Densho Digital Archive - George Nakata Interview (denshovh-ngeorge

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GN: So the Japanese community was still a rather close knit community. Most people knew other Japanese or Japanese Americans. Then emerged the golf club, the bowling league, and it was almost that you didn't know what fingers to put in a bowling ball, but eventually, you're going to be bowling because just about everybody bowled. Some people not because they liked bowling, but that way, they can meet their girlfriend or their boyfriend. So Friday night became bowling night for the Niseis, growing rapidly through the next decade or two to 24, 36 teams. I don't know, A league, B league, C league. Now it's unfortunately down again, but the golf club of course having the A flight, the B flight. Girls having their own bowling league on Wednesday nights, having a lot of sponsors. And again when the community pulls together and you have teams that represent Anzen, Azumanao Insurance, JK Kaeda, Franklin Market, Kern Park, you have all the Japanese businesses sponsoring teams. Again, sort of a demonstration of the closeness and the, you know, just helping each other attitude of the Nikkei community. All of us really eventually had a great time bowling. We used to have bowling tournaments, the scratch tournament, Fall and the handicap tournament in the spring. We all improved to some extent. At the end, we had a group of 200 average bowlers. Just like in golf, you start with 36, you get down to 20 handicap and hope to goodness you can get down to 10 handicap. Everybody tries to outdo the other in parts of getting a better putter, but it's really not that. We knew that, but kind of nice to keep up with the latest ball technology. So sports became part of the game. The judo tournaments, Jim Onchi and the judo grew. The life in general, the Niseis got into the work community. And as the Niseis says got into the work community, they became teachers and dentists and doctors and businessmen and business women, and they became outstanding in their own right. They became artists. Some of them became very well-known.

And so the Nikkei community began to spread its wings beyond the semi-revived Nihonmachi which was now quite limited. Anzen had a small shop, West Coast Orient, Tanaka, the Nisei Pool Hall, Foster Cafe, and just a handful of businesses were down there. It was not the thriving growing Japantown prewar prior to World War II. And so the Nikkei community started to spread out, grocery stores in North Portland, in Milwaukie and insurance businesses, insurance agents. And in a way, it was really the beginning of what there is today when there are outstanding cardiologists, outstanding educators, outstanding business professionals, of lawyers. People that are on every walk of commercial life in the Portland Metro area, you will find in the Nikkei community. It was not like that during the early years. But during the 1950s and '60s, you can see this emerging. And so they spread their wings and new businesses started to pop up.