Uwajimaya opened a store at the Seattle World's Fair held from spring to fall of 1962. Despite being a small store of only a few square meters, it was successful and attracted many customers. However, in the middle of this period, the head of the Moriguchi family, founder Fujimatsu Moriguchi, passed away at the age of 64. His funeral was held at a branch temple of the Jodo Shinshu sect in the city, and was attended by about 900 people. His body (ashes?) was buried in Wahelli Cemetery, north of Seattle, where many Japanese Americans are buried.
Fujimatsu left Yawatahama, Ehime Prefecture, came to America, started a business, and with the help of his wife and children, got the store on track. He had always hoped to return to Japan someday. However, when his eldest daughter, Suwako, married a Japanese man who had returned to America like her in 1958, and the couple had their first grandchild in 1960, Fujimatsu finally seemed ready to settle down in America.
Fujimatsu's death, two years after they had seen their first grandchild and in the midst of the success of the Expo, was a shock to the family and, understandably, raised the question of how the Moriguchis would continue to run the store.
At the time, Kenzo, the eldest son, worked full-time at the store, but Tomio, the second son, who had been helping out with the family business while still working at his company during the Expo, also quit his job at Boeing to support Uwajimaya. The Expo attracted the attention of customers other than Japanese people, and sales during the period accounted for about one-third of the store's annual sales up until that point, which made Tomio realize the potential for growth in the business.
She also had a strong desire to help her mother, who worked hard. "Even if I was in the company, I wasn't in a very good position," she said, and it seemed she didn't have any regrets about leaving the company.
However, at that time, Tomio still did not think that the family business would become his lifelong career, and he was hesitant when he quit his job and took up the job at Uwajimaya.
"When I was working for a company, I thought it was normal to get a paycheck every two weeks. At least I could predict when I would get it. But at Uwajimaya, I didn't know how much I would get," he said.
Kenzo, the eldest son, and Tomio, the second son, supported their mother and, with the help of their other siblings, launched Uwajimaya after the demise of Fujimatsu. Soon after, a major turning point came for the store: the owner of the store that was rented on Main Street approached them and asked if they would consider transferring ownership of the building to them.
"The owner was a Japanese man, his name was Sugihara or something like that. He had lost his only son at a young age and was planning to retire. He had been very good to us up until that point, so we decided to take the plunge and buy the place with the insurance money from when my father died and a loan from the bank. Business was going well at the time, so the bank was willing to lend us money," says Tomio.
Thanks to this generous Japanese man, they were able to acquire the building that their store was in for a reasonable price. The previous store area was about 112m², but the total floor area of the first floor of the building was six times that size.
Owning real estate would prove to be of great value in the future expansion of the business, but at this point, the company faced an unavoidable challenge in continuing to operate as it grew: it had to incorporate Uwajimaya.
So they hired a lawyer named Rem Tawi, whom they had met, and started preparing to incorporate the company, but he asked them, "Who will be the president?" So Kenzo, the eldest son, privately told Tomio, "You should be the president."
Normally, in Japanese businesses, the eldest son takes over the business, but this time Kenzo decided to run the store himself, leaving the legal matters to Tomio. Kenzo also felt that Tomio had more talent for running a company. Thus, in 1965, Uwajimaya became a company, and Tomio Moriguchi became president. This was the birth of the second generation.
The following year, in 1966, the company expanded its business by establishing a purchasing department. It also opened a store at the Southcenter Shopping Mall in Tukwila, about 10 miles south of Seattle. The people at the shopping mall had heard about Uwajimaya's success at the Expo and encouraged them to open a store there.
They wanted Uwajimaya to have a presence as a local store, not just an Asian one, in order to become a nationwide chain. The conditions were very favorable, including providing renovation costs for the store, so Uwajimaya decided to "give it a try" and open a store. The fourth son, Toshi, was put in charge of the store.
(Titles omitted)
*Some references from Densho Digital Archives
© 2018 Ryusuke Kawai
