Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Frank K. Omatsu Interview
Narrator: Frank K. Omatsu
Interviewer: Sharon Yamato
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: October 24, 2011
Densho ID: denshovh-ofrank-01-0028

<Begin Segment 28>

SY: So what was your job exactly with Sumitomo when you first started?

FO: I was a teller for thirty days. I didn't know anything about teller. But you know, everybody was so straight-faced and so serious about things, I used to take... you know, when these kids weren't looking, I used to take money from the drawers, and I put it over here, and at night they wouldn't balance. And they'd look and they'd look and I'd laugh, and they knew I had something to do with it, so I told 'em, "There's the money."

SY: Wow. That's scary. You're pretty much of a joker, huh?

FO: But, you know... because it was no fun.

SY: Yeah, it was a very serious business.

FO: Serious business, yeah.

SY: And you didn't get in trouble for that?

FO: No. All these gals would say, "Omatsu-san, mata yatta," you know. And the officers didn't know. And then I started the, I started the Christmas Club. You know, they used to have these little coupons you save for Christmas? And I says, "I heard about this Christmas Club from somebody at the school." So I says, "We ought to look into it and have a contest among the department." And I was told, "This is a bank. What are you doing?" "I realize it's a bank, but you can't, you can't treat these people without some kind of enjoyment." So I said, "We're going to have a contest, department." And I asked the bank to put up some reward money. "We don't do such a thing."

SY: They did it?

FO: Yeah. So I said, "I'll put it in." I said, "I want you officers to put some in," so we did. And that thing hit. The kids got involved in the Christmas Club. So the Christmas Club, every year there used to be about fifteen, twenty thousand. But it went up to, close to a hundred thousand.

SY: Wow.

FO: Because all the kids got involved in it and they learned something.

SY: Wow, that's amazing. So when you, obviously you sort of worked your way up in the bank, then.

FO: Yeah, I did.

SY: And because you were kind of a...

FO: I'm an oddball.

SY: [Laughs] You're a thinker, creative.

FO: No, so when this manager took a liking to me, we used to go out driving. He wanted to know what the area looks like and this and that, so I used to take him out. And I says, "I think we ought to make a loan to the church, this church, or to the hospital there." He says, "Don't touch churches and don't touch hospitals," he told me. I says, "Why not?" "I don't like to foreclose. And you can't foreclose on a church, you can't foreclose on a hospital. Think about it," he tells me. "Oh, yeah, you got a point."

SY: So what did you add? What was your contribution? Is it because you knew so many people in the community?

FO: Well, no, but I didn't know hardly anybody.

SY: So, but did you have to develop new accounts, that was your job? Was that your job?

FO: Yeah, my job to develop...

SY: So how did you do that?

FO: There was three of us, Miyakoda and somebody... what the heck was his name? I forgot the name. And we used to compete against each other to get accounts. So Miyakoda used to go to Gardena area to recruit accounts, get accounts. And Sherman Takada used to go to West L.A. So I went to Crenshaw area. That's how I got to know a lot of people in Crenshaw area.

SY: So you would just go door to door?

FO: No, the business to business.

SY: Businesses to businesses, what you did, and then said, you tried to offer them something that Sumitomo...

FO: Right.

SY: And so that's how you developed business for them?

FO: Developed, yeah. And that's how I got to know a lot of people. You know like George Izumi, Grace's Pastry.

SY: Grace's Pastry, yeah, that was a big business.

FO: He says, "Frank," when I got to know him, he says, "I need money. How do I do it?" So I said, "Give me a financial statement." He told me, "What's that?" So I told him what it was. And then I told him to hire an accountant and let's see how you're going. He says, "I never hired anybody," but he says, "Okay, if you say so, we'll hire somebody." So he hired these people and they gave me a statement, and I took it back to our office and we gave him a loan.

SY: So your job was really kind of helping people, too. Is that how you saw it?

FO: Yeah.

SY: Especially the small, there are a lot of small businesses.

FO: Small business, yeah. You know that credit union they have in Crenshaw area? Southwest Japanese credit union?

SY: No.

FO: We used to help them count money and make deposits for them. We used to go there after work to help them because most of their work was at night. So that's how we got the credit union going, because we helped them.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.