<Begin Segment 10>

JN: Can you tell us a little bit more about what you remember when it came to how you were treated? You mentioned it earlier, the, it was later that you realized that...

LK: Well, my mother and I went to shop, went for school shoes to Seattle. And we went to, I think it was the Bon Marche, and this is when I'm twelve, I remember I was twelve years old. And we sat in the shoe department and we waited and waited waited. And other people came and got waited upon and my mother said, "Well, let's go try JC Penney's." So then we went to JC Penney's and the same thing happened there. And so then she said, "Well, let's go to Sears Roebuck." And so, "We'll go some other day. We'll come back another day to go to Sears Roebuck." And even then I didn't... I knew that it was because we were Japanese but I just took it as a matter of course. And then, as we're walking back to the dock, a man came up behind us and said, "Why don't you go back where you came from, you blankety-blank Japs." And I was ready to turn around and say, and say, "Well, we're not...." as any twelve-year-old would. My mother grabbed me by the arm and said, "Just ignore him, just keep walking, don't say another word." And she was clutching my arm and so we just walked quickly to the ferry dock. And I remember that, just really well. And even so, it didn't... I mean, we were, it was, on the island I never felt that blatant kind of discrimination at all.

[Interruption]

LK: And then, when Joe and I were on our honeymoon -- this is, this is ten years after World War II, we got married in 1955. So ten years after the war, we... the first motel -- we were driving to California -- and the first hotel, motel we came to said, "I'm sorry." It said vacancy, and they wouldn't, they didn't have a room for us. And it didn't... it took two more places where I realized, well, they just don't wanna, want us because we're Japanese. And then another time was when... well, and then when we were looking for an apartment, people told us that no, "We can't, we don't rent to Japanese, or to Asians." I mean, that's how blatant it was. And then when we were looking for a house, we looked at a house at Eastgate and we were gonna buy it and we were ready to sign papers and then the real estate agent called us and said, "I'm sorry, but the sellers decided they could not sell to you because they are still friends with their neighbors," their former neighbors. And so... they, they were, at that time, out and out able to tell us that no, they didn't want to rent to Japanese. And I think, I think it takes... I can understand why... well, those are the incidences that colored, I think, how, how self-confident, or not self-confident I became. It became... it just took those two or three times, it wasn't a constant thing. Whereas when I'd go into a new group, I'd think, "Now, what do they think about me? Am I gonna be accepted for me, or am I gonna be rejected?" It's a subconscious thing, but I think it did color how... it's only in my senior years that I've become brazen and more outspoken about things. I think I was hesitant to speak up about... although not very many people think that about me. But I've measured what I said more back then, or kept quiet more.

JN: Because you started off as a child being very confident and very, and stubborn, like you said because you had a strong mind. And you feel that most of your adult life was...

LK: Well, in a way, when I compare -- people would not agree with, about that assessment about myself, in a way. Because one of the telling things I think about growing up on Bainbridge among Caucasians is that I felt comfortable with it. And it wasn't 'til I went to the University of Washington and met students from, Japanese Americans from Seattle. And I thought, "They're so cliquish, and they're, they seem to have to be within their own group." And that was, I didn't understand that. But see, well, that was when I was not married. I mean, I wasn't... I still hadn't been exposed to this, the blatant discrimination, which they probably had been already. Whereas it took until I was getting married, and being turned down at motels and apartment buildings and housing. And so until then, I think I was pretty outgoing and not... able to voice my opinions without feeling self-conscious about it, I guess, yeah. I think that's... yeah, and so it's telling what... yeah, things will do to a person's outlook, I guess. But even so, I would... yeah, it is the difference being raised in a tolerant atmosphere like the island, I think.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.