<Begin Segment 21>

TI: And so what was Detroit like growing up in the '50s? This is, you have three young boys, a wife, I mean, what was that like?

YM: Well, it wasn't bad, you know. They, the riots came later, after we left. But it wasn't too bad. We had a lot of friends there, Japanese American friends. I think we went back to kind of associating with other Japanese, although we had a few, I guess we did have a few American, Caucasian friends.

TI: And what was that like? So this is postwar Detroit, so these are Japanese Americans who resettled to Detroit from different parts of the West Coast, probably?

YM: Yes.

TI: And where would you meet? Was there like a community activities or just...

YM: Well, in the beginning, there was a place where, a community house, where the Japanese coming out of camps lived together. And they have a lot of activities there, I guess, but I didn't live there with them.

TI: And how about Isseis? Were there very many Isseis in Detroit?

YM: Yeah, there were a number of Isseis. My parents had a number of friends.

TI: And what did they do? Did they have similar type of social gatherings where they would get together?

YM: I think they did. I was just wondering, did they go to church? They must have gone to some Issei church, I can't recall right at the moment. Anyway, one of their friends was Kubotas. You know, the one that made this film, their parents? Well, Jim and...

TI: Oh, okay.

YM: Jim and Toby Kubota were the parents of the one that made the film. And their parents were my parents' friends.

TI: And so you mentioned earlier, church, so did they form a church that was mostly Japanese American Japanese?

YM: They must have. I don't, just can't recall where they went, though. I'm sure they did, but I just can't recall.

TI: And how about things like JACL? Do you know if they started a JACL chapter in Detroit?

YM: I think JACL was active in Detroit, although I didn't belong, we didn't belong to the JACL there.

TI: And during that time, what was your view of the JACL? Why did some people join and other people didn't?

YM: I think mainly because our friends weren't members of the JACL. I don't think we had much to do with the JACL until we came to the Twin Cities.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.