<Begin Segment 1>

AH: Do you mind if I call you Jim?

JA: Go right ahead.

AH: Jim, we were talking a little bit about your father's background in Japan, and then coming over here. And we talked about, you know, starting a shoe store and then having partners who were not particularly trustworthy. And then going back to Japan, and in Tokyo starting Washington Shoes which is now the largest shoe outlet, retail outlet store, in Japan. I wanted to go back a little bit, behind even your father, if you possibly can, and talk about his family, what you have found out about them, because here he was, a college graduate. So what was the...

JA: Okay. Now, they were from a area in Tochigi-ken, okay. But they were from the farming area, and the city, the closest city or trade stop, was called Ujie and they were the biggest... what shall I say? Rice grower -- okay. And he was toward the younger of the family of ten kids.

AH: Oh, really?

JA: Yeah, and therefore the older brothers got together and sent him to the university.

AH: And which university was that?

JA: Nippon. Nippon Daigaku. Nippon University.

AH: Now, when he came to the United States, you said he was unable to go to the University of Washington, and what were the reasons for that?

JA: No, he tried going but they weren't accepting him. So he took it that that's exactly what he came to the United States was to find out discrimination -- okay. And he found that he was not able to enroll in the university so he went into doing whatever, that he could start working. And one of the things that he did was as a janitor at Frederick & Nelson. And he followed them from Frederick to Standard, and back to Fredericks and that was around from 1909 and maybe over the next several years.

AH: Did you ever talk to him about his experiences?

JA: Oh yeah, yeah, we are always... we communicated very good.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.