Golden Circle Honoree: Tomio Moriguchi – Northwest Asian Weekly

Doug Chin
President of OCA Asian Pacific American Advocates of Greater Seattle

This account has been reprinted with permission from OCA’s Asian Pacific LawyersS This is one of the four profiles of the Northwestern Asian Weekly I will run This week.

Tomio Moriguchi. With the kind assistance of the Asian Pacific lawyers of the OCA Asian Pacific of Big Seattle.

Tomio Moriguchi is a visionary, an Asian American icon and treasure in the community. In favor of the Asian American community and on this issue, the region of Seattle-King County, he is an extremely rare individual: a shrewd businessman with a deep civil commitment. In fact, it can be argued that no one has done more about the local Asian American community than Tomio Moriguchi.

Tomio was born in the tacom of Fujimatsu Moriguchi and Sadako Tsutakawa. His parents owned a business called Uwajimaya, named after his father’s hometown in Japan. During the Second World War, Tomio and his family were imprisoned in Pinellele, California, and then Tule Lake. After the war, the family moved to Japan to Seattle, where Tomio’s father reinstated Grace on Fourth Avenue and Southern Main Street. It started as a small fish market, after which it became a shop that was selling increasingly astical Japanese food and gifts.

During the World Fair in Seattle in 1962, Tomio’s father opened a successful Japanese gift shop at the fair. That same year, Tomio’s father died, leaving the business of his sons, who then expanded his mother’s property and three sisters. When Uwajimaya was included in 1964, Tomio was elected his leader. Tomio, who graduated from the University of Washington with a major in Machine Engineering and who worked at Boeing as an engineer, left to become CEO and President of Uwajimaya in early 1965.

In 1968, a branch of Uwajimaya was opened at the Southcenter Shopping Center. Two years later, much more, a newly built building opened on Sixth Avenue South, between King and Weller streets. The new Uwajimaya has become an anchor in the interior area of ​​Cynatown (CID) and helped to break up the area.

In the meantime, the sons have created their own imported business called Seaasia, opened a branch of Uwajimaya in Beaverston, Oregon, and in 2000 a New Village of Uwajimaya was completed. Under Tomio’s Leadership, Uwajimaya Also Engaged in Other Development Projects, Including the Rehabilitation of the Publix Hotel Along With the Construction of A Six-Story Tower On 5th Avenue South, Between King and Weller Streets. The company also sold the old South Main UWAJIMAYA store site to develop to build the 17-storey Koda condominium there. These were major CID investments that significantly strengthened the CID economy.

Tomio’s engagement and commitment to improve Japanese and Asian US communities have included being one of the founders of Nikkay’s problems, which created Keiro Northwest (Kairo Nursing House and the Nikkay Manor Nursing). He was a member of the International Association for improving the area (Inter-IM) and the Asian Consultation and Referrals Service, Puget Sound Energy, the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, the Pacific Science Center and the Seattle Foundation. He served on the board of the Japanese American National Museum and is president of the Hokubei Hochi Foundation and a member of the Japanese American Society of the State of Washington. He is also president of Seattle’s head of the Japanese American League for citizens in 1972 and is a member of the National Council for Japanese US compensation. He also took the post of North America to preserve the largest and oldest newspaper of the Japanese community in the area.

After withdrawing as CEO of Uwajimaya in 2007, Tomio continued his service as chairman. On June 18, 2015, he visited the University of Echim to discuss internship programs for students in the United States. It has been declared by Puget Sound Business Journal as one of Seattle’s 35 most influential business leaders in the last 35 years. Tomio withdrew from the management of the company in 2017, but he continued to participate in the branch of the real estate company.

Still in Tomio’s plans is “Fujimatsu Village”, a 29-storey residential and shopping complex of Fifth Avenue between S. Jackson and S. Main Streets. When constructed, it will be the highest building in CID and a huge addition to Japantown. “This project is a hereditary project for my family,” Tomio said during his presentation to the International District Review Council. And, undoubtedly, another Tomio Moriguchi hereditary project for the CID community and the Asian American community.

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