Roy Kuramoto isn’t shy about saying the worst thing that happened to him as a child contributed mightily to the outstanding adult he became. Kuramoto, a resident of Pilgrim Haven in Los Altos, Calif., since moving here in 2004 with his wife, Yemiko (“Amy”), retired in 1990 as corporate vice president of the pharmaceuticals division of Syntex Industries in Palo Alto.

But before seeing years of success in the pharmaceutical industry, Kuramoto faced some of the nation’s darkest stateside days as an internee at the Gila Bend War Relocation Camp south of Phoenix, Ariz., from 1942–1945.

“It was very disturbing,” says Kuramoto, a Japanese-American sent from his native Los Angeles to the camps at the age of 14 along with his parents, four brothers, and two sisters. “I wondered, ‘Why am I being shipped away when I’ve done nothing wrong?’ Everything I had done up until then had been right and yet I was still being shipped out because of my ancestry.”
Among the younger internees, the big concern was what they would do when the war ended, Kuramoto says. His option, given that his family could not support him, was to join the Army. But even there he continued to meet with discrimination.
“If you were in the service and had the uniform on, there were still places that wouldn’t serve you,” he says.

The subsequent drawdown of the military resulted in his being discharged with full benefits, including college tuition through the G.I. Bill, only one year after enlisting. He moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, to finish his bachelor’s degree in pharmacy at the University of Utah. It was there he met Amy, soon to become his wife, who avoided being interned by virtue of living in Wyoming during the war.

Academic work eventually took him to the University of Wisconsin for his master’s degree and doctorate in 1950 and to Columbia University in New York as a professor in 1955, where Amy gave birth to the first of their three children. As time passed and he and Amy traveled farther east, the prejudice they experienced diminished.

By 1958 Kuramoto was working for what was then Ciba Pharmaceuticals, and in 1966 was asked to return to the West Coast to help the company build its production capacity. It was a move the couple made with some trepidation. “One of the first questions I asked when I interviewed in California was, ‘Where can I live and where can I not live?’” he says. “They said there were no restrictions. I liked to hear that, but was it really true?”

It was, he says, and he has relished being back in California ever since. During that time, he came to see the many hurdles he faced not as obstacles, he says, but as incentives to succeed – a philosophy that has carried him far in life.

“I think picking people up and moving them forced them to do things they wouldn’t have done,” he says. “I’m sure if I didn’t get sent to the camp I wouldn’t have ended up moving across the United States. People ask, ‘Why aren’t you bitter?’ And I say because it made me do things I wouldn’t have otherwise done.”

Founded in 1949, ABHOW is widely known for its pioneering leadership in senior housing and health care. The company serves more than 4,700 residents in 33 retirement communities in California, Arizona, Nevada and Washington.

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