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SF: In terms of the market in general, what percentage would you guess were Japanese, at the time?

TS: Well, all the, the bakeries, the eating places, those were all white. And the Japanese were strictly in the vegetable selling end of it. There might have been one Japanese selling fish after a while. I think the Yokoyamas or somebody got started afterwards. But it was basically mostly selling vegetables.

SF: How many of the stalls were like your dad, who was an independent retailer who bought his stuff from someone else, versus a farmer who might live in Bellevue or wherever, or probably more locally...

TS: Yeah.

SF: ...who'd sell the stuff directly to the customers in a stall? What would you guess would be the, the proportion or, of operations?

TS: You mean sales? I would say the Public Market would do a greater volume of business, simply because there's more choices for the consumer or the purchaser, customer.

SF: So, but in terms of, like the people who had the stall, how many -- I mean, were most of them farmers who grew their own stuff, or were they more like your dad who bought the stuff from someplace else and...?

TS: I don't know what the percentages... I think -- really have no idea how that split out. I think there were a lot of farmers there, obviously. That way, at least they make the money that the middleman would normally make.

SF: Were there other ethnic groups involved in the market at that time?

TS: I can't recall it.

SF: So Japanese were mostly in vegetables and maybe a few fish people. How 'bout flowers, things of that sort? Much of that...

TS: Golly, I really don't recall flowers at that time, but there must have been people selling flowers, too, but not like it is today.

SF: So your dad worked in the market until when?

TS: Well, I don't know the exact date. I've got some records at home on it that somebody else gave me, but -- maybe four, five years, I think. That was pretty tough work.

SF: You remembered it being lucrative, or very day-to-day and very difficult to make a buck, basically?

TS: I don't think it was a place where you'd get rich. I mean, I think -- but the bottom end, sort of, in income. You had no control.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.