<Begin Segment 15>

TI: Now when you came back to Seattle, what was that like for you? Had things changed quite a bit?

EY: Well, you know, the question that was asked over at the immigration station, they asked a silly question, simple question, but something that I didn't know. Then they wanted to know all the parks in the city that I knew. What about the teacher's name or my friend's name? It probably would have been easy, but to me, I didn't pay much attention about things like that.

TI: And tell me why they were doing that. I mean, you had all your papers, right?

EY: Well, at the time, a lot of the Chinese people had substitutes sneaking in. And so they were very, being very careful in identifying the person. I knew all the relatives in Japan, but I surely didn't know much about the parks and friends and teacher, short memories. But that was another one of those experiences you have to live through.

TI: But then you, they eventually let you go through, though.

EY: Oh, yes. Not because I knew all the parks, knew some of the parks, but because I had a greater knowledge of my relatives in Japan. And they asked the same question of my mother, and I guess it matched.

TI: Now at this point, so you've lived in Japan for a few years and come back, at this point how good was your English?

EY: Well, it was terrible because they tried to have, I have an interview on the ship before I came out, and I flunked that.

TI: Because they were asking you questions in English?

EY: Yeah.

TI: And so when you went through immigration, did they have an interpreter for you?

EY: No, I didn't ask for that. I didn't ask.

TI: So it was a hard, it must have been a very difficult...

EY: But the fact that the relative's name, from me, and from what my mother said matched pretty well, so I wasn't a substitute like the Chinese people were doing. Chinese people had lots of substitutes that snuck in.

TI: Okay. so once you go back now, go back to school, I know you were earlier afraid that you had to start back at first grade. So what level did you start when you came back to...

EY: I went to the foreign class, so that was no grade.

TI: Now, was this before or after the YMCA? I know you also went to the YMCA.

EY: After YMCA.

TI: Okay, so first you went to the YMCA.

EY: Yeah.

TI: So tell me about that. What was, what kind of class was at the YMCA?

EY: I think there were about three grades, three or four grades in that one classroom. And what the children were, I don't know. I don't know what kind of children were there. But my mother found, learned from a friend that there was a class, and so she made arrangements so I could go there. But Mr. Harris, the teacher, had no experience teaching a student that was not capable of understanding English. And so he just got me a book on cowboys and gave it to me. And so I, what did I learn? I learned something about corrals, I had some kind of saddle and things. After a month I got a little bit of something about the cowboy terms, but I didn't make much progress. And so in the meantime, my mother found out about the foreign class at Pacific School, so I went there. And that was good because there were others in a similar position as me, and we were learning English. There was a Spanish girl, a Norwegian girl, lots of Chinese boys.

TI: Were there any other Japanese?

EY: There was one, two three... maybe four Japanese. There was a couple of Japanese girls, and there were maybe three boys, four including me.

TI: So you take this course to kind of re-learn your English, or learn English, and then where did you go?

EY: Then after that I went to Franklin High School.

TI: Now, I'm curious, were you still living in the same place on Spruce Street?

EY: No. By that time, we were, I think, we lived over in Beacon Hill.

TI: And in Beacon Hill, were there very many other Japanese families nearby?

EY: In the neighborhood there were about six families.

TI: And where on Beacon Hill did you live?

EY: Hines Street, maybe a couple blocks (south) of the Jefferson Park Golf Course.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2014 Densho. All Rights Reserved.