<Begin Segment 47>

AH: Jim, I want to ask you about a couple of things that are related in one sense and unrelated in another. Related in the fact that it has to do with you and your life after the war. You're a worker but you're also building a house, raising a family, and you even got married at some point. So could you tell us a little about you and your personal life in the years... when did you meet your wife and when did you have your family and what did they do?

[Interruption]

AH: Well, Jim, tell me a little bit about your family life -- even from camp time on if it's appropriate -- when you met somebody who you fell in love with and married and...

JA: Well, in camp, one thing I had in mind all the time, I'm going to challenge the government. And as far as having dates, I had no trouble. I went to all the dances, I even taught people who didn't know how to dance, teach them how to dance. So that's how I was. Then at the same time, get together with them, talk, whatever they wanted to talk about, I'd talk with them. Basically I was trying to talk young people into becoming professionals, not just drop out of, or finish with high school, go on further to university. And once I finished from my time in McNeil, I came back and one of the first things I started was to reactivate these churches. I'd go to one church, maybe half a dozen congregational, half a dozen presby, maybe another half a dozen. Well, heck, we've got to get the kids back into church and get that part going. So, using my ability to have socials, teach 'em how to dance or parlor games or what you, to have fun, and get them back. And pretty soon six, twelve, twenty, forty, fifty people, all get back. So I did that with the churches here, reactivate the churches here, went to Auburn to reactivate that group, went to Tacoma, Bainbridge Island, like Dr. Kitamoto. Well, I was there doing the same thing reactivating and getting the Japanese Americans back into the... to become interested. So I used to do that. And at the same time, I used to coach one boys team, one girls team and I coached them. And invariably I'd come up with a championship team in maybe a year later. Then I was the scoutmaster over at Methodist Church, Troop 55, and some of the parents, you know, thought that here was a draft evader, ex-con, so I said...

AH: Was it a Japanese troop pretty much?

JA: Yes, Japanese American troop, Japanese Methodists. So I heard about that so I said, "I want to talk to the parents." And I talked to the parents and it was all over. So I was involved Boy Scouts, coaching, and I was the Sunday School teacher at Buddhist Church, and whatever youth activity. And I got this whole Seattle activity start to move again.

AH: So that business about the draft and everything and the prison sentence came up in the Boy Scouts thing.

JA: Oh, yeah.

AH: But when you talked to the parents, you were able to lay your cards on the table?

JA: That's right, take it or leave it. You don't want me? Fine, I'll get out, there's other troops that want me. And I was asked by the boys and the younger people who were involved with Boy Scouts, that I had a lot of experience along Boy Scouting, hiking, whatever, and, "he's the best man," so they ask me to come over. So anyway, when I heard that I put it right to the minister -- the whole, the Issei group -- I can always go someplace else.

AH: What about your own family, Jim?

JA: What?

AH: What about your own, your wife and your kids?

JA: Well anyway, I'd better get to how I got married and all. But anyway, during one of the dances that was sponsored by one of the teams that I coached was University of Washington's girls team. Well anyway, I went there as a chaperone. And I was just sitting there, just make sure that -- at that time there used to be a lot of GIs that used to come in and break up lot of these dance or they'll create a lot of rumble -- so anyway, I was there to make sure nothing will happen. It almost happened, so, bang, I turned on the lights. "Okay you guys. You guys screw up, I'll just call the police, I'm not going to..."

AH: Is this 1949 or something like that?

JA: Yeah, that's right. So I just told them, "Don't screw up." Because we had a bunch of GIs from Hawaii and somehow these guys over here, the brothers, the younger brothers of the GIs, they didn't care too much for the Hawaiians because usually Hawaiians, they're pretty open, they'll come and ask for a dance, it doesn't matter who she goes around with. Well anyway, they didn't like that they're going to do something so, wacko, I turned on the lights and hey, no monkey business. Then I'll call the police and let them handle it. So next day I saw these youngsters down on Main Street so I told them, "Hey, I'm sorry what happened the other day. You buy the lunch, I'll supply the automobile and the girls, and we'll go out to Lake Wilderness and we'll have fun." So I was doing things like that all the time. There's a Nisei, they're very close, so the Hawaiian comes in, hey, we don't want them and they try to raise Cain with them. Like me, Hawaiians fine, the water's fine, get in there and swim. So I was patching up things like that to keep the community moving, moving.

AH: And then how did you meet your wife, Jim?

JA: Oh, okay. [Laughs] Well, during one of these dances I was chaperoning, and I was kind of looking around and there was this one girl, oh, she was beautiful, outstanding. And I knew she wasn't all Japanese. She was built not like Japanese, built like Caucasian, so I had a dance. I didn't know who she was, so only way to find out is to ask for a dance. I did and as soon as she opened up her mouth I knew she was from Japan. And from then on, that was the beginning, and I stopped... and her friends kept pushing me, come on, keep going out, keep going out. So pretty soon we were going pretty steady, and then we went out for eight years. She'd go back home, come back, go back home, come back. Anyway, our courtship went on for eight years.

AH: Was her command of English pretty good at that time?

JA: Yes, very good, because she's a Sansei, her father's a Nisei...

AH: I thought you said she was from Japan?

JA: Yes, she was born and raised in Japan, but from generation, her grandfather was one of the first Japanese that came over from Japan right after Civil War. In about 1886, father, I mean, grandfather married a Caucasian from Nob Hill and the father was second generation and he was half. But anyway, she was very attractive and after eight years, we got married.

AH: Is she independent-minded like you?

JA: Oh, yeah, pretty-independent mind. And she attended this Sacred Heart Convent which is the top school of Japan.

AH: Was she planning to be a nun?

JA: No, never. Her friends did, but in due time they stopped. But I heard many stories about her friends trying to become nuns and what they were trying to do. They'll send these Japanese nuns to the dirtiest place of the world and they work out their whole life being, you know, cleaning, janitor, doing work like that.

<End Segment 47> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.