There is a statistic that haunts every family business.
Roughly a third survive into the second generation. Something like a tenth make it to the third.
By the fourth, you are into rounding error territory.
It is such a consistent pattern that cultures around the world have proverbs about it. Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations, as the English version goes.
Uwajimaya started as a small operation selling Japanese food from the back of a truck in Washington State before the Second World War.
It is still here. Still family run. Multiple generations deep.
That is remarkable on its own. What makes it more remarkable is that the family lost everything in between.
Internment during the war took the business, the assets and the years. They started over afterward.
So this is not a story about smooth compounding. It is a story about what actually survives a catastrophe.