<Begin Segment 26>

BF: How much was your mother still -- how much of a role was your mother still playing in the business at the point you stepped in?

TM: Well, she was working very hard manually. She never cared for the bookkeeping end. She never counted the money at the end of the day. But like I said she was ordering the non-food stuff, and keeping the kitchen going, and serving the customers as needed. But she was in the background just working very hard.

BF: When you, when the brothers had to make decisions on big issues, did you try and involve her?

TM: No, by then she said you know, and she never, never to this day I recall ever having her step up and say well, you gotta do this or that. It mighta been a communication issue, but I doubt it. It was just her nature. And she never to my recollection, recollection told my dad how to run business or... I don't know if he would have listened anyway, but I don't think I ever heard her say to, publicly anyway to my father, said, well you gotta do this or that.

BF: And yet, from what I understand, your sisters, to greater or lesser degree have, have stepped up and are strong individuals and strong leaders in their, their own rights.

TM: Yeah, except for my oldest sister who has this very strong influence of staying in the background. But as you know, Tomoko and Hisako are very, speak their mind. And I don't know if that's, that's probably that generation isn't it, more or less, also? But then, having said that, I don't think my father ever discouraged us from speaking out, and my mother never did. I know that. In fact, I don't think she encouraged us either, but she never discouraged us from speaking out. And my father maybe tended to encourage us for speaking out because he had some of that in him. Not a lot, but a little bit.

BF: In what ways do you remember him encouraging you to speak out?

TM: Well, he used to say some unkind things about Japanese organizations, like they were self-serving and things like that. And then, so he had some thoughts of Nikkei organizations and he used to talk about those things. And so, he didn't publicly, but he didn't make it a secret that he felt that some of these organizations weren't doing what they were supposed to do and things like that. So if he was willing to say that somewhat in the public, you kinda tend to understand that's where he's coming from and that's accepted behavior I guess.

BF: Self-serving in what way? What did he...?

TM: Well he used to say things like the Nikkeijinkai, they weren't really serving the community, they were trying to each person just get their own recognition from Japan and things like that. And then he would say things like well, they would come around and ask for donation but they wouldn't buy things from us, or something like that.

BF: So was he involved in any of the community organizations?

TM: No, and I don't know if it was because he didn't think they were doing things right, or -- one thing I heard about, him say is that he didn't feel, although like I was telling you, he was very interested in religious philosophy, he felt he should publicly join an organization, one church or the other because he was a business person, he felt he should be neutral. So no, he did not become active in community organizations. He was active in like, maybe sports or something. But not a community spokes -- a public -- how do you say, civic organization. If he took active he might have taken an active interest in the baseball league or something like that.

BF: Oh, so that's very interesting, because that's a departure -- I mean your life in that way.

TM: Yeah.

BF: A dramatic departure from your father's.

TM: Well, after the war when he was trying to establish himself in Seattle, I'm sure he was busy. But before the war, I understand, he and when he called my brother, they were very active in the martial arts type of thing. So I'm sure he would have liked to have done that, but he was very busy. And then he got ill toward, when he probably had the time and a little bit of resources he was ill. I remember him saying that it was very important to support organizations that supported children, you know sports and things. But I didn't really see him. And I guess I didn't think about it, but -- maybe because he did do it I got involved. I don't know. But it wasn't like --

BF: Oh, because it was a niche. [Laughs]

TM: Well, and also, it was expected of any company or emerging companies within the community to be active in one thing or another.

BF: But that's kind of a more American way perhaps of thinking about businesses.

TM: But you know the Nikkeijinkai and the JACL and whatever and the churches. Their principal funding sources were businesses or people, so they naturally came around one way or the other. And my father wasn't that very generous with them. In fact he, like I say, he spoke ill of some of these organizations. But for me, when like JACL came calling I said, "Well, we should be involved." And I did, little by little got involved and then one thing led to the other and --

BF: That's very interesting. Because you, one of the things that is so much a part of who you are it seems like, is your community involvement, and yet your father was not anti-, I mean, because he had this informal network, but, but formally he wasn't big on it.

TM: No. He wasn't a strong leader in any of those organizations. Looking back I don't know how, I'll have to just say that he was very busy, but I don't know.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.