Densho Digital Archive - Frank Miyamoto Interview I (denshovh-mfrank-01-0004)

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SF: What was the racial mix of the -- around in that area at that time?

FM: Yeah, the down, the Japanese business section was down, let's say on 6th and Main Street. And then, and that was the hub of the Japanese community. On the other side of Jackson Street and King and Weller, that was mainly Chinatown. And the Chinatown area moved up as did the Japanese community, up from the Skid Road area which is west of there, down toward the waterfront. And so, in a sense, the Japanese were a little north of King (Street and) Jackson Street and Chinatown was a little south of it. But there is a mix all the way through in there and as the Filipinos come in, they move into the, that area between Jackson and King and Weller where the periphery of the Chinatown area was. So it was a kind of a mix of Asian people in that whole area.

SF: How would you describe the relationships between these groups at that time?

FM: I would say that they were essentially very much isolated from each other. In part, I suppose, because the Chinese of that early period -- the Cantonese Chinese who were in Chinatown of that period were, tended to be an isolated population. The Japanese were more outgoing in a sense. However, the Japanese had their own segregationist attitudes and they didn't make any great effort to mix with the Chinese and the Filipinos who were late comers (and) were mainly bachelors especially in the early period and therefore, they didn't mix in as community into the Asian life of that area. I, I'd simply have to say that the Japanese community existed very much as a intra-bred ethnic community, rather than one that looked upon themselves as part of an Asian, pan-Asian community.

SF: In terms of discrimination and in terms of buying property for stores or houses and so forth, how strong was that discrimination in that area versus...?

FM: You mean discrimination from whites?

SF: From whites, right. In terms of buying property or something. Or moving out of that area or moving to the fringes of it, as opposed to sort of self segregating because that's where the community was and all the cultural resources and so forth.

FM: Well there was, there was real segregationist attitudes, discrimination present among the larger population. As long as Japanese, and the Chinese, the Asians, remained in that downtown areas, the so-called International District now, they could you know be, remain acceptable. But once they started, or tried to start moving out, then discrimination showed very prominently. My father, as I said, had this kind of outward orientation, and so very early in my life, when I was in second grade, I guess it was, so I was -- it was around 1920. He decided that we should move out from the Japanese community area towards Beacon Hill, which at that time was almost totally white, middle class, lower-middle class whites and there were perhaps two other Japanese families living on Beacon Hill at that time. The resistance to our moving into that area was fairly noticeable, although it was not by any means severe. Otherwise we would not have been able to buy a house there.

SF: What kind of resistance did you get from the neighbors?

FM: Once they, once we moved in, however, especially rowdies, vandals, would make it unpleasant for us by throwing junk on our front porch and this sort of thing. However, and people weren't hospitable in the sense of coming around and telling us that we would, you know, be invited to this or that and so on. But the discriminatory attitudes in, on Beacon Hill, were not that strong, simply that some people made it unpleasant for us. Others accepted us in the sense of not bothering us in any way.