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TL: When you moved to Seattle though, it was a little bit more... well, the Japanese community.

YB: More Japanese. And I had never been completely thrown into... even in church in Sisquoc -- that's the Caucasian church that I was baptized. Then when I went to Santa Barbara, the Japanese church insisted I come there, 'cause they needed an older Nisei to help. And Mother says, "Well, if you can do that, you should go there and do that," so I did. And that's when I first mingled with the Japanese and found that they mix English and Japanese, and I didn't know what they were talking about. Very, not the best of language, but they'd mix the two together, it sounded terrible. And Mother says, "If you're going to learn to speak, either speak Japanese or English. Don't mix the two, every other word Japanese and every other word English." So I noticed that it didn't sound too good. But I had no problem. In fact, I'm here and most of my friends are Caucasian. I have my Japanese friends too, but one of my best friend is -- her name is Agnes Lee, but she is of Swedish background; and she's maybe fifteen years my junior, or twenty. And she wanted me to go with her where she moved, and she worries about me all the time, but she's very, very kind. They've been very good to me. All my neighbors around here are very nice.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.