Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: George Fugami Interview
Narrator: George Fugami
Interviewer: Dee Goto
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: June 15, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-fgeorge-01-0051

<Begin Segment 51>

DG: So the Atlantic Street Center, what...

GF: That's a Methodist organization.

DG: What did you do there?

GF: There we helped out the schoolkids in that area. Any kind of problem that they had, it would come through the board, and we take it away or do what we thought was right. Ike was pretty good.

DG: So now helping the schoolkids in what way?

GF: Well, gosh, I can't recall now. I can't think of an incident. So many of them, I can't think of any incident right offhand. What was that?

DG: They took semi-delinquent kids?

GF: Yeah. We did all kinds. Yeah, that's what happens... a lot of times that's the reason we set up a pool table in the back so the kids after school they don't go roaming around the street. They'd come down here and play and things like that we did, yes. I think we were looking after our kids more than anything else.

DG: So it was part of your social consciousness?

GF: Yeah, that's right. Just like right now a lot of kids, they don't know where they're going to be because come home and nobody is home. Nobody is home so what's going to happen? They're going to go out and maybe -- if they get in the right crowd, it's all right, but a lot of times they don't. The wrong crowd is a lot of fun and the good crowd is not -- there's no fun to it so that's the reason why the young people have a tendency of joining organizations where they do more harm than good for yourself. That's one thing I told my daughter. I says, "Good, your kids take karate." At least after school, four o'clock, they have to go to karate or go to Japanese school. We used to go to Japanese school, but I didn't learn anything in Japanese school, but at least we go there instead of roaming the streets.

<End Segment 51> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.