<Begin Segment 21>

DG: So what would you say was the average length of stay of most of your tenants?

(Narr. note by YM: Japanese were permanent and so were some Filipinos. In the Depression years there were hardly any transients even at 20-25 cents a room.)

TH: Most of them were permanent.

ET: Yeah, they stayed until we carried them out feet first.

TH: But like Benton you had a lot of people going in and out. Not after you come to Eclipse.

ET: Yeah, that's right. Eclipse were permanent guests.

DG: So would you say that the Japanese served a social service kind of?

ET: Yeah, we were a nursing home. I mean, I was.

DG: A nursing home and what about counseling?

ET: Not much counseling because they kept to themselves. They hardly made friends. Like they say when you go into an apartment, you don't know anybody in that apartment, not even the person living across from you.

DG: Well, you were saying they were kind of a family though.

ET: I mean with us.

DG: With you, but not each other.

ET: Yeah, that's right. A lot of them were -- half of my tenants were drunk anyway.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.