<Begin Segment 20>

DG: So in 1935 you came back.

GF: I came back.

DG: And what was it like here coming back?

GF: Coming back? In those days, no airplanes, all in the boats. So coming here... my youngest brother, he couldn't speak English and I couldn't speak the language, too, and I was military trained. I was, people in Japan all military trained when they are a certain... going to high school or going to school, they're all military trained. So you have just, you stand up and so I can still remember, they called my name and I stood up like a soldier and said, "Hai." Oh, what the heck is this going on? But we're trained that way. As soon as they call our name, we just stand up. And so they asked me a bunch of questions. "How did you get to" -- my folks are in Gresham -- "how do you get in Gresham?" I said, "One way you can do, is walk down there... and next way you can take a train, or you can take a car, or you can take the other train from..." There was a little train that goes through to Gresham so they knew that I know something about United States. And then my brother, he couldn't speak English so he had to go into that --

DG: So where was the immigration?

GF: Immigration was here in Seattle.

DG: So you got off here in Seattle.

GF: Yeah, I got off here. My brother was put into immigration. There for a couple days because they had to see if he was American citizen, but to me, I, they let me out right away. I just walked right out and so when I came to the United States, it was all right.

DG: Then your folks...

GF: My father came to pick me up and we stayed at the N-P Hotel, I remember that. [Laughs]

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.