<Begin Segment 11>

BH: Let's go back. I didn't ask you a question about your sister Lynn being born at Minidoka. Ed was born at Tule Lake, and then Lynn was born in Minidoka. Did your mom ever talk about having kids in a camp hospital?

SF: No. Only thing, like I have said before, Mom and Dad, they were so busy before the war, and after the war, they were in camp -- not after the war, but they were in camp, didn't have anything else to do, and that's how Ed came about. [Laughs] I guess that's what happened with Lynn, too.

BH: It was quite an adjustment for your dad, he had never been in the hotel business. He was a farmer. Were those difficult times?

SF: It was difficult, yeah, it was hard. But Dad, he's a go-getter. So he felt that everything's going to be fine, and same thing as the restaurant. He's never been in the restaurant business, and I thought, boy, this is really a big step. And so he had a Japan cook, and that's how he opened up New Toyko.

BH: How long did he have the hotel before he opened up the New Toyko?

SF: He must have had it for at least, I don't know, five, six years.

BH: Did you guys live at the hotel?

SF: Yes.

BH: What was that like?

SF: It was different because the living room was the corner room. The kitchen was a few doors away, my room was another room. So everything was kind of scattered.

BH: What adjustments did your family need to make moving from first farmland to two different camps and then into town? Did they just kind of go with the flow?

SF: Yeah, they went with the flow, because, well, that's what everyone else had to do, too.

BH: Your dad was very prominent in the Japanese American community after the war.

SF: Yes.

BH: What kinds of things was he involved in?

SF: First of all... well, he was, first of all, he had the New Toyko restaurant, and he, that would be a gathering place. After a while, he helped with the, he started the Japanese section of the newspaper. He was doing that, also he was the (treasurer) of the Buddhist church. He also was friends with the, Mark Hatfield, and (Terry Shrunk). He was friends with them, and they became friends from bringing in Sapporo, sister city for Portland.

BH: And your dad was instrumental in that happening.

SF: Yes, he was.

BH: And Japanese Ancestral Society and JACL?

SF: Oh, yes, the Ancestral Society. He was involved in a lot of community work.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.