The Japanese American Story…Part 1a
Part 1a Japanese Americans in Utah and the United States (a)
[This is a portion of a talk given to high school students at Juab High School in Nephi, Utah, on February 20, 2002. It is a chapter from the book listed below.]
Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you today to share some of the history of Japanese Americans in Utah and the United States.
Probably none of you have heard of the Iwakura Mission, which was likely the first time Japanese people were in Utah. More than one hundred Japanese government officials, students, and others were traveling the world on a trip initiated in 1871. It was a Japanese diplomatic journey headed by Sionii Tomomi Iwakura, Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister. They were on a mission to search for methods to position Japan among the most powerful nations in the world. It was possibly the most important venture for the modernization of Japan after a long period of isolation from the western world.
The delegation arrived in Salt Lake City in February 1872 for what was intended to be a very short stopover. Because they were delayed from leaving the state due to heavy snowstorms which prevented the trains from running, the delegation spent nearly three weeks in Utah. During this time they forged friendships with Utah government leaders and officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons).
Utah accepted these Japanese visitors and recognized them as a highly cultured and well-mannered group. However, the visit was largely ignored by the national media, and for a century little was known and reported about the mission’s stay in Utah.
My own family has a long history in Utah. My father, Shigenobu Mori, came to the United States from the southern part of Japan early in the 1900s because he wanted to help his family financially. His hometown was a place called Kagoshima on the Japanese island of Kyushu.
He came as a young man around the age that you students are now. He stopped in Hawaii and worked to save some money and then was able to come to the mainland. He worked at a restaurant in California and then got a job with the railroad laying track in the desert of Nevada. After saving enough money and because he was injured while working on the railroad, my father made his way to Utah where he settled on a farm in Cache County near the Utah-Idaho border. There were many struggles as he tried to make a living at farming.
After some time, he went back to Japan to marry my mother, Kusa, who was from the same area in Japan. He returned to the United States with his bride, fully intending to return to live in Japan after earning enough money. They moved south to Gunnison, Utah, where they lived in what they later described as like a log cabin.
Then the Depression struck which caused huge financial trials. They moved to the Salt Lake Valley to the town of Murray where I was born, and they were later able to purchase a farm in nearby Sandy. There were eventually eight children in the family, of which I was number seven. All of us helped with the work on the farm.
Utah’s Japanese people worked largely in farming when they were able to get some land. Some of the men also worked in mining and on the railroads. There was a Japantown established in Salt Lake City on First South Street where there were a number of Japanese stores, barber shops, cleaners, hotels, restaurants, and churches. They catered to the Japanese population, who would come from various parts of the city and outlying towns to purchase goods and patronize the businesses. It was also a place to meet and make friends.
The Japanese people in Utah and throughout the United States often faced discrimination and prejudice from the outside world, but they basically lived peaceful lives while working hard. They occasionally got together for picnics held by Japanese groups where they could socialize with each other. The Japantown in Salt Lake City no longer exists, having been displaced when the Salt Palace Convention Center was built there in the 1960s. There are two Japanese American churches which remain on the same block in the area, but all the businesses were gone long ago although a few may have relocated to other parts of the city.
The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), of which I am currently the national president, was organized in 1929 by young adult Japanese Americans trying to make a better life for their families and others. By 1925, further immigration from Japan had been banned.
The Japanese immigrants already in the United States and American citizens of Asian descent were directly affected by anti-Asian laws. The laws against the Japanese and Chinese immigrants at the time included that they were not allowed to become citizens of the United States; they could not own land in California where most of them lived; and they were forbidden to marry outside their race in many areas.
Utah had an anti-miscegenation law which prohibited interracial marriages as did many states. In 1956, a Japanese American man and a Caucasian woman, who were friends of mine, could not marry in Utah so they drove to Colorado to be wed. The Supreme Court made a decision in 1967 which deemed that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional, with many states choosing to legalize interracial marriage before then.
The JACL worked to repeal the biased and unfair laws. Mike Masaoka, who was born in California but whose father moved the family to Salt Lake City where he was allowed to buy property, spent some of his growing up years in Salt Lake City. Mike was a graduate of West High School and the University of Utah where he was a champion debater. Mike became an early leader in the JACL. He is credited with most of the work that the JACL accomplished to repeal those discriminatory laws
Mike was working as national field secretary for the JACL when the war broke out. He has said that he was the only paid administrative staff person with two secretaries. He and the JACL were instrumental in working with the government to set up the segregated Japanese American unit in the United States Army, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II which was joined with the 100th Battalion which consisted of Japanese American soldiers from Hawaii. Mike joined the army and served his country in the 442nd along with his three brothers, one of whom was killed in the war.
Mike, along with Saburo Kido, who was an attorney and the national president, had to make important decisions affecting a lot of people. They were very young, but they sought the advice of others. The JACL headquarters was moved to Salt Lake City during the war when all the Japanese people had to evacuate from the West Coast states. A National JACL Credit Union was formed to help Japanese Americans, who could not get loans from commercial banks which would not do business with them because of their race. The National JACL Credit Union remained in Salt Lake City and is operating there to this day, but the JACL headquarters moved out of Utah after the war to San Francisco where they have owned a building since the 1970s.
By the time the Imperial Navy of Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, many of the Japanese immigrants had established families. Some had farms and businesses. Some ran hotels and stores. Their American-born children, the second generation, were growing up. Education was stressed by the immigrant parents. Many of the young people were attending college or had graduated, but it was difficult for Japanese Americans to get hired at good jobs in their field of study even after earning a college degree.
They regularly experienced prejudice and discrimination which quickly escalated at the war’s outset as all the people of Japanese descent, including citizens of the United States, were immediately looked upon as the enemy. They were suspected of being spies for the government of Japan even though most of them had never been to Japan. Their freedom was in jeopardy and indeed was taken away for a large portion of the Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in the camps. The majority were citizens of the United States, having been born in this country.
Utah had a number of Japanese immigrants, along with their Japanese American children and some young grandchildren, living in the state such as my family did at that time. The major populations of ethnic Japanese people lived in California, and relatively large numbers lived in Oregon and Washington. Those who lived on the West Coast were affected by the war more so than the Japanese people who lived in the inland states like Utah.