Growing roots in Fresno

After Toshiro’s hours at the grocery store in Clarksburg are inexplicably cut, he receives a call from Sakai family relatives in Fresno. George Sakai offers him work at a grocery store in Fresno. Toshiro accepts, and he and Keiko soon find themselves living right across the street from the Fresno Buddhist Church.

Toshiro and Keiko establish themselves as important figures in Fresno’s Japanese American community, creating social and religious groups that they still lead to this day.

“She’s nice to me all the time,” Toshiro says, reflecting on their 63 years of marriage. Although their arranged marriage wasn’t official until 1960, their story begins long before that — on the walk to school, back in Kumamoto.