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FA: What I'm curious about is, is your contacts. You know, people like the JACL. That they didn't, they were kind of afraid of white people, you know, hakujins. And what was your contact? I mean, did you deal with hakujins?

FE: Yeah, our, our business was all with Caucasians. And even before the war, we had no problem with them, and even after Pearl Harbor, they were more supportive. Some of 'em would come in and say, you know, "You're not... you guys are Japanese but you're American citizens, Japanese, so you don't have to worry about our not patronizing you. We'll just keep on buying our stuff here," and they were very supportive. They didn't... in fact, I don't think I had one instance where a customer said, "We're going to quit buying here because your people bombed Pearl Harbor," or anything like that.

FA: Did you, at the produce market, the food market, did you deal across the counter with hakujin?

FE: Oh, yeah. That's right. You mean the wholesale market?

FA: Yeah, the wholesale market.

FE: Oh, sure. Hakujins, and Chinese, and regular league of nations there. Very few Japanese, but Japanese were farmers so they had stalls there, too, but most of the bigger houses were Caucasians.

FA: And were you afraid of them? I mean, did you feel intimidated?

FE: Oh, no. No. We used to really bargain with 'em. [Laughs] Never felt intimidated.

FA: So were you much of a radical, or troublemaker, or... you know, the way some people describe you in JACL at that time...

FE: No, we were very law-abiding, quiet citizens. [Laughs] We never had any problems. But I imagine I had some resentment in me from past experiences like in high school, when the football, football coach made a remark saying, one of the Japanese boys playing on the football team was practicing, the assistant coach said, "Joe Takahashi's helmet was knocked off so we'd better stop and let him put it on. He might get hurt." And the head coach says, "Oh, if he gets killed, it'll just be another Jap." I mean, stuff like that, it kinda builds up resentment and during that period you don't talk back or make waves, you know. You just hold it in. And experiences like when you're in the Boy Scouts, the team goes swimming in the public pool and because you're not white, you're sitting up in the benches watching your scout mates swim and you can't.

FA: You couldn't swim?

FE: No. They won't let you in.

FA: The pool.

FE: They won't let you in the pool. It was only for the, for the Caucasians.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 1993, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.