Introducing Higo! New Central Exhibition

Higo 10 Cents Store, owned by the Murakami family and a social hub in Seattle’s Japantown, has a long and fascinating community and family history. Meet Me at Higo welcomes younger generations to connect with and explore what it means to be Japanese American. Today, Higo 10 Cents Store (or Higo Variety Store) is KOBO at Higo and is still located at 604 South Jackson in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District.

The growing Murakami family visits Seattle’s Volunteer Park, 1923. Murakami Family Collection, Wing Luke Museum

From February 1st through March 26th, the Central Library Gallery is hosting Meet Me at Higo, a traveling exhibition by the Wing Luke Museum. Visitors will immerse themselves in archival photographs, journals and letters from the Murakami family—the original proprietors—as well as goods such as ceramics, toys, and textiles sold there through the 20^th century until it closed its doors in the early 2000s when Masa, the last surviving member of the Murakami family, retired.

Matsuyo Murakami stands in the doorway of the store on South Weller Street, circa 1912. Murakami Family Collection, Wing Luke Museum

Founded before 1910 (dates are variously given as 1907 and 1909 depending on the source), Higo 10 Cents Store, which was later renamed Higo Variety Store, became a center for Japanese Americans who came to the Pacific Northwest to as migrant works in the railroad, agriculture, and fishing industries. The Japanese population grew into a neighborhood called Nihonmachi (Japantown or J-Town), a hub of culture and community located in the International District-Chinatown, less than a mile from the Central Library. At Nihonmachi’s heart was Higo, a central point of connection for the community, providing imported and local goods that local residents relied on to make their homes feel familiar and comfortable as well as a place for people to meet and connect.

Recommended reading: Fall and redemption from the 1980s Detroit crack epidemic

James White was born in the Detroit of the 1980s to a middle class African American family, but as his family broke apart in a divorce, the rebellious youth found himself a willing recruit into the front line of the burgeoning crack epidemic. 

There his early dreams of being a doctor fell by the wayside; he learned quickly how to deal drugs and live the seductive yet increasingly brutal life of the streets. After being shot and injured in a fight over a girl, he becomes even more defensive, desensitized and angry and begins carrying a gun with him 24/7. Only too soon, he feels occasion to use it and fourteen months later shoots and kills another young man. He is apprehended and in 1991 sentenced to 19 to 40 years in prison.