<Begin Segment 12>

MA: What were your first impressions of, of Spokane, when you first arrived? I guess especially at the --

KY: It was a big city for me, being from Wapato to Spokane, it was a, it was a big city for me. So I kind of liked it.

MA: What about the Japanese American community here in Spokane?

KY: The original Japanese... you know, I didn't know too many until a few years after we came here. They were nice, you know, and there wasn't too many other Japanese families here before the camp people came. The originals, I don't know if there's any record of it, but I don't think there was any more than fifty Japanese families in Spokane before the camp people all resettled here.

MA: I see, so by the time you were in Spokane, there was a lot of Japanese Americans who had come from camp.

KY: From camp, uh-huh, yeah.

MA: And what type of work did your father do, right when you arrived in Spokane?

KY: He, he ran a pool hall. He started the business down by Bernard and right off of Trent, he had a pool hall. And my mother worked for, she went to work on a farm, Mr. Suzuki's farm. But, you know, we came here in 1945, and she had died in 1950, so she was only here, like, four-and-a-half years, and she passed away in 1950, 1950.

MA: Who, so your father ran a pool hall, you said?

KY: Pool hall, uh-huh.

MA: Who were the customers that would go to the pool hall?

KY: It was mostly the service people, the...

MA: Like the military?

KY: Like people stationed at Fairchild... no, we didn't have Fairchild in those days, or did we? Anyway, there was a lot of service people in those days mingling down there. There was some Japanese that came in, young people, you know, but I think there was mainly Caucasians and the service people. (Narr. note: Issei men came to play go. My father was an expert go player.)

MA: Did you help out at the pool hall ever?

KY: I did, for a while, uh-huh. I ran the desk.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.