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SN: So after getting, then from there, I went into the army, went into the army and was there for over a year. And luckily, luckily, I didn't get sent overseas because I got into, through friends, into what they call in the army intelligence, you know, analyst of all the soldiers who were going into G2 work. You had to go through their whole history, make phone calls, and check out on, if they were slightly suspicious, to reject them. So I had, I did the job of rejecting about... I think I rejected about a dozen. That's all I rejected, that they may not be one hundred percent.

JC: What is G2 work?

SN: Well, that was going over to Japan and doing intelligence work; translation, interpreters and so on. So that was the job I had which is an easy desk job.

JC: And did you have that job because you were Japanese?

SN: Yeah. But that was... then after that, I got married and came back to Portland to start up the business again. After I stayed... we stayed at my mother's and father's small house, houses were small in those days, you know, and started the wholesale business in the basement of my father's house. I did everything; invoice, packed, shipped. It's a one-man business, and we reopened the gift shop. We had a lot of people boycotting our store but... still, and then my wife help clerk, as a clerk help my father in the retail store. And then we decided we want to move to a house because we had children, and I met a vicious type of prejudice that got, I bought a house and had numerous threatening calls. "If you move in your house, we'll burn down that." This is back of Franklin High School on Ivan Street, and it mainly was pulled down by the next door neighbor who was so furious that we had bought the house. And the real estate people got... of course got, she said she was kind of got phones at two o'clock in the morning, one o'clock in the morning, I got phone calls.

JC: What year are we talking about when you've now gotten married and come back to Oregon or Portland?

SN: We got married in '46... '49, '48, '49, before '50. But we had friendly, others that were nice people. One was a minister up the street, and that was, then they moved out. A nice mother and a teacher -- the daughter was a teacher -- moved in, and they were very nice people, so things all worked out that way. But I faced really... and there's, I'm quite sure, I kept on going, that prejudice, you know, that existed, existed at a much higher level than before the war. There's no doubt about that. But I wasn't perturbed by it and so on. Then we start, then our business grew, and we moved out of the basement of my father's house. Then I brought in, some of the products I brought in was English bone china, cups and saucers, and sold them all over the United States. That's how our wholesale business started. Wholesale business is good in that people, it's not like retail stores you see. People don't know whether it's owned by Jewish people or Norwegian people or what. [Laughs] So we, I did go and selling at trade shows at the early years. A lot of people thought I was Chinese. That is one of the big advantage. When you go back East, they don't think there are any Japanese around because after all, if you look Asian, you must be Chinese. So many, many people thought I were Chinese. But I didn't want discourage them by saying I'm not Chinese because that was not going to hurt me, hurt me to let it go as being Chinese. Of course, some Japanese resented it in a big, there were some Niseis that resented that in a big way, but I was, "So what?" My feeling was about that. But you see, it's amazing thing, if you start doing business and you are going to be an income to some other people, they become nice to you, and so they overlook that I'm Japanese. So I'm, one thing is because I grew up, grew up one hundred percent as you can see in this class photo, I was the first Asian, and I'm right here in this class picture. I can't even find myself. Here I am, right here. They took pictures in grammar school, all girls only, all boys only, okay, Mount Tabor Grammar School. It was a wooden building. They tore it down and built a new building.

JC: I'm going to backtrack to a couple of things.

SN: Okay, go ahead.

JC: What kind of kid were you?

SN: I think I was quite outgoing. I was really and, so I talked a lot with other people. That I think is a helpful thing. I was not shy about, you know, anything I was doing. I made friends very easily.

JC: And is that true in college as well? Were you an outgoing --

SN: Yeah, I think so, college, right on through.

JC: How did you meet your wife?

SN: At University of Utah. She came out, they allowed students to leave out of the camp to go to school. She came to the University of Utah. She was going to Berkeley UC and was second year, second year I think. I think she finished the first year, and the second year, she went into camp and then came out the same year as I did. She grew up in Calexico.

JC: So you met her in Utah and did you marry in Utah before you went to Columbia?

SN: No, no. We went to, went to Columbia. And after I got out of Columbia, I went into the army and then got married then.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.