Recently I spoke to the Yamaguchi Heritage Club about issei and nisei people and the Hawaii companies they founded. Here are a few tidbits from that talk.
I’ve noticed that many of the Japanese in Hawaii have roots in southern Japan. While researching the history of the Honpa Hongwanji, I found out why.
There was a revolt against Emperor Meiji in 1877, when he modernized the country, called the Satsuma Rebellion. The Satsuma clan controlled the island of Kyushu.
The rebellion devastated Kyushu economically as well as southern Honshu (Yamaguchi and Hiroshima). Many there decided to come to Hawaii because of that.
I also talked to the club about how someone from Japan came to Hawaii nearly four decades before someone from Hawaii went to Japan. The first person from Japan to come to Hawaii in 1844 was a 14-year old fisherman, named Manjiro, who was blown off course with several friends.
An American ship picked them up and brought them to Hawaii. I’ll write more about him in the future. It’s a great story.
King Kalakaua was the first Hawaiian to visit Japan in 1881, on his around-the-world tour. Emperor Meiji’s band greeted him with Hawaiian music.
The king offered Princess Kaiulani’s hand in marriage to a Japanese prince to seal a proposed alliance. They responded that he was already engaged.
Emperors Taisho and Hirohito donated $10,000 each, at different times, to Kuakini Medical Center, which was created to take care of aging Japanese in Hawaii.
Sen. Daniel Inouye was mistaken for the king of Siam at his first White House dinner in 1959.
Ushi Takara, who owned the American Cafe on King Street near Alakea Street in 1922, trained many of his countrymen in the restaurant business. Dozens went on to open their own local restaurants. Most were Okinawan, but they served local and American food.
Columbia Inn was named by brothers Fred (“Tosh”) and Frank Kaneshiro for Colombian coffee in 1941. They felt good coffee made a good restaurant.
Zippy’s was named after the ZIP code. The postal service began the ZIP code in 1963; Zippy’s began in 1966 and wanted to let people know they were fast.
Shiro Matsuo turned saimin from a snack into a meal and had 60 different offerings on his menu. At one time he was Gov. John Burns’ chef.
The founder of Highway Inn in Waipahu, Seiichi Toguchi, learned to cook in mainland World War II internment camps. He named his place for its original location on Farrington Highway.
Dillingham Saimin played a role in McDonald’s decision to serve saimin. Ray Kroc and several other McDonald’s executives came in to try it once, and soon it was on their menu.
Steven Nagamine renamed his Olympic Grill “Flamingo” after a trip to the mainland where he saw the iconic sign of the Flamingo hotel in Las Vegas.
Robert Taira was the son of Okinawan immigrants who came to Hawaii in 1906. He founded King’s Bakery in Hilo in 1950. It outgrew Hilo and moved to Honolulu in 1963. Then it outgrew Honolulu and moved to Torrance, Calif. It is famous for its Hawaii-style sweet bread.
Cafe 100 in Hilo is named for 100th Infantry Battalion World War II soldiers. The founder, Richard Miyashiro, served in the 100th, and he named his place for his buddies who never came home. Cafe 100 is famous for loco moco and offers more than 30 varieties.
Jokichi Tasaka originally called his Maui snack shop Tasaka Goodie Goodie, but many immigrant Japanese could not pronounce it properly. They called it Tasaka Guri Guri, and that became the name.
Tasaka Guri Guri once sold mochi, manju, senbei and other Japanese snacks, but today the pineapple and strawberry “guri guri” sherbet is all they sell.
Arakawa’s store in Waipahu popularized palaka, selling 16 different colors. Goro Arakawa told me “palaka” was a Hawaiianization of the word “frock.”
Servco was founded by Peter Fukunaga in 1919 as the Waialua Garage. It moved to Wahiawa in the 1920s and changed its name in a contest won by an Army Air Corps sergeant. He believed “service was the heart of the company’s policy.”
Sidney Kosasa, the founder of ABC stores, got a pharmacy degree from the University of California, Berkeley, before being interned on the mainland. A trip to Miami opened his eyes to what tourists were buying. His pharmacy evolved into a store with everything visitors might need.
Jiro Asato took over KC Drive-Inn from its founders, banker George C. Knapp and Realtor Elwood L. Christensen. They opened it in 1929 and named it after their initials. Knapp and Christensen sold it to Asato in 1934 for $100. He paid them $10 a month for 10 months.
Robert’s Hawaii’s logo is a waving rabbit. Robert Iwamoto chose the rabbit as the counterpart to his competitor’s greyhound dog. At a dog race in Mexico, he noticed that greyhounds chased but never caught a mechanical rabbit.
When Greyhound left Hawaii in the 1980s, Robert’s put the rabbit on the back of their bus, waving goodbye to the greyhound dog.
Charley’s Taxi has more than 400 drivers and carries 2 million passengers a year. It is the only taxi company in the United States to provide 24-hour Japanese-speaking dispatch service. It was founded by Charley and Helen Morita in 1938, making it Hawaii’s oldest taxi company.
Of course, there are hundreds of other companies founded by local issei and nisei, and I will get to some of their stories in the future. If you have a favorite story, please send it to me.
Bob Sigall, author of the “Companies We Keep” books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.
