<Begin Segment 26>

TI: Before you go there. I'm curious just thinking about coming back from camp and the community. I guess one question is, what was the reaction of the general population to Japanese Americans coming back to Seattle?

FM: It was kind of unfriendly. But that wasn't my concern at that point. My concern was trying to make some money to get my parents back. And I recall two things that were kind of interesting. One was a time when Germany surrendered. I was cutting the guy's lawn there and the guy comes out, the lady of the house came out and says, "They've, the Germans have surrendered. There's no war in Europe now." She says, "It won't be long now, just a couple of weeks." And as it happened, when they dropped the atomic bomb I was cutting another person's back lawn. And on the day that Japan surrendered I was cutting John Nordstrom's back yard, lawn and they lived in Montlake there. And they had a house in the Montlake area and the house rises quite steeply from the ground level and they got a sleek, very bad sloping lawn there. And it had I think, rained the day before and I was having a heck of a time cutting this lawn because it was on a very steep slope, and you try to cut this on a lateral basis. And Mrs. Nordstrom came out. And she usually was generous enough to bring out some lemonade and stuff like that. She was a generous lady. And she came out and says, "Your worries are all over now." A big smile on her face. And she had this big ladle of lemonade and says, "Come on and drink this thing," she said, "The war's over." I remember that.

TI: What, when she said, what did she mean by, "Your worries are all over now?"

HM: Well, I guess she felt that the war had compounded a lot of our problems and all this kind of stuff and the fact that we were back there trying to get back to our normal way of life. She knew my parents were still in the camp and all that kind of stuff. And I guess she felt that that was a new episode and chapter and she was just trying to make me feel well, and feel good. And she was a nice lady. She, she always took it upon herself to do something gracious for me. Maybe she felt, I don't know, maybe I represent one of her sons I guess. But she was very kind to me.

TI: What about the Japanese Americans, when they returned. Was there a sense of sort of walking on eggshells to be very careful coming back? Or what was just the, the general feeling when you sort of went out into the general population, realizing you're Japanese?

HM: You know where to go eat and you know where to go because some places weren't very friendly to you. And so, all that data was transferred between individuals. And you knew what places we were invited in, and what places we were not happy to be accommodated. So there was a lot of, scrutiny as to what kinds of activities you can engage in, where you should patronize in terms of stores and things of this nature.

TI: How about perhaps overcompensating, trying to be more American or giving up some of your... Before the war there were probably some customs that were more Japanese than American. Did things like that change?

HM: Yeah, we tried to keep use of Nihongo at a minimum. Of course camp had accomplished most of that I think. We restrained from using Nihongo to any extent. So we were more Americanized at that point or trying to be more American I think than what we were before.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.