NISHI​,​ Mitsumori

I always used to say that education alone will not put food on the table. Without a skill or trade, you cannot make a living. Do not go through life being so aimless all the time. Why don’t you learn a skill? A lazy person is no good. If you continue like that, you will remain the same until you die. I went around to as many as six of the earliest Japanese-owned businesses in New York, but none of them had a job for me, so I worked for a family. I did not marry until I was forty-five years old. This interview is part of the DMHJNY's new exhibit Issei: Portraits Of The First-Generation Japanese New Yorkers which is on view here: https://www.historyofjapaneseinny.org/issei/