<Begin Segment 35>

BK: Was it difficult for you to get jobs?

JT: It wasn't hard to get a job, but it was very difficult to find someplace to live, because we had been, they'd open the door and see that we were other than Caucasian and they say -- knowing that we were Asian -- they said, "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, "We just can't sell to you." And we were turned down several times like that at the beginning so it was pretty discouraging. We couldn't live where we wanted to live, they wouldn't let us live in the Mount Baker district. They wouldn't let us live, Montlake area. And it was bad for a while. And then so we went out to Rainier Valley and rented that home there. And, well that's that was... they were there first, I'm sorry, I take that back, they were there first. I lived with them on Lucille Street and then we went out to look for a home to purchase, that's what it was. And we looked, as I said, in Mount Baker and Montlake, but we were refused a few times before we found this house right near Garfield High School between Fern, Alder.

BK: With these rejections, how did it make you feel?

JT: It didn't make you feel very good, but it sure makes you, it made you angry. You'd ask them, "Where do you think -- can you recommend someplace I could go?" Well, of course, they wouldn't, anyway, so you just had to keep, we had to keep looking and answering ads and looking for a place to go. And I don't remember why we chose that area but we just kind of toured around the area looking for homes and we decided that... I really wanted to live at the top like 30th right over Jackson. You know, that's such a nice area, and it was kind of going downhill, but the homes there were still in the expensive area of prices as far as we were concerned. So we didn't get what I wanted to get up there, and we came down to near Garfield High School. But that was, it was okay, it was the Jewish area, Jewish neighborhood. And I remember being called on many times, "Would you come over on a Sabbath" -- it would be a Sabbath day -- "and turn the lights on for me, and do this and do..." 'cause they can't -- apparently they cannot do almost anything on those holy days. So, but that was a good area for us. The kids grew up there, Steven and Vicki did, and we left when Steve was in junior high. And I think the little kids were just beginning, they were in first, second grade or stuff like that. And we left when it became a little rough and Vicki told me, "Mom, we got to move or do something," she told me. "The kids, you should hear 'em up on the porch. They're using every four-letter word they know." And I said, "Well, okay, well, we'll see about that." So we decided... and as, and they were the only Asians in the school at that point so we decided we'd better get into more metropolitan, more area where it was more different races and different people around.

BK: When you say that they were the only Asians, what were the rest of the students?

JT: The rest of them were more black, it was a pretty black community at that time. And after that, Garfield, I thought it was a very good school, really, and it was good for Steve. But the kids were getting the wrong sort of upbringing -- not upbringing so much, but the wrong types of friends, and the rough neighborhood. They were learning a lot of things they shouldn't be learning. So we decided, well, we'd better get into a more culturally spread area so we came out to the West Seattle area to look around since his sister Yoshi was out this way and we thought, "Well, we'll look around there." Not necessarily right by her or anything, but in the area. And the homes were more reasonable here than other areas at that time, too.

BK: And during this second house-buying time, did you face any discrimination?

JT: No, this time we did ask some questions. I said, "How do people feel out there? What are their feelings about races other than Caucasian?" And he said -- the buyer we talked to was -- he built this house also and he was going to live in it -- and he said, "You will have no problems." Besides which we didn't have any neighbors here at the time. And I had gone down the street where -- this house was built by two people and Bob was one of them and John was another and John lived down the street -- so we went down and talked to the people around there. And they were, they didn't have, I said, "We're going to be your neighbors and we just wanted to introduce ourselves." And they seemed pretty good about it so we felt that... it wasn't, even at that point it wasn't what you call a highly desirable area but it always has been good to us. We've never had any trouble. When we first moved in here, we did have a house break-in but we decided it was children, kids that came in, 'cause there was candy eaten and things just thrown around and that's not what real people want to break in for. [Laughs]

<End Segment 35> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.