<Begin Segment 13>

TI: So you did that for one year, and then Granada, I think you then said you went to Denver?

EI: Huh?

TI: So after Granada you went to Denver?

EI: Yeah.

TI: And so what did you do in Denver?

EI: When the camp, Amache, closed up, I came back to Walnut Grove, and my brother Dick went to Denver and had a small grocery store over there. And that's the place we start our wholesale business, import business, making, handling the soy sauce, miso, they make, and more other Japanese food, where I could handle this, all over the country.

TI: So whose idea was this? Whose idea was this to...

EI: Idea? Well, I don't know why we were doing the business together. We both have the same kind of idea, I had. We like to do the wholesale business, import business after the war.

TI: Now, when you started this business, did you think it might be a risky business to do? I mean, a wholesale business with Japanese foods, I'm thinking it'd be maybe hard to get the food, hard to distribute. How did you figure this all out?

EI: I don't think it was risky food at that time. Buy it in cash and sell it in cash. It's not risky, and we did that.

JS: Who was making the shoyu and miso?

EI: Oh, just the people, old men.

JS: People in Denver?

EI: Denver, all the grandpa and those places, all over the place.

TI: But you would distribute all across the country everywhere?

EI: Yeah, every place.

TI: Before the war, there were companies that did that. What happened to those companies?

EI: They closed up. Some of the big companies, they start, well, but they get merged with other company.

TI: And so right after the war, it was like, pretty open. I mean, there wasn't too much competition for this. And so there was manufacturing in Denver for, like, miso, shoyu, and then you would distribute it around the country.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.