Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Takashi Hori - Yoshito Mizuta - Elmer Tazuma Interview
Narrators: Takashi Hori, Yoshito Mizuta, Elmer Tazuma
Interviewer: Dee Goto
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: June 8, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-htakashi_g-01-0053

<Begin Segment 53>

DG: Okay. Well thank you very much. It was a good discussion. I guess, today's date is June the 8th, 1998. [Interruption] Oh, one of the things that Yoshito mentioned is that the first hotels had Japanese names, you know like the Fujii Hotel and the Hashimoto and Nishimura or... what was it? Nakanishi or something.

TH: Something like that, yeah.

DG: And then after like about 1915 they started changing to like Eclipse and Atlas.

TH: Yeah, Meiji-ya, Kusuno-ya, Hashimoto-ya. I think it's because they were catering solely to Japanese immigrants that's coming in. And if you put up a sign saying Atlas Hotel or the Panama Hotel, these immigrants, they can't read English so if they wrote in -- I am sure these signs (were) written in Japanese also.

ET: And another reason, wasn't the hotel had a girl's name? I'm not sure and that indicates that it's a house of prostitution.

TH: I wouldn't know.

ET: This is what I -- I don't know why I keep that in mind, but I know in France where we were staying at this -- or was it in Switzerland? -- we went to this hotel, La France, and the rooms had all girl's flowers, flower names. So evidently --

DG: Well, that's interesting.

<End Segment 53> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.