Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Chris Kato - Yoshi Mamiya - Tad Sato Interview
Narrators: Chris Kato, Yoshi Mamiya, Tad Sato
Interviewer: Stephen Fugita
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: August 14, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-kchris_g-01-0001

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SF: This is August 14th and it's a Densho interview with Tad Sato, Chris Kato, and Yoshiko Mamiya. And we're gonna talk a little bit about what Nihonmachi was like in the old days and also in the resettlement period. Maybe we could start off by having each of you, maybe we could start with you, Chris, sort of just telling us what your dad did, in terms of what kind of business he had, and just kind of what your experiences were. And then Tad, Yoshiko, in terms of what kinds of...

CK: Okay. My father and mother ran businesses before the war. And my father first started off as a person working in the (lime) mines up at Friday Harbor, Roche Harbor, they used to call it, where a lot of Japanese immigrants used to work for 50 cents a day. And, there he gathered enough monies to move to Seattle, send for his picture bride wife. And they had one child. But just before 1910, she went back because she was going to have a baby, and then she fell ill. And my father started a restaurant called the Iroha Restaurant. A similar name restaurant is now in San Francisco. And it's, it was ironic because my father, back in 1905, started this restaurant called Iroha.

Then he made a little bit more money, so he moved into a partnership with a Mr. Nakatsu, who was a long-time resident here, and also of Kumamoto-ken. And they started up the Alki Hotel. They were at that hotel for some years, then they broke up a partnership, and he went on his own, and owned the Hanson Hotel on Maynard and Washington Street. Then eventually -- I was born at the Hanson Hotel. And they -- eventually, they bought the St. Nicholas Hotel, which is now the west end of the parking lot of Uwajimaya. And the (Public) Hotel is right behind it -- or Publics Hotel, excuse me. And there, all seven of us Kato boys grew up. And, they had the hotel until the start of the war.

But in 1939, my dad bought into a restaurant, a tavern, pool hall, card table complex at First and Washington Street. And it was a, a thriving business because the war was, it just about to begin, and defense workers were pouring in and also the military located in the skid road of Seattle. Then the war came, and we, we had to evacuate. And therefore, to my way of thinking, he lost millions of dollars in profit because of the fact that he had to sell at that inopportune time. So that's the way that my folks were in business just before the war.

SF: Thanks. Okay, Tad.

TS: All right. I was born in Portland in May of 1922. And then shortly after that, father and mother split. And my sister and mother stayed in Portland. My father and I came to Seattle, that was pre-school days. And then we lived here and then shortly, there was a divorce, and it was permanent. I was raised down in lot of different places and parts of Seattle with different families 'cause it was just Father and I. And he worked, and I guess maybe I was too much of a handful for some of the families 'cause we kept moving. Eventually, he started up a second-hand store right on Main Street. And we lived in the back of the store. And I went on to Bailey Gatzert School and Central School and Broadway High School, class of '40. And after that, it was just career. Okay?

SF: Okay. Good. Yoshiko?

YM: My father had a store on Main Street. He started as a, a bookstore. And that was half a block east of where he finally had another store on Sixth and Main. And he had this bookstore with fishing tackle store, photo -- phonographs, and various things from Japan. And later on, he went into partnership with Sagamiya, run by the Shibata family. And so our store was known as Mitsuwado Sagamiya. And it was so-called maybe the hub of Japantown, where people would drop by. People from the country would come in, buy their Japanese things and buy the mochigashi. And my dad got to know quite a few people from the country. He was quite adventurous. He had an uncle who came to the United States much longer before, than him, so we went to see him and rode by car in 1933 all the way down to Anaheim, California. And this is first time I had met my granduncle. And we go back quite a few generations now.

Since the war was coming, he closed his Mitsuwado side of the family store. And it just got to be just Sagamiya. And when the war broke out we closed Sagamiya, and many of the people around, or our friends, had brought their furniture and whatever they had to store. And the store was filled to, from the floor to the ceiling with all kinds of furniture and whatever they wanted to store. And my dad, on February 21st, 1942, was, interned by the FBI. And from then, he went to the immigration station. And from there, he went to Missoula, Montana, and was transferred to various places like New Mexico, Louisiana, Santa Fe and he also was transferred to a place called Kooskia, Idaho, and to be near us, because we were all evacuated to Minidoka in Hunt, Idaho. And so my brother, Watson, and I went to see him. And I think that was the lowest part of my experience during the war.

Later on, he was released and came to Minidoka. And my brother (went to) New York. Myself, went out to (school near) Philadelphia. So Dad came out to Philadelphia, and we stayed there for a few months, until he was so-called paroled from the immigration naturalization. And we came back to Seattle. In the meantime, my mother and sister were in Japan during the war.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.