Japanese American Citizens Leagueremembers Executive Order 9066

Each February the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) -- headquartered locally at 415 S. Claremont Street in San Mateo -- holds a Day of Remembrance to promote awareness of the terrible legacy of Executive Order 9066.

"The League tries to promote vigilance," says Richard Nakanishi, a past president of the JACL and the author of "1872-1942: A Community Story," published by the Japanese American Citizens League. "The most frightening thing about Executive Order 9066 is that such a thing could happen again."

The San Mateo branch of the JACL emerged in 1935, following the establishment of the national JACL in 1930. At that time, San Mateo boasted a substantial Japanese community -- in fact, the largest in San Mateo County. Many first-generation immigrants, called 'Issei,' had begun coming to San Mateo at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Many, such as Tomisuke Ito, the first Japanese land owner in San Mateo, had started working in America as domestic servants. In 1903, Ito built the Nagaya, or longhouse, between Grant and Fremont Streets, which provided shelter and assistance for newly arrived immigrants.

Others found jobs at the old Leslie Salt Plant, near what is now 16th Avenue.

Gradually, Japanese immigrants began to establish their own businesses in San Mateo. Tokumatsu Hata started running the Hata Tailor Shop on B Street in 1903; Tokura Takahashi founded a grocery store on Claremont Avenue in 1906; Tetsuo Yamanouchi opened the Imperial Laundry in 1908.

As the Japanese American community grew, its members faced stern and often cruel discrimination and harassment. For example, the Issei were not allowed to buy property, nor could they vote. However, second generation, or 'Nisei,' could not be refused such rights because they were native-born Americans.

In turn, the Nisei took steps to protect the rights of their parents, including forming the Japanese American Citizens League.

The original purpose of the JACL was to work to preserve the rights of the Issei generation. But as World War II approached, the Japanese American Citizens League labored to highlight and project the loyalty of Japanese residents, something often vigorously questioned by the larger society.

The JACL became visible at all civic events, holding meetings at the Japanese language school on Second Street, or at Sturge Cottage Church at 25 South Humboldt. The League sponsored social activities for its young members, including dances at Benjamin Franklin Hotel, Kloss Hall, and the Masonic Temple. In the 1941 County Fair parade, fifty JACL members carried a huge American flag, measuring seventy feet long by forty feet wide.

But after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, a wave of racist hysteria seemed to overcome the west coast of the United States. The Federal Bureau of Investigation began rounding up Issei leaders, freezing their bank assets. Those of Japanese ancestry, already faced with great racial opposition, now faced mass persecution, culminating in Executive Order 9066.

Roosevelt gave the order on February 19, 1942, giving United States military commanders the authority to establish geographic zones from which "any or all persons" might be excluded.

Due to spreading fear of sabotage and espionage, the U.S. Army removed 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry from the western third of Washington, all of Oregon, and the western half of California. Of those interned, 48.7% were native-born American citizens.

"Eight hundred ninety-one people were interned from San Mateo County," Nakanishi says. "Of those, one hundred fifty-three were children under twelve."

He adds sardonically, "A real threat to the common good."

Japanese descendants living in San Mateo were assembled at the Masonic Temple on Ellsworth Street. Loaded onto Greyhound buses, they, along with eight thousand others throughout the Bay Area, came to the Tanforan Assembly Center in San Bruno, at the site of today's Tanforan Shopping Center.

For up to 169 days, the internees lived at Tanforan in military barracks surrounded by barbed wire, armed soldiers and guard towers. In October of 1942, most of the San Mateo residents were shipped out to Utah, to bleak desert locations such as Camp Topaz.

For much of the next four years, thousands of Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Americans remained in these camps, virtual prisoners of war, incarcerated by their own countrymen.

The tragedies are frighteningly typical and numerous. Mrs. O, for example, was a native San Franciscan, born in 1921. At the age of 21, she was interred to Tanforan and Utah, stripped of all her possessions and property.

Upon her release from camp, she managed to resettle in mostly rural East Palo Alto. She lived in a small house, carrying on a simple, almost agrarian existence, tending her tiny but bountiful garden. Over the next forty years, the surrounding area grew up around her, while she kept herself virtually isolated from the progress.

In 1998, when East Palo Alto began its redevelopment project, her small house suddenly stood in the way of a freeway on-ramp the city planned to build in conjunction with the new shopping center. The city claimed her house under eminent domain, but due to her cultural isolation, she was unable to mount her own defense.

She was finally evicted from her home, conserved by the public guardian, and forced to move into a residential-care home. Twice in her lifetime, she had been victimized by the larger society for what was claimed as "the greater good".

The JACL wants stories such as hers remembered.

Today, the JACL resides in a locally significant historic house at 415 S. Claremont. The JACL rents from the San Mateo Gardeners Association, which played an instrumental part in creating the renowned tea garden in Central Park and establishing San Mateo's sister city relationship with Toyonaka, Japan.

"The League has always enjoyed a supportive relationship with the city government," Nakanishi says. "I think it has been reciprocal as well."

Since 1981, the JACL has continued its mission from its present site, promoting good citizenship and combating discrimination. This includes campaigning locally for the passage of The Civil Liberties Act of 1988. This act authorized the payment of $20,000 in redress to each individual victimized in 1942 by Executive Order 9066.<