Densho Digital Archive - Irene Yamauchi Tatsuta Interview (denshovh-tirene-01-0026)

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KL: I'd love to ask you, like, three hours' worth of specific questions about the years immediately after Minidoka and your adult life, but I can't. So I'll ask you if you would kind of walk us through what the years were like right after you came back to Seattle, sort of significant events in them and how you felt about the events. And then also kind of the same thing for your adult life, where, how you've ended up here in Laguna Woods, really significant parts of your adult life. So starting with Seattle and the return from Minidoka, what stand out about those next, like, five years?

IT: Well, Seattle, we, I went to junior high school. Bailey Gatzert, we finished that, then we went to Washington Junior High, and we were all, most of us, I'm sure, were good students. Although we did our little pranks. [Laughs] We used to do a few little pranks to teachers. Then we went to Garfield High School. And I just remembered how, well, at Garfield they had the people from the, I guess they're wealthier, from the gated community and all. But the kids were, from there, were very nice to us. Course, they led the school and everything, and we just went along. But I think there I just felt we were, we were right before the blacks, because they pushed down the blacks and I always felt for them because I know how it feels. And so we were one step ahead of them, and people, real estate didn't want to sell to us because they figured right after the Japanese come in, then the blacks come in. Housing was quite segregated, and I knew a, I met, one of my classmates was a black girl who spoke beautifully. You couldn't detect any black background or anything in her. And she called one of the newspapers, or maybe it was a realtor -- anyway, they didn't know she was black and she was trying to sell -- oh, I know, she was working for the school paper, I think, and so she tried this and, to see if she could get a house. And then let them know she was black, of course she couldn't get a house. So she just wanted material to write about. Anyway...

KL: What was her name? Do you remember?

IT: [Shakes head] Cute, pretty girl.

KL: Your high school was Garfield?

IT: Yeah.

KL: Were there ever any tensions between Japanese Americans returning to Seattle and black people who had maybe moved into some of the neighborhoods?

IT: No, because, well, they wouldn't let the Japanese -- I was teaching third grade my first year, okay? And we still --

KL: So this is in the '50s.

IT: Yeah, I graduated '57. They, I had, I was teaching in a black area, and the Japanese consulate or whatever, vice, I guess he was a vice-consulate or something, his child, they had to live in the black community because they wouldn't let Japanese anywhere else. Can you imagine someone like up there in the country that, you'd think that they'd get better housing. But he, the little, the boy was in my class, and I just thought, man, this is pretty bad. But I did enjoy teaching there, but I, it doesn't bother me. I like teaching the underprivileged because I feel like I could understand them and they are sweet.