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VO: So upon graduating, your first thought was the foreign service. And so when that wasn't panning out, what did you end up doing?

YM: Well, I knew I had to go in the army, so I volunteered for the draft, and I spent two years in the service. So that was kind of a waste of time, but it was okay.

VO: You were in the States?

YM: Well, at that time it was the territory of Hawaii, so I was in Hawaii for two years. That was hard duty. [Laughs]

VO: You have good memories from that time?

YM: I made a lot of friends there, yeah, in Hawaii. You know, as a GI, you don't get very much money. I was making seventy dollars a month, sending twenty-five home, so we don't have anything to spend. But I got to know a lot of people there, and they took me in. Told me to come in on the weekend, so I still go see them when I go to Hawaii.

VO: That's great.

YM: Yeah, very good people. Really enjoyed it. Almost thought about taking a discharge there.

VO: But you decided to come back to Portland?

YM: I decided to come back because of my parents' pressure. [Laughs]

VO: And so what did you do then after the army?

YM: After I came back, I went to work for a grain exporter named Louis Dreyfus Corporation, and they have an elevator here in Portland down by the Steel Bridge, and they ship grain all over the world. So I got a taste of world trade working for them for about three years. And my dad said he's going to retire. He said, "You want to come back to the store, or I'm going to sell it or close it." So I said, well, I'll give it a shot, maybe ten years at most. And I stayed for forty. [Laughs] So that's the story of my life.

VO: So you were located in Old Town, on Davis.

YM: That's second and Davis, and then in '68, the Naitos bought out the Foster block, and they wanted to raise all the rent. And at that same time, or before that... let's see, in '61... '61, '62, we purchased a small fish market in Southwest Portland, First and Columbia. It was called Pacific Fish Market. And they came under urban renewal, and my brother was running that store. And we decided as a family that we should look for something bigger and our own building with a little bit of parking. And we started looking and we decided on the location on 736 Northeast Martin Luther King or Union Avenue at that time. And that's where we moved in '68.

VO: Was that a difficult decision?

YM: It was a very difficult decision, but after we moved there, I thought it was a great decision. Because we didn't think that there was going to be that much business out there. But not only did the Japanese community support us, but the Portland people that were interested in Asian foods supported us, too. So I think it was a good move.

VO: And so you continued then, you and your brother, with a store and expanded?

YM: Then in '77, we built, we bought a building in North Portland, a warehouse. And I was there, and we operated the wholesale business out of that building. And my brother ran the retail business out of that location on MLK.

VO: You had a Far East store at one time, didn't you?

YM: A fire?

VO: A store in East Portland?

YM: Oh, we had, we bought the Russellville Market for a little bit, and then they decided to turn that into a post office, George Shido's family. And we had a store in Beaverton, but after Uwajimaya came, we decided to close that.

VO: And through these years running the store, you were also active as a volunteer in the community. Can you tell us a little about that?

YM: Well, let's see. I volunteered I think when the Legacy first, Legacy or ONE first began, I worked with them. And I was active in the Japanese Ancestral Society and eventually became the president. Had a longtime chairmanship of the Japanese cemetery at Rose City. I met, chaired that for about ten years, and I chaired the Ikoi no Kai senior lunch program for about eight, nine years. It was very enjoyable.

VO: Well, also with your business and community involvement, you traveled to Japan quite regularly.

YM: Yeah, about once a year. And I also had a chance to travel to see Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Thailand. So it was, I had my... I didn't go all the time, but I had my chance to travel.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright (c) 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.