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LG: So after graduating from college, what happened next?

DM: Well, I got a job in West Trenton. I had just started dating my husband, but I had a job in West Trenton at the School for the Deaf as a resident nurse, so I worked there for two years, and saved enough money so I could pay for a wedding. So I moved from my apartment in West Trenton to my apartment in Seabrook. And that's how my life here began, right back at Seabrook where I lived as a, arrived as a six-year-old child in one of those apartments.

LG: Did you see yourself staying in Seabrook? Did you want to settle here?

DM: You know, most of my friends hated it here. They said when they left here, they were never coming back, and a lot of them never did. I never had that attitude. So when I came back here, it didn't make any difference. I mean, I love my husband, I had to go where he went. So be it Seabrook, it was Seabrook. And I came back and I was happy. They had fixed up the apartments, so they were nicer. They weren't as drab. By now, we had a refrigerator, not an icebox. We had a regular range, not a wood stove. To me, I was again going to a second heaven. My first heaven was that first apartment. I was married, I was happy, and the apartment was nice.

LG: How have you seen the community change?

DM: Oh, well, I saw it changing as I was a school nurse. They still had the apartments there, but it was mainly Blacks and Hispanics. One or two Asians, Blacks, Hispanics and poor whites, is the way I would explain it when we eventually moved out. And then, of course, when they tore it down, because it's low-income housing, and low income housing is wonderful for people who can't afford a lot of rent. But sometimes landlords aren't looking out for their, the people who were renting from them, unfortunately. You know how you say your neighborhood's gone downhill? That's what I saw happening. The nicest thing is when they tore down all the dormitories and the barracks and built the individual, well, the town halls type things here, and that's still low rent. I don't know if it's a problem, but it is still subsidized housing. And working as a school nurse, I had to, I was involved in free lunches and things. So I knew what these landlords were getting for a drab old apartment, the barracks that they used to have, and it used to really anger me. The people may only pay five hundred dollars, but then the government would pay six hundred and fifty dollars, that it was not worth six hundred and fifty dollars; that angered me.

[Interruption]

LG: Yeah, I think we can move to some reflection questions. So I guess first, when did you become involved with the JACL?

DM: Well, you know, my father, back in 1950, I think, was the president. Then my sister was secretary for a number of years. But when I moved back here, we started our family immediately. So all those years I was raising my children, forget it. I was just raising my kids. So I was not involved. My husband, when we were... gee, probably in the 1980s, he came on, he was asked to be a board member. And then, later on, when they needed more board members, they asked me if I would be a board member. So I'm ashamed to say it's just in recent years that I've been able to become active. My priority was my family, and then once I started working, my priority was still my family, but then I had to think about educating them, too, so I had to work.

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