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JN: I'd like to start by having you introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about your family and what their occupations were in 1941.

BA: Okay. My name is Brooks Andrews and I was born and raised in Seattle. And during the... prior to and during the second world war, my dad was pastor of the Japanese Baptist Church in Seattle. And my mother didn't work outside the home at that time, but... so all our activities and everything we did was involved with the Japanese Baptist Church.

[Interruption]

BA: I have, at that time, had three sisters, older sisters. I was, I'm -- and the only boy. And my, the youngest of my sisters is eight years older than I am. So when I was born, into the church there, I was a big deal. You know, being a son finally to, to a family that had three, three girls. And so there was quite a to-do about that when I was born there.

JN: How was it that your father became the minister of a Japanese Baptist church, and how unusual was that at that time?

BA: I think it very unusual. Dad had taken two degrees, bachelor's degrees from the University of Washington and then moved down to California to continue his seminary education there. And when he graduated from seminary he just started working in the mission churches, storefront churches among the, the Hispanics and I'm not sure about the Chinese, but at least in the Hispanics. And then he moved up to Seattle area. Actually in, Fife area, and he married my mother there and they stayed up here and he started working at Chinese Baptist Church in Seattle. And then that, by about 1929, he was called to be the pastor of Japanese Baptist Church in Seattle. So right from the get-go, Dad and Mom and, all had this, this minority ministry in mind, so it wasn't any big jump for him to become pastor of the Japanese church. But still, it was very unusual. You don't have hakujin, you know, white pastors, at, at Japanese churches.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.