<Begin Segment 16>

DG: Let's talk about housing in general because you mention it in another committee that you were a part of, but we can talk about that later. There was a lot of people coming into Seattle so it wasn't just the Japanese returning.

NS: You mean during wartime or after wartime?

DG: Well, at this time.

NS: At this time, yes. There were a lot of Negro people came in from the South because they were stationed at Fort Lewis. And this being, Bremerton being take-off point for a lot of the ships, there were a lot of people who moved into this area, and so...

DG: And then you said earlier that a lot of the Filipinos replaced...

NS: The Japanese in a lot of the store and work areas in the downtown districts. The Filipinos and then the Chinese expanded and moved there during the war and afterwards.

DG: And then all the efforts were towards the war so there was no new housing, right?

NS: No. And so we had to find what there was available, and what there was available were usually older houses.

DG: So a lot of families had to...

NS: Had to live together. So we lived with my mother for a while until we found a house for ourselves. By that time there were quite a few other Japanese families that moved into the same Garfield area, and it was close to schools and available for purchase.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.