Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Willie K. Ito Interview
Narrator: Willie K. Ito
Interviewer: Kristen Luetkemeier
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: December 5, 2013
Densho ID: denshovh-iwillie-01-0019

<Begin Segment 19>

KL: Back to sort of immediate, or the two years postwar San Francisco timeframe, you talked earlier about how there were a lot of African American and southern migrant workers who had come in. Was it difficult for you guys to reassimilate, for your family in particular?

WI: Yeah, well, you know, since our enclave changed so drastically that it was like we weren't too sure. Have we assimilated or are we just back to an old neighborhood that has changed demographically or what. So the first day of school they gathered us all out in the yard, and the principal came out and said, "Well, here it is September 1945, the war has ended, and many of our Japanese American friends have returned. And so we would like to welcome them back, and that they are our classmates now." Then I look over and there's a big cluster of African American kids all sort of looking somewhat angry, like, "This is our territory now." So we were gonna hang on to a type of attitude. And so it took a little bit of getting over that re-acclimation, the hard part. But then as it turned out, see, like that YMCA that Fred Hoshiyama set up, lot of African American kids were also members there. Then we came, and then we assimilated, and then we became great pals. And then in school, our African American friends and us, we really got well together, got along. To this day, even our high school reunion that I went to school with these... unfortunately, many of those are now gone. But oh, we stayed in touch and we became the best of friends. But I think it was more of the hard core business owners in Japantown that was threatened because their businesses might be taken away or we would reclaim the Japanese sukiyaki restaurant, or whatever the case may be.

But there was a little bit of that, and then, of course, a lot of southerners have never experienced living side by side with Japanese Americans. A sprinkling of Chinese, because Chinese are all over. They have Chinese laundries and Chinese restaurants everywhere. But because of the war, the Japanese quietly kind of got away from their enclave and resettled in other areas that people weren't used to seeing us. So I think a lot of the southerners that came out here has never seen us, worked with us or lived with us, so it was a whole new experience. Everyone's kind of cautious. But that was an interesting period of readjusting.

KL: How long do you think it took for the friendships to form and the suspicion to...

WI: Well, as a kid, kids tend to be a little more... but the older folks, they're always a little more suspicious. Then, of course, these little Issei Japanese women, they'll be sort of afraid to walk the streets or go shopping. Whereas before the war, no matter what time of the day or evening, they could freely walk down and go to the market and whatever. But after the war, once it got dark, they stayed in their homes. So, you know, it took a little while. But the YMCA program, a lot of the big athletes, in San Francisco that played basketball in San Francisco stayed, or the San Francisco 49ers, they would all come down to Japantown because Japantown was "Bop City." And so they would hang out there, we would see and say, "Wow, that's [inaudible] or Joe Perry or whatever from the 49ers, and we'd go up and talk to them, and it was such a nice friendship and whatever. And then you'd go to the YMCA, and there they are, shooting hoops and, "Ooh, that's so and so." So it was good for the community.

KL: The one time I walked around Japantown I didn't see a lot of vestiges left of that Bop City identity. When do you think that...

WI: You saw that new section that was rebuilt from scratch? They tore it down completely and rebuilt where the hotel is. That's when they all left, and that's where it became pretty much hundred percent Japanese. So those that did migrate away from what was left of Japantown settled on Fillmore Street. Fillmore is just... well, it's one of those big avenues that after the earthquake, San Francisco earthquake, Market Street was devastated. So Fillmore Street suddenly became overnight the shopping area. And then that was the area that the Japanese Americans were able to settle and form a Japantown. And so today, Market Street is... oh, I'm sorry. Fillmore Street still has a lot of the African American shops and stores. San Francisco is so funny because it's defined division. You go up to Sutter Street, which is African American, then after that it's sort of like it became... what's the word?

KL: Urban renewal or something? Gentrification?

WI: You know, young guys with BMWs and all that.

KL: Yuppie?

WI: Yuppie coffee shops. Lot of coffee shops and trendy little shops. But that one street, Sutter, and then down is liquor stores and bars. [Laughs] So it's like... and then boom, next street over is Japantown, it's all basically, it's not one of these gradual transitions, boom, boom. Pacific Heights, here's all the ritzy homes and whatever. But Pacific Avenue is, like, boom, defined. So San Francisco is funny that way.

KL: What were the schools that you attended after the war? You mentioned that principal who gave that address, where was that?

WI: That was called Pacific Heights, and that was like a middle school. And then after I graduated there I went to Polytechnic High. And the reason for that is it was the only high school in the city that offered Cartooning 101. [Laughs] All the other schools were pretty academic. You went to Washington High if you excelled in basketball, and you went to Poly High, the one I went to, because they had the championship football team. Lowell High School, where a lot of my Japanese American friends attended, was academic. Oh, very academic. So you had a lot of Chinese kids in there, a lot of Japanese kids in there. I could never make the grade there, so thank goodness for Polytechnic. [Laughs] So that's where I graduated from.

KL: Were those all public schools?

WI: Yeah.

KL: It was kind of like a magnet system for the public schools in your area.

WI: Just plain old public high schools, yeah.

KL: But you chose your discipline. That's interesting, that's a different model than a lot of places use now.

WI: San Francisco is such that they didn't put us into districts, or you had to go to this school because you lived in this, you were kind of free to pick and choose, which was fortunate.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.