<Begin Segment 13>

SF: Frank, I think before the break we were talking about how integrated the Japanese business community was and how there was a superstructure and they were tied into the Japanese Association. I was wondering if there were any kind of negative effects of this kind of highly organized community, in the sense that maybe people saw them as too organized or a threat or something like that. Maybe this is kind of looking too far forward into the '30s or where those, or that time period. But do you think that there were any of those kind of negative spinoffs of the community?

FM: I don't think so. Mainly because the community is small and they could, they never became a threat in a sense to the larger community, and also this community organization functioned largely within the ethnic community, and the larger community probably had little knowledge of, or understanding of the kind of network that we're talking about existing there in the Japanese community. So, as far as I know, most people, I would say that there was very little feeling about this matter. I did have the impression that in a sense, the neighboring ethnic communities, the black community for example and the Chinese community in a sense envied the Japanese for their capacity for organizing things and activities in a way that they did. Because the black community for example, a person would say you know, we just can't seem to get organized in a way that you people do, or in the Chinese community they would not be able to organize sports teams for instance in a fashion that the Japanese community would. So there was a certain amount of enviousness of what was going on, but as far as I know, I would not say that it had any adverse effect.

SF: Just one more question I want to ask of the community, too, before we go onto the social institutions. In Nihonmachi, there must have been a lot of kind of illicit businesses because it was in the slum area or part of it was in a slum area.

FM: Uh, what businesses?

SF: Illicit businesses.

FM: Oh, illicit, yeah.

SF: Yeah, like maybe houses of prostitution.

FM: Yes.

SF: Gambling.

FM: Yes.

SF: How did the, how could the community deal with this in terms of the way they raised kids and so forth. Being in this, this area without having these negative affects spilling over into their, their life in a sense?

FM: I'm not sure that the Japanese community consciously dealt with the problem as far as I know. As, as kids for example, we were very definitely aware when living on Washington Street that this is an area where houses of prostitution thrived or were numerous along Washington Street. You could hear the window tapping constantly and you knew that there was business going on. And as kids we had terminology for what was going on there without any keen understanding of what it was, but nevertheless, we knew that this kind of business was going on. But it was a separate world as far as I know. I can remember one kid telling me, he says, "Well, we have this grocery store, and upstairs was this house and every now and then the people upstairs would ask to have grocery delivered to them and so I would be asked to take it upstairs." And that's the kind of report he gave me that he regularly delivered groceries to this house of prostitution, but it was, as far as the way he expressed it, a totally separate world. He kind of told me about it as part of his macho experience, but beyond that, it really didn't amount to anything. Now, the Chinese had their gambling houses and again, there was evidence of that all over the place. You know, the, there was black, the paper things on which they would make markings. Do you know that kind of.

SF: No, uh-uh. Please tell us about that.

FM: Oh, I forgot what they're called. They were like, well anyway, it was gambling in which you, if you marked the correct category, you know slots by, and could match it with whatever, with a key, then you would win or lose accordingly. And you'd find these papers all over the International District and you knew that this, this had to do with gambling, and where there were stories about the gambling that was going on, etc. But that was a separate world from the world that the kids engaged in and we knew it was there and we dismissed it and went on to our own business. I don't think the parents had to concern themselves with this issue to any serious degree. There was one study that was done by one of my colleague sociologists, but way back then I was not aware of the study of course. But anyway, it was a study of juvenile delinquency rates by school districts for the whole city of Seattle. And the worst school district in terms of juvenile delinquency was in lower Queen Anne Hill and certain neighborhoods of that kind where white residence, residents lived. Now very similar in character to that kind of neighborhood was the International District where the Japanese residents lived and our school district, the Japanese school district was one of very few which compared with the level of delinquency in Laurelhurst, one of the finer residential areas of that time, in terms of the relatively low delinquency rates. Well, here is a neighborhood in which prostitution, gambling, crime and suicide were very high, in which however, juvenile delinquency rates were very low, and if you asked the question why was this so, the only answer you could give was that the families simply regulated their kids in such a fashion that they did not get involved in this type of activity which was part of the world in which, within which they lived.

SF: Were there any Japanese houses or Japanese gambling places, or were they all, like if the Japanese adolescents, guys wanted to have a good time on Saturday, they would go to these other places?

FM: Yeah. Well as a matter of fact, in terms of houses or prostitution, in the history of the Seattle Japanese community there was a time when they flourished. The Japanese brothels flourished and this was very early in the history of the Seattle Japanese community at a time when the immigrants were mainly male, single male laborers. And the history book, which my, a friend of my father's wrote explains that there was this very scandalous history of the Japanese in the Seattle area, which however, was stopped very suddenly by the intervention of the Japanese Consulate from San Francisco who came up all the way to see what was, you know, to make sure that this was in fact what was going on, as he had heard and put a stop to it, or require that it be stopped because it was a (blemish), a blotch on the, the good name of the Japanese nation. And so, Japanese prostitutes were so to speak run out of the city and no longer existed. But, the -- there is this interesting side light on this kind of question. I had a friend in the cannery where I worked each summer, Nisei like myself, who used to brag about living as a pimp off a white prostitute. And he would tell stories about his experiences with this prostitute. In fact he claimed that there was one time when he almost got married to her and there was quite an escapade apparently. Anyway, this young man grew up in that neighborhood and got involved in the prostitution activity, but he was one of the relatively small handful of cases I knew of, of that kind. In fact he had a kind of bad name in the Japanese community as a kid who was in engaged in this kind of activity. Similarly, yes, there was a gambling house in the Seattle Japanese community known as the Toyo Club, which was famous for being engaged in illegitimate business. There was a certain store on, I think it was Maynard, storefront, behind which all this gambling activity was said to occur. And, and we were told about it and a couple of my friends it was said were heavily involved in, as young men growing up into this, this structure, this system. But again, as in many other Japanese communities along the coast, these clubs, gambling clubs were kind of isolated, an isolated element within the larger community and it was as if there was, yes, there was illegitimate organization, but it was kind of simply a small cancer enclosed in and shut off from the larger community and people didn't worry too much about it because it did cause some problems, but in the main, they were simply an isolated part of the community.

SF: How long did this Toyo Club operate? What time period was it?

FM: Oh, I think it, I can't say when it began, but it must have had a very early beginning and it ran right up into the war. I recall in the period of the relocation centers, of detention centers that there were people from Sacramento who were alleged to have belonged to the Sacramento Toyo Club or equivalent, and one of the guys who was on the police force in fact, and they used to point him -- "Oh he's one of them, you know, big cheeses of that organization who is now on the police force" -- and so on. So, yes, they continued to run and for all I know, they still may run. But they're no longer as notable as during the Issei period.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.