Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Henry Miyatake Interview I
Narrator: Henry Miyatake
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: March 26, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-mhenry-01-0019

HM: The way I beat curfew was that I had a Chinese kid in our class and we were pretty good friends and Albert and I were the same size physically. We liked to play basketball on the same team and I used to pick him and he used to pick me. Anyway, he said to me, "If you want to go out at night, I could give you one of these buttons." They used to have these China buttons that the Chinese kids used to wear, and he gave me one. He says, "Well you could change your name to same name as mine if you're in trouble."

[Interruption]

In fact, (the Chinese community) had communication with the police department saying this is the way they identified themselves as being Chinese. So they couldn't tell us -- just like the incident at Boeing Field -- they couldn't tell us from Nihonjin or Chinajin or anything else, see. So anyway, Al gave me that. So I felt very confident I could get away with any of the stuff. [Laughs] So I'd go out early or stay out late at night and I wouldn't be concerned. But my brother was concerned and my parents were concerned. But I said, "Well, what are they going to do with me? I'm a kid. What are they going to do with me? Throw me in jail?"

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