<Begin Segment 27>

MA: It seems like you said the community's kind of dwindling, but you still seem to do a lot.

MH: We've lost, at last count we've heard was the Japanese community is down to 5,000. Which was three times more, or something like that, way back when we first came here, there was lots of Japanese. But we have, people are living in Aurora, they're living in Arvada, they're living in Littleton. They're living all over, outskirts of. We're in the metropolitan but they're outskirts. And it takes them, whenever they have something, they all come. That's when you see them. But the Simpson has, Methodist church is another one. It's in Arvada. It used to be down here, on Twentieth and California was the Methodist church there originally. And that's where all the Japanese people that are Christian, would go there. But somebody donated some land up in Arvada, and they donated the land for the church to have it. So they built a new church there. So that makes us, all the people that lived here are going over that way. So we lose a lot of people that we see. And eventually, the young people buy homes. They don't buy them around here. They're all outskirts.

MA: So it's become more spread out.

MH: And they're getting further and further away. And it's hard to get together. So as a community here, it's very little. Very little. Even our Tamai Tower, when I first moved here in '82, let's see, third, fourth, fifth, fifth floor, there were mostly Japanese Issei people. Sixth floor... the rest of the floor, we had nineteen floors of it. Twenty floor, but there's only sixteen floors that are available to live in. The rest is commercial stuff, you know, this plaza is a commercial area. And then the penthouses are open for laundry and entertaining and things like that. There's no living quarters up there. So actually, there's too much vacancy. So the HUD took over and they had, the church, they thought they could get more people in, but it was pretty difficult to get. And we were asked if we wanted to, but we had kids then. You can't have children in there, so it had to be elderly. And it seemed to be a lot of seniors, but yet there wasn't that many seniors either. And a lot of them were taking care of them in their own homes. We didn't have nursing home, we never heard of that until recently. You know, you hear more about assisted living and nursing homes, and care places like that. So it's, even they were talking even to have a nursing home built for the Japanese people. But eventually, they all go where their children are closer, so they can visit them easily and to come and the only one that when we first came, well, the last ten years ago, or fifteen, fifteen years ago, twenty years ago, there was two. Mainly one in Brighton for the Japanese people in the family area than Brighton had one, where they go where there were a lot of Japanese elderlies were going there. Then they had one on this side, on the Arvada side, Wheat Ridge area, called Columbine. And that's where a lot of the town people were sent there. Well, there's nobody there anymore. And so, they're in nursing home, but they're all scattered in different areas. And places you never heard of, some of 'em. It's very difficult to find. They're way out. They're either Littleton or Arvada, or somewhere in Thornton, or Commerce City, you know. They're all scattered.

MA: So it seems like the community is very scattered now.

MH: Yeah, it's more scattered and it's because the Niseis can get around better 'cause they can speak the English language better and they can communicate better and they can find better sources for help, whatever you need. And it's not like the Issei peoples. They couldn't speak, so they had to stick into their own community do their shopping, or even to go to the doctors, the dentists, or whatever. It was always in this Japanese town. And that was, that's the way we all grew up in. But then as we grow up and got married and have our own children, you find better jobs elsewhere. So you travel, and sometime you have to go to other states and a lot of 'em do. Wherever the job tells you to go, you go. And if it's a better opportunity, go. And it wasn't for the Issei, they had this language was a basic thing and even if they wanted to go, they couldn't, because they couldn't communicate very well. And so they're all stuck together and they help each other. Now these new Chinese people that are coming are doing the same thing what our Issei people are doing. They find a place where they can meet together and they gather together. They speak their own language, and they don't speak English. No English at all. And that's getting, they're just going through the same thing.

MA: So you see a similarity with the Isseis.

MH: It's the same and their kids are all married to Caucasians or whatever. And they have their own families. And they draw in their families from their country and they all settle here. Well, that's alright, but it's getting to be, they're taking the same thing that what our parents went through. It's the same way. It's just, we're dwindling, but they're coming in, and they're building it up. And they have their, the Koreans are the same. They have their own community and they gather. They have big stores and they have their own doing. They're going the same cycle we went through.

MA: Oh, that's interesting.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.