<Begin Segment 12>

BF: Now your mother was still playing a big role in the, in, in the store, even though she had now this huge family?

TM: Well, you know, as, here again I keep using the word typical, but, Japanese, she stayed in the background, but she was really the backbone, I think, in some respect. Kept the business together, kept the family together. So looking back, I guess a good combination. Kind of the front man, and the person taking care of the inside.

BF: Was she, did she handle, take care of the books? Or anything like that? --

TM: No, She didn't do any books, but she did a lot of the non-food buying early on. At first when the salespeople from California mostly came, and then also salespeople from Japan came with samples. She did lot of the non-food buying. My father did most of the food buying. So, and later on when we were a little older, she used to go back to Japan to visit her family, but also to do some non-food buying from the contacts that my father established. So, I remember going with her once or twice. And she in turn, taught me how to do buying for dishware and kitchenware. And then, after that, I had my older sister, who was in Japan, her children grew up and I took her, and she took over that position. And she's still doing it. Now she's teaching her daughters to do that. The food part is, has been done by people we hired, or my brother takes care of that. But the non-food, I don't know, we feel it's not a big volume, but it's kind of a personal touch type of situation. So it started with, little bit my dad, my mother, then myself, and now my sister kinda taking over, and hopefully my nieces will take over next.

BF: Was that unusual during -- when your mother was doing the buying in Japan, to have a woman in that -- making those sorts of choices when she went over?

TM: No, probably because it was a small part of the business. It wasn't a huge part, and it was kinda personalized, and it was kinda almost like a side issue from the people we were buying food, canned goods and things from. So probably more of an accommodation, so it probably wasn't unusual.

BF: And because it was, it sounds like a lot of it was more "women's" quote, unquote items they probably --

TM: And personalized and she probably kinda had a feeling of what the Nikkei community wanted more than anything. 'Cause we weren't thinking at all of the greater community early on. It was, our business kinda was totally geared for the Nikkei community.

BF: And you were saying that your mother sort of played this key role, sort of holding everyone together.

TM: Yeah. I think so. Also, she had a knack of treating non-Nikkei customers very well, too. So she's, she -- I don't want to use the word following, but people she -- we all waited on customers, but she had a knack and she probably had enough command of the English to build up a rapport with some of, some very, I wouldn't say prominent, but interesting people, like I remember people like Ivars coming to our store, you know just different people. And she, some way she had a rapport with these people. But it's probably true with any business, anybody doing business. People come and they tend to want to talk to the owner or somebody that seems to know what they're selling. But she was good at it.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.