<Begin Segment 13>

MA: So let's talk about your, the housing situation and how you moved to a house and there was protests --

IO: Well, once we decided to move to Vincent Avenue, I guess, that was the one that, the final one.

MA: And this was in 1958?

IO: '58. And I don't recall hearing any derogatory remarks or anything. But next door, the policeman, never spoke. I spoke to him, he didn't say anything. The wife used to say hello, and they had two daughters. But overall, never really talked. But the couple on the south side we got to know fairly well. And then, of course, the people in the north eventually moved, and there were several different families, and there, it was all changed completely. And then as far as across the street, never had any problems with any of 'em.

MA: So when did the protests start about your protests in the neighborhood?

IO: Oh, well, when I first, when we first moved in, I mean, before we moved in, when we first put our money, earnest money down on Vincent Avenue address, right away, I was out of town, and my brothers got many nasty phone calls telling 'em we shouldn't move in. Told them we'd be sorry if we moved in. And they were primarily saying that we would bring down the value of their property, that was one of their biggest arguments they had, of any minority moving in the area. And that area we moved in was no, there were no minority people in that area, that district. That was the preferred area as far as Minneapolis. And as a result, they were trying to keep it that way. They thought, anyway. But when I was moving in, across the alley was the salesman that I dealt with. And he's immediately behind the house that I was buying. And he told me, "Gee, I wished I'd have been home, I didn't know it, I was out of town." He could have stopped all the arguments and protests they had. But it happened that the man down on the far end of the block was an employee of W.C.C.O. Television, one of the big television stations in the Twin Cities. And he didn't like the idea (...), I heard that he had arguments with those people that objected, then he got the thing on television so it hit the whole Twin Cities area and we heard all about it. And from what I heard, he continually kept telling 'em that, "You shouldn't be doing things like that," that, "There will be no property loss." And then, of course, we did finally buy it, and then after we moved in, we had no problems. Even the neighborhood kids were helping us when we were moving in.

MA: I see. So the protests came when you were thinking about moving, or you had already bought the house, but you hadn't moved in yet?

IO: Pardon me?

MA: So the protests were right when you...

IO: Oh, after I put the money down, not before. Well, of course, they heard about the other place first, 'cause I was buying, I put money on the one on Newton Avenue. And of course, there, I understand the next door neighbor's wife was hysterical when they heard that a Nisei was gonna buy the house, that's what I heard. And, of course, he was (...) the assistant treasurer (...) at Northwest Bank. And as a result, I heard that many people withdrew their money from Northwest, which kind of surprised me, but that's what they did.

MA: So the first house on Newton Avenue...

IO: The first, yeah. And the second house is the one that I ended up buying, the Vincent Avenue.

MA: So what happened with the Newton Avenue house? Did you just forget about the whole thing?

IO: Yeah, we just cancelled the earnest money, purchase agreement, and the real estate man said, "That's fine." In fact, it's the same real estate man that took me to the second house, which we closed on.

MA: And the, it was published in the newspaper, right?

IO: Yeah, correct, besides being on television. And they asked us to go on television and talk, too, but we didn't. But some of the protestors did go on television and talk. But we decided that wasn't the way to go.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.