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HH: What made you move to the East Coast after having lived all those years in the San Francisco Bay Area?

ME: Well, I moved to the East Coast in 1951 because just prior to that, I was in the occupation forces in Japan as a civilian employee in the War Department. And prior to that, I was teaching in the Military Intelligence Service Language School in Fort Snelling and in the city of Monterey in California. And during that time, I met a man named George Aratani, and I was also a good friend of Tad Yamada. And the two of them formed a company in Los Angeles to import merchandise from Japan. And so before I left Japan, they asked me to join the company in New York because they had an opening for someone to handle exports. The company was mainly an importing company, but they were opening a department to export medical equipment to Japan, and they asked me if I would handle that end of the business. And that's why I came to New York from, directly from Japan.

HH: And that was 1951?

ME: '51, yes.

HH: And how long did you live in New York? From 1951 until...

ME: In the New York area I lived from 1951 until 1989 when I came to this area.

HH: I see. How would you describe the economic condition of your family while you were growing up in San Francisco?

ME: Well, until the, I guess, the Great Depression of 1930, I guess, I would say my family was pretty well-off. We weren't rich by any means, but my father had a small store in Grant Avenue and he made trips to Japan every year to buy merchandise to sell. And I guess we were in the sort of a higher middle class in the San Francisco Japanese circles. We didn't own a house, we didn't own a car, but we lived comfortably.

HH: In a city like San Francisco, how important was it to have a car?

ME: It was not important at all. The surface transportation system was very good, and in fact, I think it would have been a hindrance to have a car. [Laughs]

HH: Having lived in the New York City area all that time, from '51 until you moved here to Medford, what made you choose the Medford area as a place to move to?

ME: Well, Tak Yoshiasa called us up one day and said that he was showing Medford Leas to a brother-in-law, Mike Masaoka. And so we agreed to meet Mike in Philadelphia, at the Philadelphia station to bring him to Medford Leas. And so in the process of Tak showing the Masaokas Medford Leas, we became interested in it. And we had heard about it before from a friend of ours in an investment club in New York, and so we were anxious to see this place. But then we decided to apply to come in. This was a couple of years before we actually moved in '89.

HH: What do you think about your decision at this point?

ME: Oh, I'm quite happy about being here.

HH: If you were to speculate as to what would have happened had the war not occurred, and all the Japanese people remained on the West Coast, what would your life have been like, do you suppose?

ME: I think I would have taken over my father's store in San Francisco. It wasn't a thriving business, but it eked out a comfortable living. And I think I would have continued in that business. My brother, my older brother had moved to New York in 1931. He decided that retailing was not for him, and so I think I would have been there.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1994 JACL Philadelphia. All Rights Reserved.