Lasting Friendship

His days are spent visiting friends and family, being involved in the community, and feeding his large school of koi fish. But for many years, Nao Takasugi played a major role in California politics as the mayor of Oxnard and as a state assemblyman.

Nao's grandfather was the first of his family to come to America back in 1903. It didn't take long before he established a small business in the coastal farming town of Oxnard. His community market catered largely to local Japanese farmers and ranch hands.

The market was called "Asahi", Japanese for "rising sun". Nao's grandfather ran the store until Nao's father took over. The market took up the first floor of a simple wooden building while the Takasugis lived on the second. Business was good and the family thrived.

The Takasugis were well-liked and respected in this close-knit community. "I know dad had a lot of charge accounts where people would say, 'just put it on my bill and I'll pay you when the crops come in'", Nao recalls. "There was a lot of trust in those days."

But that trust was shattered with the advent of World War Two and Executive Order 9066. Nao, a junior at UCLA, returned home to Oxnard.

The Takasugis were forced to join thousands of other Japanese-American citizens at the Gila River camp in Arizona. All they took was what they could carry.

Despite this unsettling turn of events, fate dealt them one good hand. A friend who came forward to help. His name is Ignacio Carmona. His friends call him "Nash". He's now in his eighties, but in his twenties he offered to run the store for the Takasugis while they were away. The deal was sealed in that once time-honored fashion, with a handshake and a promise.

Nash brought his large extended family to live above the store. Its name changed temporarily to "Los Amigos", Spanish for "friends". Nash's father kept things tidy while his mother did the washing. Nash managed the business.

Stored above the market were the Takasugi's family possessions. "It was all they had in the world," Nash says. "I made it a point and I got the family together. I said, 'these rooms are locked. They're private property. Don't touch anything that's in there'."

Three years went by. During that time, Nao was able to leave Gila River to continue his education, eventually earning a Masters of Business Administration degree from the prestigious Wharton School of Business in Pennsylvania.

The war finally ended and by late summer 1945, the Takasugis were home, back at the store. Nash handed back the keys. Everything was just as the family left it.

Finding jobs few and far between, Nao returned to Oxnard to help run the family business. Since he spent so much time behind the meat counter, he jokes that his MBA actually stood for "Master of Butchering Arts".

The old Asahi Market was eventually replaced with a new building. Nao and his wife Judy ran the store until the late 1980s. Their five children helped out until they grew up and pursued careers of their own.

Through the years, Nao never forgot his friend Nash. In fact, when Nao made the foray into politics and became mayor of Oxnard, he improved living conditions in La Colonia, the Hispanic neighborhood where Nash still lives. Says Nash, "Good friends will stand by one another whenever you need them."

The story of these two long-time friends so touched people that it was immortalized in a best-selling book, "The Greatest Generation" by Tom Brokaw.