page_title: History of the Japanese in Houston
section_title: Economy
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Japanese in Houston / Economy
caption_attribution_description: English: Seiwa Market Houston store 日本語: セイワ・マーケットのヒューストン店
context_page_description: As of the 2010 U.S. Census, there were 3,566 people of Japanese descent in Harris County, making up 1.3% of the Asians in the county. In 1990 there were 3,425 ethnic Japanese in the county, making up 3.1% of the county's Asians, and in 2000 there were 3,574 ethnic Japanese in the county, making up 1.9% of the county's Asians. Patsy Yoon Brown, the director of the Japan-America Society of Houston, stated in 2013 that the Japanese American community in Houston had about 3,000 people, and that, as paraphrased by Minh Dam of the Houston Chronicle, is "a relatively small number compared to other Asian-American communities in the area".
context_section_description: Houston's first Japanese grocery store, the Nippan Daido (大道日本食料品店 Daidō Nihon Shokuryōhinden) at Westheimer Road at Wilcrest, in the Westchase district. It opened in 1978. As of 1998 Japanese is the predominate language and most items are marked in Japanese and English. In 1988 Leslie Watts of the Houston Chronicle wrote that it is "[v]irtually identical in appearance, sound and smell to the small neighborhood markets found in Japan". As of 1988 the store offered noodles, fruit and vegetables. vegetables, cigarettes, video rental, underwear and lingerie, socks, origami kits, toys, dolls, cockroach traps, and pharmaceuticals. As of 1998 the store offered fish, teas, soy sauces, frozen potstickers and dumplings, alcohol, tofu sauces, miso soups, rice cookers, chopsticks, and Japanese videos. It was a branch of a chain based in White Plains, New York; In 1988 this chain, a Japanese American business, had four other U.S. locations. The store's fortunes declined as other shops owned by larger corporations opened, resulting in its September 2019 closure. Toyo Hagiwara and another person acquired the shop and reopened it in December of that year.
  In 2015 Hideo Matsujiro, a cofounder of Marukai Market, announced that he planned to open the first large Japanese grocery in Houston; the store was scheduled to open in the fall of 2015 at the Ashford Village shopping center in the Houston Energy Corridor. The shopping center was previously unoccupied. The store, called "Seiwa Market" (セイワ・マーケット Seiwa Māketto), held a "soft opening" in August 2016. A realtor named Susan Kwok Annoura stated in 2016 that the development of Seiwa and some adjacent Japanese businesses may start a "Japantown" in Houston.
  As of 2015 there is a Japanese household goods store in the Houston Chinatown called "Fit." As of 2019 there was also a Daiso and a Kinokuniya.
caption: Seiwa Market
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