Discover Nikkei

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/1347/

Next phase

Then time about my age was 54. I get the first heart attack I had. So, that condition, I stayed 5 day in the hospital. Then I came out then, I was O.K. but the doctor recommended "don't push it so hard. You better be careful." So I started to slow down. Then next four, that time already Ken was graduate SC, then started coming helping part-time. Part time he was working some place else. Then he decided "I'm gonna come to help nursery 100%." So I'm glad to hear that, that he would do it.

Then, another four year or five year later, I was 60. My health was coming back to O.K., but nursery business getting bigger. Employee and part-time used to be only 60, 70, 80 people, now over 150.

So my English to control whole business, specially sales part, sales has to be a more bigger market to look for, so like those time, Home Depot, like big customer like, so they were always, it's not so easy with my English. So I've been having a hard time. So, Ken said, "I'm gonna try." O.K., let's try it. That was a start, then he do very well.

So I decided after 60, I prep, it was a small company but it was a corporation. So I give president job for Ken, then sit back, then I started more concentration to my real estate investment business here there.


business economics families generations immigrants immigration Issei Japan management migration postwar Shin-Issei United States World War II

Date: February 2, 2012

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Chris Komai, John Esaki

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Harunori Oda was born and raised in Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, but moved to the U.S. after meeting and marrying a Nisei woman who was visiting Japan in the post WWII period. Though he hated the U.S., his wife, Mitsy, convinced him that he would have greater opportunities for success in the U.S., so he decided to take the chance. Though his English skills were limited, he worked his way up through the nursery business—an enterprise he determined would offer the most opportunity for a person with his abilities. Eventually, he started his own nursery, expanded, and later achieved great success as a developer of real estate in Orange County. He passed away on December 14, 2016, at age 91. (December 2016)

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Spending time with children

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Getting married

Former First Lady of Hawai'i

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Possibility of being adopted by aunt

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First work in America (Japanese)

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Bad business deal (Japanese)

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Company in Tokyo burned down (Japanese)

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Family interrelations between mother and father

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Hirabayashi,James

Little interaction with parents

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Gordon's parents' experience in prison

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FOB's

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Going back to Hawaii

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Picture brides and karifufu

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Clothes of plantation workers

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Surviving after father's death

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Washing for Filipino bachelors

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