Densho Digital Archive
Topaz Museum Collection
Title: Ted Nagata Interview
Narrator: Ted Nagata
Interviewer: Megan Asaka
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Date: June 3, 2008
Densho ID: denshovh-nted-01-0012

<Begin Segment 12>

MA: Can you describe Japantown in Salt Lake City and what it was like?

TN: Yeah. Japantown was quite a thriving block. It was, oh, maybe a block and a half on First South, from where our church is, which is right next to the Delta Center. And it extended a block, two blocks to the east, and there were your typical mix of stores, a grocery store, a fish market. There were two pool halls and about three cafes. There was a jewelry store, there was an appliance store and another small grocery store. There were two barbers on the street, and there was a leather saddle shop on the street. And there were Chinese people who ran another restaurant there.

MA: Was there a Chinatown as well?

TN: No, it was Japanese.

MA: The Japanese American community at that point, was it a mix of sort of people who had been there before the war and those who had come, like your family, after?

TN: It was mainly the people there before the war, yeah. And my wife's father ran the fish market, which was a very lucrative business, and everybody from, who was Japanese throughout the state would come to that fish market because that was the only place they could buy Japanese food. And I remember my favorite fish there was barracuda, and you can hardly buy that anymore. And my wife's brothers were quite popular in the basketball area. There was a large group of young boys that were older than I, just a few years older, that played a lot of basketball and a lot of baseball, and they were quite good.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.