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TI: So let's talk a little bit about where you lived.

MA: Okay. We lived, from the time I left Swedish Hospital, at East Alder and Tenth. And the Japanese Baptist church was one block behind us. That was East Alder and that was Fir, I think, Spruce or Fir. Spruce.

TI: Yeah, so we're just blocks away from here. It's really close.

MA: Yeah, that's why all of this is like home to me. And so we lived there, and the juvenile court was right behind us, but then the nursery, Seattle Day Nursery, was across the street from us. And as I said, Mr. Shinbo, the Shinbo family had the grocery store on the corner of Tenth and East Alder, and Sachi lived right across from that, and so we were within about a half a block of each other, my friend. And the whole neighborhood, almost the entire neighborhood was Japanese, so I just kind of grew up in the middle of it all. And so Hisako and Toshi lived in that triangle across from the church, and Hisako, she was just a doll, and Toshi, they were my good friends. And Pacific School, which was where we all went to elementary school, I have no idea what the percentage was, but I would say that at least sixty-five percent was Japanese. I'm just guessing at that, but a good portion. And so I was kind of almost half Japanese because my life was just...

TI: Yeah, it's so funny because I've interviewed so many people and they talked about, like, Pacific, and it's, yeah, it's mostly Japanese. And I say, "Well who else was in school?" And they mention, they think, and, yeah, there were maybe a few white people.

MA: A few. Yeah, there were no blacks and there were a few Chinese, and in fact, it was kind of a revelation to me when they turned, they did the Washington School into a junior high and I spent half of the eighth grade there, so that was really a revelation because there was, I hadn't been around the blacks in our school, and of course there were several there. And so that was... but the primary years of my life were, and I used to go to the Japanese Baptist with my friends sometimes.

TI: Well, let's talk about your family life a little bit more, then I'll get more into the Japanese community. So describe your home. I mean, what was your home like?

MA: My home, it was a large home, and of course during the latter part of the Depression, that's when my mother rented rooms out upstairs. But then my home life otherwise was, well, we weren't really super religious -- at least I wasn't and never will be -- but we had a Jewish life at home and a relaxed one, I would say, because we were not amongst, going up further, Fourteenth and up, why, then that was more into the Jewish community and so on. But then... now, do you want to know what my life was kind of like at that time? Is that what you're saying, asking?

TI: Yeah. I'd like to kind of just know your typical day. What was your typical...

MA: My typical day was, I spent a lot of time going downtown Seattle. After school many of the times I would walk the route from Broadway all the way to Pike Street and then Pike all the way down to where my dad's flower shop was, so I spent a lot of time as a kid going downtown. I loved downtown. And otherwise we went on the streetcar. It was the same route. And I was a good friend of Sachi's, as you've heard, and we would go to the theater sometimes together, and she and I would have tea and crackers either at her house or mine. But a lot of my young life was really going downtown Seattle, and there, again, one of the wholesalers was Japanese, Kay and his brother, Mike, and Sally, who still has a wholesale, and her daughter, Robin, downtown Seattle. And Sally's husband --

TI: And do you remember any of the last names?

MA: No, I don't. Mike and Sally -- in fact, Robin went to Franklin, I believe -- and so Mike and Kay, no, what did I say his first name was?

TI: I think you said Kay.

MA: Kay, yeah. Okay, well they had a place in San Francisco, and they invited my family, my mother and my dad, and we all went down, and they showed us Treasure Island and all that sort of thing. And so we enjoyed that a lot.

TI: And they were Japanese?

MA: Japanese. But I don't think they were Seattle people, though. I think they may have grown up in San Francisco, because that's where we went and saw, they showed us around.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.