<Begin Segment 15>
TS: Would Bud know something?
CK: Huh?
TS: Bud or somebody?
CK: Bud Fukei?
TS: Yeah.
CK: He might.
YM: He's another one that could be interviewed, too.
CK: Yeah.
TS: Bud Fukei. He used to be the --
CK: Editor.
TS: Editor of Tai -- (Taihoku)
CK: Hokubei?
TS: No. yeah. He had Hokubei (another paper with English editor Jackson Sonoda), but Tai -- what was that one? Taiheiyo?
YM: Taiheiyo? That was...
TS: The one on --
YM: That was the sweater shop.
TS: No. Okay. That was, yeah.
CK: You mean the paper, right?
TS: Newspaper.
YM: Hokubei?
CK: Yeah.
TS: Hokubei was the one on 5th Avenue. But the other one was Taihoku.
YM: Oh, yeah.
TS: 'Cause I worked for (Taihoku) for (awhile)...
CK: Oh.
TS: Few months.
YM: He (Bud Fukei) was writing for the Vets News for a little while, too.
TS: He's back again.
YM: Oh, is he?
TS: Manitz, yeah, Vets.
YM: Oh.
SF: Before, when you were mentioning newspapers, before the war, there were two Japanese newspapers serving --
TS: Japanese, in Japanese, and one page in English. Then there was a weekly Courier, which was all English. Four pages, I think.
YM: I have some cuttings of the Courier.
TS: Courier?
YM: Uh-huh.
SF: So there was --
CK: Wasn't it correct that the founding of the Japanese American Citizens League was here in Seattle?
YM: Yes.
SF: I think so.
TS: Yeah.
SF: 1930, I think -- does that sound right?
CK: By --
YM: Early '30s.
CK: By --
TS: Jimmy.
YM: Jimmy Sakamoto...
CK: Jimmy Sakamoto
YM: And their group.
CK: And those people that ran the Courier newspapers.
TS: He used to be a professional prize fighter.
YM: Boxer.
CK: Yeah.
YM: And he was blinded by that, so he ran the newspaper about -- while being blind. So --
SF: Did, did his wife help him out a lot?
YM: Oh, yes. She had a lot to do. She's still living here.
TS: She used to do all the office, the paperwork and the billing and stuff. 'Cause I delivered that too, Courier.
SF: So which paper did the Niseis typically read? Since the Courier was all English, was that the newspaper of choice, as it were, or --
TS: Well, not necessarily, because at TaiHoku and Hokubei -- were they daily or three times a week or something?
YM: Gee, I don't know.
CK: I think...
TS: They came --
CK: They were daily.
TS: Daily?
CK: Yeah.
TS: So they came out more often, I think. And even if it's just one page...
SF: What was in those newspapers -- in the English section -- what was covered? Sports?
YM: Sports.
TS: Or, just...
YM: What's happening in the...
CK: Yeah.
TS: Bits and pieces.
YM: Japanese community and --
TS: Sports.
CK: Coming events and things like that.
TS: And I remember Bud Fukei had lotta guts. He reported Dr. Unozawa. Remember him?
CK: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
TS: Abortion?
CK: Yeah.
SF: What was -- was that a controversial thing?
TS: Well...
CK: Well --
TS: I mean, you didn't talk about those things in those days.
CK: He was a Japanese -- he wasn't a --
YM: He was more like a...
CK: He was --
YM: Chiropractor, wasn't he?
CK: No.
TS: Yeah. No. Something like --
CK: Osteopath.
TS: Osteopath, yeah.
YM: Right.
CK: Osteopathic surgeon. And he is supposed to have molested some women.
SF: So how did the Japanese community deal with those kinds of scandals, in a sense?
TS: Hush it up.
YM: Hush, hush.
CK: Yeah. They, they usually took it upon themselves to keep it from spreading too much. And also, I think they corrected the situation among themselves.
SF: How would they correct that situation? And -- where the doctor molested the --
TS: I don't think there was much written after that.
YM: (Yes).
CK: Yeah.
YM: That's the first time I heard of it.
TS: Yeah.
CK: I don't know if --
TS: It was in the papers, 'cause...
CK: He must've settled with the --
TS: Some way. But the Japanese...
CK: With the, whoever was offended.
TS: Nihonjinkai did a lotta thing -- they used to go, as I, I was told, they used to go to these places of ill repute that had Japanese women working. And they would tell the women to get outta town.
SF: And would that be effective, or --
TS: I think it was, yeah. I don't know what force they had. I mean, other than telling 'em. They,
they couldn't, I don't think they used force. I mean...
SF: So does that --
TS: 'Cause that ruins the reputation of Japanese in the area.
SF: And so it was really more of a question of tryin' to keep the Japanese community name sort of...
TS: Yeah.
SF: Honorable, as opposed to kind of a purely moral kind of issue.
TS: Yeah.
SF: Is that right?
TS: Basically, yeah.
<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.