<Begin Segment 21>

DG: Any hint as to what made a aka group or you know, shiro group?

TS: No.

KS: Didn't hear about them after we came back to Seattle.

DG: What is your guess?

TS: Well, the only thing that I heard later was of some gangster or criminal activities in the Japanese community was with reference to prostitution, gambling, daylight murders and community activities to stop that type of thing. And I know my father casually mentioned that in Fife and Tacoma there was a organization of Issei who got together and raised some money to hire a special prosecutor to prosecute some gambler in the Tacoma area who was guilty of murder in some pool hall or something like that. But it was all very casually mentioned.

KS: It never made the papers or anything like that.

TS: No. So there was apparently a history of off color activities in the Issei community, that Issei tried to deal with on their own unofficially and off the record. But there was definitely a strong effort to maintain order in the community and to protect the reputation of the Japanese people.

DG: Was this the only person...

TS: That happened in every community I think in Tacoma and...

DG: But there was gambling around, right?

TS: Oh yes.

DG: Quite a bit.

TS: And as late as 1950s I heard references to wealthy families whose reputed beginnings were related to dope, gambling, prostitution and now they were very highly respected members of the community, but nobody ever prosecuted them or it's just sub rosa, but I never did find out in detail what they actually were guilty of doing, or people just casually referred to them. I remember during my practice, a couple of Issei men got into a fight in a office downtown near the office that I had at that time in the Rainier Heat and Power building. My client was, before the war, referred to as a pretty rough and tumble ruffian in the community and another man was a very substantial person with no such reputation, but they happened to be in the same office and apparently they had some words which led to more words. And all of a sudden, one of them kicked the other a couple of times in the shins and the other picked up a ashtray and hit the man on the head, and they were separated and pretty soon, apparently it got to be such a big uproar that the man who had a bad reputation prewar had a son who brought his dad in to ask me to represent him. And his dad would sit in the chair, pull up his pants and showed me his bruises to show why he had reason for grabbing a ashtray. But it was getting to be such a problem that I didn't know what to do, and finally after some time I consulted with some leaders in the community, and they said well, I think the thing to do is to ask so and so as a leader on one side and so and so as another leader on the other side and have them negotiate a, a settlement. And after a few weeks, all of a sudden I was told that well, it's all settled. They each shook hands so we're going to have a dinner to celebrate the settlement and I attended the dinner meeting. But this was my first experience with informal settlement of arguments between parties. And it was rather an interesting experience.

[Interruption]

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.