<Begin Segment 8>

TI: What's interesting me, to me as I'm listening to you is, is when I think about the reaction of the Spokane community to the Japanese American community and, and how close it seemed to be, whether or not that had an influence on, on your willingness to volunteer, your mother's, her statements about this being your country now and you need to support it. It seems that the, that she and other Isseis and the Niseis were really well-supported. Do you think that had a lot to, to do with, with what, how things went?

SK: I think so, I think so. And probably because we weren't too great in number, the influence and the support that we got from the Central Methodist Church leaders, I think carried a lot. And the fact that we had a leader like Judge Raymond Kelly, who was our advisor for the JACL chapter that we had just formed, helped a lot because he was a very popular man in Spokane. And the fact that we had the city fathers, the mayor himself, it started with the mayor on down, the police chief and so forth supporting us and our, I think our overall reputation was spotless. There were no crime involving any of us. I think all in all, we're a very supportive community. It not only existed in Spokane, but for example, right after Pearl Harbor, I think very next day on telephone orders from Spokane FBI office to Chewelah, my uncle Sam, Sam Koyama, was picked up and thrown into local jail. And when the Mayor of Chewelah and leading citizens of Chewelah heard about it, they marched down on the jail, turned him loose, and told my uncle Sam, go back to our, the railroad and continue to look after our railroad for us. Which this enemy alien man did throughout World War II. He had so many miles of section, as a section chief, so many miles of railroad that he was responsible for. About 55 miles or so north of Spokane. And one of his sons, my cousin Karl, was one of the first sergeants of one of the companies in 442, in Europe.

TI: What do you think caused this, this really strong relationship between the Japanese in Eastern Washington with the Caucasian population?

SK: I have no idea, except that through personal knowledge and years and years of intimate relationship, I suppose, I think the fact that Spokane is, comprises population of, from all four corners of the world, I suppose. Tolerant. The kind of overall feeling that you have in a place like the State of Minnesota, is another one. And that's the reason why the, the closely-held intelligence school was picked and moved to right outside Minneapolis.

TI: Because the population there was more tolerant.

SK: That's right. Because a lot of Scandinavians and Germans. I can, I can't think of no other reason.

TI: That, it's interesting to me.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.