<Begin Segment 29>

MN: After you were with the JCC, where did you go work after that?

FH: After JCC, I worked for Port of Los Angeles in 1970. Because Fred Wada, he became the Harbor Commissioner. And the harbor, there was business between Japan was skyrocketing in those days, and he wanted Japanese, I mean, somebody who can speak the language in the business development era. And so he took me in, not through the civil service exam, but through a contract. I was a contract worker in the Harbor Department for about two and a half years. And then there was a guy that came from Japan, the Nakano Warehouse and Transportation (Corporation), they wanted somebody who can manage their company. And so I was hired there as the general manager, vice president. And then after that, Fred Wada became the director to the Bank of Tokyo. And so here again, it seemed like I'm following him or he's picking me up or I don't know. But I started working for the Bank of Tokyo in 1975 at age fifty, started working for the bank. And I worked for the Union bank for about seventeen years. Lot of people think like, even Martha thought that I was a banker all through my life. That's not the case. I worked only for about seventeen years, but from a company outsider. And how I did that, each time when I take a new job, I take a couple of extra courses and so forth and going to the UCLA extension and so forth. I know this much about this business. And then, okay, you're hired. Bank was different. I was hired because Nakano Warehouse and Transportation, the business got bad, and so I was going to lose the job, and so I went to the Bank of Tokyo manager then, whom I knew since the Japanese Chamber of Commerce days, and said that I'm going to lose the job. "You're a banker, you have a lot of clients, and so find a place for me." And he said, "Give me your resume," and I submitted it to him, he called me back and said, "Well, you're going to lose a job. Won't you think of working for the bank?" And I said, "Okay, I will." And I had quite a bit of a salary cut in those days, but I started working for the Union Bank, which I did for seventeen years. And so I got all the retirement benefits and everything, full benefits.

TI: And what kind of work did you do at the bank?

FH: Bank I was the public relations field.

TI: Okay, so you didn't have to really know finance so much, but just more community, public relations, that kind of work.

FH: Right, but the finance and so forth, I took a couple of courses. ABA, American Bankers Association, to have the AB... American Bankers education arm, and I attended night courses and took a couple of courses in the general, how does the use of the fund, how to make, take in the deposit and how to use it lending, and all the fields and those kind of things. I took couple of courses, and that's how I worked with the bank. And so I knew a lot of things, those kind of academic background and so forth. Because those people have worked for the bank for twenty, thirty years. They hardly know about these kind of things. How the bank operates, how does the bank profit? Taking in the funds, lending it out and get the spread there and so forth. And have to have the asset and the liability, had to know all that. But I've known that at least here, academically.

MN: Well, Bank of Tokyo was also very big right after the war. Didn't they help the Kajima Corporation? Didn't they finance them when they first started to rebuild in Little Tokyo?

FH: I think so. And not only after the war, but even the prewar days. It was once the first bank that came to the United States, Yokohama Specie Bank, YSB. That was more or less the agency of the Japanese government in Sacramento. And then Sumitomo followed that, but it was the first one. And then after the war, those kind of banks were, GHQ said they had to change this, and then it became the Bank of Tokyo. A... what do you call that? Commercial bank and so forth. But before, the it was the bank, the financial arm of the Japanese country, Japanese government itself, very strong. So even the Bank of Tokyo had a very strong tradition of that. All of the Japanese consulate, embassy and consulate employees, they had an account with the Bank of Tokyo, not with the Sumitomo.

MN: Of course, now it's known as Union Bank.

FH: That's right. And then the Bank of Tokyo bought the Southern Cal First National Bank in San Diego, and then became an American bank. And then the Union Bank was on sale, the British bank, Union Bank was sale, and so the California First Bank bought out the Union Bank, the British bank, and then changed its name to Union Bank. And then it merged with the Mitsubishi Bank, subsidiary of the Bank of California. Bank of California is the oldest bank in the state of California. And so it merged and then became Union Bank of California. And then about last year or so, I think they changed their name again to the Union Bank. It's why it's the Union Bank of California. (Then it reverted to Union Bank, as it stands today.)

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.