Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Jim Tsugawa Interview
Narrator: Jim Tsugawa
Interviewer: Alton Chung
Location: Portland, Oregon
Date: December 16, 2013
Densho ID: denshovh-tjim_3-01-0001

<Begin Segment 1>

AC: Today is Monday, December 16, 2013, in Portland, Oregon. We have Todd Mayberry as an observer and we have Ian McCluskey as our videographer, and my name is Alton Takayama Chung, I'm interviewing...

JT: Jim Tsugawa.

AC: And this is part of the Nikkei Endowment, Oregon Nikkei Endowment Minidoka Oral History Project. So, Jim, tell me, where were you born?

JT: I was born in Hillsboro, Oregon, back many, many years, born in Jones Hospital. And at the same time as I was being born, there was a Caucasian woman that had a baby at the same time. And I guess in those days it was, nursing was lax, 'cause she took me into the Caucasian woman, and there was a lot of screaming -- as I've been told -- a lot of screams went through the hospital. She said, "That's not by baby!" And so, but I've kept in contact with that kid during, through high school, and then I've lost him. So I was born in Hillsboro 1932.

AC: And what day were you born?

JT: June 15, 1932.

AC: And what were your parents doing for a living when you were born?

JT: They were in the pop and mom kind of a grocery store. They sold fruit, vegetables, cigarettes, candy, that type of a business. It was kind of like a Grapes of Wrath story. They were not very lucrative.

[Interruption]

AC: So do you remember the address of the store that --

JT: No, no. All I do remember is if you're familiar with Hillsboro, there was a place called Shute Park, and there was a skating rink across the street.

AC: So what was your full name that you were given at birth?

JT: James Masao Tsugawa. And I think "James" was probably given to me by one of the nurses or somebody signing the birth certificate, because something was scratched out and above it was my name, James.

AC: Do you remember anything about the community at all in which you were born?

JT: No, not really. Not at that time.

AC: Any significance to the name Masao?

JT: I don't know. I really don't know why they gave (me a middle name). See, in our family, it's my brother Henry Tadashi, and my sister is just Toshiko, and my brother George is George Kinyo, then another sister was Sachi, then brother Akira, and then Helen Shizue and James Masao. So there was no rhyme or reason how they named us.

AC: So you had several siblings.

JT: Several. I had three brothers and three sisters. And they're all deceased except three of us now. My brother George who lives up in Woodland, Washington, has a nursery and farms, strawberries and raspberries and nursery type products. And then I have a sister in San Jose, California, and then me, so we're down to three.

AC: And you're the youngest?

JT: Youngest, youngest of the three.

AC: What was your father's name?

JT: Let's see, Masaichiro Tsugawa. Middle name I don't know.

AC: Where was he born?

JT: I believe born in, on the island of Shikoku in Tokushima is all I can...

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.