the Clem Hotel. Clem Hotel was like smack downtown, and this apartment was, like, maybe six or eight blocks south of the hotel.

MA: And you said the Clem Hotel was run by the Hirata family.

KY: Hirata family, uh-huh.

MA: Do you have memories of that family? Were they around...

KY: Oh, we knew, we knew 'em all. The Hirata family? Yeah, Shingo, well, Michi was the oldest, Shingo, and Sammy, three, they had three children. But the mother was, she ran the whole business. 'Cause the father, Mr. Hirata, went into one of those, what do you call that, the camp that they sent the --

MA: Department of Justice camp.

KY: Uh-huh, yeah. But all those three, the three are gone now, they passed away.

MA: So you said the, Mrs. Hirata ended up running the hotel when her husband was gone.

KY: She did, uh-huh. And Shingo, the oldest son's wife, Motoko, is from Japan, he went to Japan. Oh, this is not my family, this Hirata family, Shingo went to Japan to get a wife, Motoko, and she came back with him, and she kind of helped run the hotel. But we were out of there by then.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.