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BN: I've seen kind of conflicting dates, but when was the insurance, when did he establish the insurance business, to your knowledge?

DA: To my knowledge, he started in '48 and incorporated his business in either '49 or '50. But he was first a life insurance agent, and with the Kodani Insurance Agency selling Transamerica life insurance, there was only a few insurance companies that would sell to Japanese back in those days at standard rates. But yeah, I guess he found that to be hard, and I think he was talking to Fred Funakoshi about how he was selling auto insurance and that you get commissions as long as that person keeps the policy. Whereas life insurance, for those who don't know, you get paid one time. You sell the policy, get paid once, and then that's it, so you got to keep selling. Well, auto policies, you just, the more you sell, then you get a little commission of like two bucks off a thirty-dollar policy, but it adds up. And after you sell a few hundred of these things, you got a steady income. I think my dad liked that. And that's what started, got him on his way. He met up with a guy named George Omatsu and Benny Kakita, and the three of them started a little insurance agency.

BN: Was it always in the Little Tokyo area?

DA: Yeah. The first office was right down across the street on San Pedro here, right next to Sugar Bowl Cafe back in those days. Yeah, he was there 'til they built this building, and moved here in '68.

BN: Was the clientele pretty much all other Japanese Americans?

DA: I think so. They were all pretty much Japanese. And I think that was why they formed an association. There was at least a dozen of them at one point, and they all decided to be respectful of each other and not take anybody's other business away, they felt there was plenty of business for everybody, so don't knock the other guy next door, so to speak. And that association still exists today, actually, though it doesn't have that many members anymore. That was how it was back in those days. And I think every major Japanese corporation today, at one time had a Nisei insurance agent back in those days. Because my dad, he had Yamaha, he had Suzuki, he had Kenwood, Kawasaki. But I know that Fred, he had some of the other ones. And I forget the guy, there was a Nisei guy in New York that had the Sony. He had that 'til, gosh, quite a long time, Morita was very loyal. And that's the thing, too, with the Japanese, they're very loyal. They find somebody that will give them good service, give them competitive pricing, they're not going to move. And it was only until all these corporations started going national, right, and the Niseis didn't keep up. So when companies started going national, I think that's when the other hakujin companies and those guys, they saw the writing on the wall and they started buying up agencies all across the country. And now all of a sudden you have national insurance brokerage, and I don't think the Niseis had any vision like that. They could have, you know, who knows? Had someone had that kind of vision, maybe it'd be a little bit different today. But it is what it is.

BN: In terms of, you mentioned that a lot of these companies had this Nisei agent who dealt with the Japanese companies, did your dad speak Japanese well, or was that a requirement?

DA: Well, he spoke it well enough, and I think most of the Niseis did. Some were better than others. According to my dad and my mom as well, I think my mom's Japanese was better than my dad's, but my dad would laugh at himself with his Japanese because he knew it wasn't that good. But he said he got the job done, and I guess that whole thing about living here, being American and so forth, having to speak the proper Japanese, didn't count when they came over here, it is what it is. I think the Japanese nationals just appreciated being able to speak to someone here, albeit maybe not the best Japanese, but at least they got some honest answers and someone that looked like them and that they could trust.

BN: That's an interesting story. I don't think anyone's really studied that, right, the whole... there hasn't been a lot.

DA: Yeah, not a lot.

BN: I really wish we had interviewed your dad, but oh, well. We'll get back to that later when you go into the business as well.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.