9/22/09

California State University

World War II internees may get honorary degrees 9/20/2009
By Cyndee Fontana / The Fresno Bee

Dozens of Japanese-American students forced to abandon Fresno State for World War II internment camps may soon receive honorary degrees.

The California State University Board of Trustees, prompted partly by state legislation, will consider the degree program this week at a meeting in Long Beach.
But officials already are looking for candidates, including nearly 80 students once enrolled at Fresno State.

CSU likely will join a long-running movement in education to honor a lost generation of Japanese-American students. High schools across the state have awarded diplomas, and the University of California announced an honorary degree program in July.

UC officials describe it as one way to address an historical tragedy that forced about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry into internment camps.

In February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order allowing the military to round up Japanese-Americans on the West Coast & imprison them in camps that included barbed wire & armed guards. The move came in the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Locally, 2 Assembly Centers -- one at the fairground, the other in Pinedale -- were set up to hold Japanese-Americans before they were sent to internment camps.

UC & CSU officials say many college students of that era may have never returned to earn degrees.

Bill Secrest Jr., local history librarian at the Fresno Co. Public Library, is heading the Fresno State research effort that began earlier this month. Official university records no longer exist, he said, but student directories have yielded 78 names. Over the decades, students have relocated, changed names through marriage & died. He said it will take a few months to comb through census records, newspaper obituaries & other sources. "We are just now starting to work on this data to find the students who might still be around," Secrest said.

CSU policy now provides for honorary Doctoral degrees. Trustees will be asked to make an exception to allow the honorary Bachelor's degrees.

Nine CSU campuses had been established by 1942, including then-Fresno State College. CSU officials say historic accounts show nearly 250 Japanese-American students were on 4 of those campuses when the internment began.

Bobbi Hanada, past governor of the Central California District Council of the Japanese American Citizens League, praised the concept of honorary degrees.
"Lots of people were uprooted and didn't have a chance to graduate," she said.

UC & CSU plans closely mirror recent efforts to award diplomas to Japanese-Americans removed from high school. Dozens of diplomas have been presented locally in the last few years.

Assembly Member Warren Furutani, D-South Los Angeles Co. introduced a bill in December that called on UC, CSU & California Community Colleges to extend honorary degrees. He estimated that more than 2,500 degrees could be conferred -- some posthumously. Furutani's bill received strong support -- including from the state community colleges' Board of Governors -- and now is pending on the governor's desk.

Fresno City College officials said no discussions have yet occurred about honorary degrees. Furutani, whose parents met in an Arkansas internment camp, said he wanted to "take care of unfinished business before this generation passes ... it's like tying up a loose end."

Carole Hayashino, vice president for university advancement at California State University, Sacramento, spoke at legislative hearings on Furutani's bill. For Hayashino, who testified as an individual, the issue has personal echoes. Her father, then a freshman at College of the Pacific in Stockton, was forced to drop out & report for internment, she said. "And after the war, he never had a chance to go back to college," Hayashino said. In the 1990s, Hayashino was involved in efforts at San Francisco State to recognize war-era Japanese-American students as honorary alumni. Honorary degrees, she said, would "bring closure to a group of Japanese-Americans who were really denied their constitutional rights ... it is part of the unfinished business of 1942."

At the University of California, officials estimate that about 700 Japanese-American students were removed from 4 UC campuses. That includes 15 students at the College of Agriculture, now UC Davis.

Eric Heng, policy & program analyst for Student Affairs in the UC President's Office, said officials have received 125 inquiries since the program was announced in July. Officials, mainly at the campus level, are sorting through the information.
UC began work on the issue last fall after officials at the San Francisco campus asked about honoring the students. Heng said they decided to consider a systemwide approach. That led to the formation of a task force, which recommended the honorary degrees to regents this summer. Diplomas will bear the Latin phrase "Inter Silvas Academi Restituere Iustitiam" -- translated, "to restore justice among the groves of the academe."

Honorary degrees

Former CSU students whose studies were interrupted by World War II internment (or their families) can call (562) 951-4723 or e-mail Nisei@calstate.edu
A local contact for Fresno State students is Bill Secrest Jr. at (559) 488-6720.
Former University of California students, or their families, can e-mail HonoraryDegree@ucop.edu or call (510) 987-0239.




9/11/09

Film Crew Visits


June 2009

A PBS documentary film about Kristi Yamaguchi took the filmmakers to Poston where her father (a former Poston internee) and her mother were given a tour of the site by Ruth Y. Okimoto, from the Poston Restoration Project.

Click on photos to enlarge.

9/12/09 More info re: PBS film

Konstantinos Kambouroglou worked with John Maggio and Julie Marchesi, who recently filmed at the Poston Internment Camp site for an upcoming PBS documentary. The PBS series is entitled "Faces of America" and features Harvard Professor Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. exploring immigration and identity through the family histories of celebrity guests.

Producer Leslie Asako Gladsjo and Konstantinos Kambouroglou, Associate Producer of Faces of America for Ark Media are working on the story of skating champion Kristi Yamaguchi and her family's experience during internment. Kristi's father, Jim Yamaguchi, spent his early childhood in Poston and her mother, Carol Doi, was born in Amache. They had not returned to Poston since, and agreed to do it with the filming company.






9/9/09

WANTED: Your Help

Last month we received GREAT NEWS!

The National Park Service has awarded the Poston Restoration Project a challenge grant of $25,994 to record video oral histories of Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II at Poston.

This grant will support our travel to other communities so that we can conduct interviews.

You can help by nominating former Poston internees.
 
Please contact: Dianne K. at diannerd79 at yahoo dot com

The "challenge" grant is means that for every $1 we contribute, the U.S. National Park Service will contribute $2.

Please consider helping us make this challenge by making a monetary donation.

Send your check payable to "Poston Restoration Project"
Mail to our Treasurer, Marlene Shigekawa
956 Hawthorne Drive
Lafayette, CA. 94549-4640
marshige at gmail dot com

Thank you!




9/8/09

Recent Environmental Cleanup

The U.S. Department of Defense funded an environmental clean up using a 15-man crew working full-time this past summer for 3 months. There was soil contamination on the Poston Restoration Project site from the asbestos used in the old roofing and the use of lead-based paint.

PHOTOS OF THE CLEAN UP














9/1/09

Recent Donations



We recently received the "Camp Days" watercolor collection donated by the artist Chizuko Judy Sugita de Queiroz, who was 9 years old when she was relocated to Poston.

http://www.artbychiz.com/campdays_index.html



We need your help!

We are looking for people who have equipment & skill with woodwork to make picture frames from the old Poston barrack wooden planks.

Do you know of anyone? Please submit their names & contact information to me.

Regards,
Dianne Kiyomoto
Board Member, Archivist
email: diannerd79 at yahoo dot com