Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Richard Murakami Interview
Narrator: Richard Murakami
Interviewer: Dee Goto
Location: South Bend, Washington
Date: May 12, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-mrichard-01-0042

<Begin Segment 42>

DG: So you didn't have a house to go back to.

RM: No.

DG: What about all the belongings in your house and things? Did you -- were you able to collect anything?

RM: I think we kind of more or less gave it away.

DG: Gave it away?

RM: Yeah.

DG: Okay. Now, you told me about the Moby Dick Hotel...

RM: Uh-huh.

DG: ...in Nahcotta. Okay. And you went there so tell me what happened. The owner...

RM: Well, we went to Moby Dick Hotel and people were real nice to us and told us to stay as long as we wished to do so and if anybody starts anything he says, "I got a gun here so don't worry."

DG: Now, he said that to you because he knew the tension that was in the city.

RM: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, he didn't feel that was right. They was real understandable people.

DG: So he was going to use the gun to help protect you.

RM: That's what he said. I don't know.

DG: Because he had heard what? Heard that they weren't gonna to let you back into the plant or what?

RM: Yeah. Then we went to get our place back and Lyle says the war is still not over and peace not declared so we don't have to give it back 'til then. So then I think I went to see my lawyer and somehow we got it back.

DG: Well, but then before you did that, there were a lot of things that happened. It wasn't as simple as that.

RM: No, it wasn't simple. No, that's right.

DG: So you tried get it back and they wouldn't let you and were talking about, you know, guns were involved and things I heard.

RM: Yeah.

DG: And so you took your parents then to Seattle.

RM: Yeah, because the owner of the Moby Dick Hotel he had -- yeah, I think that's gun they were referring so if anybody comes and fools around why they better watch out.

DG: Well, I heard there were some guns on the other side too, that they were threatening you.

RM: Could have been, yeah.

DG: According to your cousin and a few people.

RM: Yeah.

<End Segment 42> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.