Monterey Park

Monterey Park woman, placed in WWII internment camp, finally receives college degree

By Sandra T. Molina, Staff Writer
Posted: 06/08/2010

Photo: Masako Yoshida (Poston 36-5-A), right chats with Eiko Watanabe Nomura. Yoshida and three other women attend the LA City College graduation at the Greek Theater in Hollywood, June 7, 2010, to receive their honorary degrees. Yoshida of Monterey Park was attending Los Angeles City College when WWII broke out and was rounded up and sent relocation camps along with thousands of other Japanese Americans and never finished her education. (Correspondent photo by Mike Mullen/SWCity)

LOS ANGELES - Masako Yoshida (Poston 36-5-A), 85, is no longer her family's only college dropout.

She received an honorary degree Tuesday from Los Angeles City College at the school's graduation ceremony held at the Greek Theatre.

Yoshida, of Monterey Park, was attending LACC when Japanese- Americans were rounded up and placed in camps during World War II.

The family, including her parents and an older brother and younger sister, went from living in a rented home in Boyle Heights to an internment camp (Poston I) in Arizona.

"It was quite a shock," Yoshida said. She was 17.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, thousands of Japanese-Americans living across the nation were forced to relocate and sent to camps.

Yoshida's family was sent to the relocation camp in Poston, Ariz.

"Evacuation orders were put on telephone poles," she said.

The family spent just over a year at the camp, which Yoshida describes as "terrible."

There were no doors or partitions for the bathrooms and showers.

"It was very uncomfortable," Yoshida said.

On Oct. 11, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law A.B. 37, which provides for the conferring of an honorary degree upon each person, living or deceased, who was forced to leave his or her postsecondary studies, said Lawrence Bradford, vice president of Student Services.

"Today we are fortunate to have four Nisei (second-generation Japanese American) students present," he said.

After leaving the camp, she went east and met her future husband, Mitsuo Yoshida, in South Carolina. He served in the infantry in a segregated unit in the U.S. Army.

The couple, who had three children, moved to Monterey Park in 1953, where they had a hard time finding a place to live.

"They wouldn't rent to Japanese," Yoshida said.

The Yoshidas found a "wonderful" woman who sold them a home, with a deed that disallowed discrimination.

Since Yoshida had a family to raise, she did not go back to school.

For about 25 years, she was an instructional aide in the Alhambra Unified School District, where she still volunteers in her retirement.

When Yoshida got the call from LACC about the degree, she was surprised.

She realized she would join the rest of her family as a college graduate, including her parents, siblings, husband, children and now her grandchildren.

"A degree means something to me," Yoshida said.

Source:http://www.whittierdailynews.com/ci_15252519#ixzz0qQQ8dKAT

College awards degrees

College awards degrees for internees
by Promise Yee

OCEANSIDE — Few graduates face the tremendous challenges that Mira Costa College students Yukiko (Nakamura) Sugiyama (Poston 12-1-A), Johnny Yoshimura (Poston 43-3-A), and Audrey (Fujita) Mizokami (Poston 328-1-C) endured. Their studies were interrupted when they were forced into Japanese internment camps shortly after the start of World War II.

Thanks to the Nisei Diploma Project and Assembly Bill 37 signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2009, Mira Costa College received support to actively seek out former students and bestow upon them their well-deserved diplomas.

“Japanese Americans defended their country while their families were held in internment camps,” speaker George Furuya Jr., president of the Vista Buddhist

Temple and a third-generation Japanese American, said. “They never complained, they were productive, patriotic Americans.”

PHOTO: Yukiko (Nakamura)Sugiyama (Poston 12-1-A), accompanied by her granddaughter Tisha Melville, was present to shake the hand of college President Francisco Rodriguez, accept her degree, and turn her tassel at the Mira Costa College graduation ceremony May 28. Four generations of her family watched her graduate.

Sugiyama was in her second year of study at Mira Costa College, then known as Oceanside Carlsbad Junior College, and close to graduation when she and her family were relocated to the Poston(I) Camp in Arizona in 1942. Before withdrawing from school, the dean of students told Sugiyama to get course work from her professors, mail back her assignments, and complete her degree. In camp, Sugiyama finished her degree and ranked second in her class off 33 graduates.

Sugiyama and her family stayed in the internment camp for four years. “We were the first to go and last to leave,” Sugiyama said.

Once released, they had no money or resources, everything had been taken from them. Sugiyama said Japanese Americans felt understandable resentment.

“My degree didn’t do much good,” Sugiyama said. “We couldn’t find a job, no one would hire us.”

“They did the best they could to hold their heads up,” Judith Nakano, daughter of Yukiko (Nakamura) Sugiyama, said. “They are Americans in every sense of the word.”

Sugiyama’s husband served in the military while she was interned. They eventually saved money, bought a home and raised a family.

Sandy Gilbert, the daughter of the late Yoshimura, and Robin McNamara, the daughter of Mizokami, were present to accept the honorary degrees for their parents at the graduation ceremony.

Yoshimura stopped his education and served as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army, while his parents and other family members were interned at the Poston Internment Camp (block 43-3-A) in Arizona.

Mizokami attended Mira Costa from 1939 to 1941. Before she had a chance to complete her studies, she and her family were sent to the Santa Anita Assembly Center, then Poston  (328-1-C) in Arizona, and later the Granada Camp in Colorado.

Source: http://thecoastnews.com/view/full_story/7791193/article-College-awards-degrees-for-internees?instance=coast_more_news