<Begin Segment 20>

DG: Far as Jerome and you're in camp now. One of the things that I'm wondering, when you first interacted with the stateside Japanese people, what did you think?

SS: We didn't speak good English. [Laughs] But mainly, we just stuck with the people from Hawaii, because fortunately they put us in blocks 38, 39 and 40. And so, we really didn't have to interact with the stateside people, that much.

DG: Being a stateside person myself, we have certain opinions of people from Hawaii.

SS: What is it?

DG: What was your... we think that you're more gregarious and outspoken, and so forth. What did you think about us?

SS: For one thing, I wished we were able to speak nice English, like you guys did, because ours were more pidgin. And I guess, being brought up in Hawaii, we were more outspoken because we were among people with the same background. And I guess, if we had gone out to look for work, we would have felt the discrimination because only the good positions were given to the haoles. But...

DG: In Hawaii, also?

SS: Yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh. But I didn't know anything about that until after I have grown up. But, but as a, growing up as a child in Hawaii, we really weren't hampered. And I think that, in that sense, I feel that I was very fortunate. And only after Ken transferred to UW here, that we realized for one thing, we didn't speak good English. Number two, we didn't see as many Asians. And when you figure I.G.A. as a Japanese store instead of Independent Grocery Association, because we thought it was Iga and we were so happy to see, 'cause it was on, is it 14th and Yesler? They used to have the I.G.A. store there, across from Mutual Fish. And when Mutual Fish was on 14th, I think. [Laughs]

DG: Yeah. That was a long time ago.

SS: It was a long time ago.

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