Small business

Japanese American businesses, such as groceries, fish shops, laundries, barbershops, public bathhouses, restaurants, drugstores, and dry goods stores, sprang up in communities along the West Coast. Women and children were vitally important to these "mom and pop" enterprises, as their free labor allowed the family to survive and even prosper during lean times.

Industry and employment (481)
Small business (391)

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391 items

img Nikkei standing in front of a store (ddr-densho-259-269)

Caption by Homer Yasui: "Print of several Nikkei standing in front of a clapboard wooden building, over the doorway of which can be seen the number 14 Shown here was the south side of the second Yasui brothers store, which was located on the northeast corner of First Street and Oak Street in Hood River."

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-259-269/

img "Shinbo's Restaurant" (ddr-densho-259-347)

Caption by Homer Yasui: "'Shinbo's Restaurant', Walla Walla, Washington. That may not have been the real name of the restaurant This was a pretty nice restaurant for its days, which was around 1938 when we visited them. There are six Caucasian waitresses, so that was a pretty sizeable operation."

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-259-347/

img Auto camp (ddr-densho-259-312)

Unidentified Japanese Americans in front of Auto Camp building.

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-259-312/

img "Shinbo's Restaurant" (ddr-densho-259-348)

Caption by Homer Yasui: "View of 'Shinbo's Restaurant' kitchen."

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-259-348/

img Interior, tailor shop (ddr-densho-26-9)

Kinnosuke Yanagihara stands inside U.S. Tailors, which was located at 206 4th Avenue South in Seattle, Washington.

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-26-9/

img Japanese American man in front of tailor shop (ddr-densho-26-260)

Written on back "Kinnosuke"

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-26-260/

img Japanese American children (ddr-densho-26-71)

Akio and Mitsue Yanagihara pose in front of their father's tailor shop.

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-26-71/

img Tailor shop (ddr-densho-26-279)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-26-279/

img Interior of H.S. Watanabe Co. [?] (ddr-densho-278-24)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-278-24/

img Street scene showing Main Jewelry Co. and H.S. Watanabe Co. (ddr-densho-278-23)

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-278-23/

doc Signed contract (ddr-densho-278-7)

A signed contract for "Rentle [sic] of Candy Plant for One year."

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-278-7/

img A basket shop owner and his family (ddr-densho-299-22)

Caption on reverse: "FEC-48-3062. 23 April 1948 / Living standards in Japan: / This photograph of a Japanese family / is to be used in a S & S feature story / on the difference in living standards / throughout Japan. Mr. T. Kakizawa / (extreme right), directs an employee / in his lacquer basket shop …

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-299-22/

img Japanese man shaping a glass bowl (ddr-densho-299-48)

Caption on reverse: "FEC-49-2856. 23 April 49 / Manufacturing glassware in Japan: / One of the oldest and highly skilled / employees at Hoya Glass Factory, / Tokyo, Japan, uses a pair of shears / to trim off surplus glass as he care- / fully styles a bowl. / Photographer - Girard / Photograph by U.S. …

https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-299-48/