<Begin Segment 30>

ET: The discrimination, I think, came in around the '60s and the way that worked is we held the rent down. They wanted to get rid of us so they could raise the rent up, and I think we did run into that kind of problem.

TH: Well, I don't know about that.

ET: Because at the city hall it seems like the councilmen, they understood that the whites wanted to get rid of us.

DG: Now, I read also somewhere that the city itself liked the fact that the Japanese would take care of all these lower class people.

TH: I believe so. It's not the city, it's more the welfare department, I think.

ET: Yeah, they understood that we are doing more than what we got paid for. We took over the welfare business so to speak.

DG: But then were the city more lenient as far as codes and things go as a result of this?

TH: Until around the '60s they were.

ET: But there were too few, see. The big apartment and hotel operator, they want us out of the picture.

TH: That's the apartment operation, not the hotel.

ET: Not the hotel?

<End Segment 30> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.