AIIS Foundation Hopes to Tell Japanese Immigrants' Story
The Angel Island Immigration Station's history is often associated with the Chinese community but many Japanese immigrants also passed through here. The non-profit hopes to tell their story in an upcoming book.
Even at the young age of 16, Hisayo Yoshino knew she wanted more from life than what her hometown of Hiroshima, Japan could offer her. Backing out of an arranged marriage, she convinced her parents to allow her to head to America to wed a farm laborer named Sahei Makimoto.
During the summer of 1912, Hisayo packed up her belongings and boarded a ship headed for San Francisco to begin her new life in the United States.
Hisayo's introduction to her new country would be the Angel Island Immigration Station located in the San Francisco Bay. Her journey would mirror tens of thousands of Japanese immigrants, many of them picture brides like herself, who came to the U.S. in search of a better life.
"It took a lot of courage on my mom's part to make that decision ... but it was a different era," said Janice Muto, 73, Hisayo's daughter. "My mom told me at the beginning it was very difficult. There were no other women [on the farm] and she cried for three weeks."
The Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation (AIISF) is hoping to tell the story of Japanese immigrants like Hisayo's who passed through the immigration station and is currently outreaching to members of the Japanese American community who may have had relatives processed at the facility.
Although much has been documented about the Chinese community's history here at Angel Island - largely because of their lengthy detentions and the discovery of Chinese calligraphy carved into the barracks' walls - very little has been documented about the Japanese immigrants' story.
"Angel Island is the only Pacific Coast immigration center still standing. It's important to highlight Pacific Coast immigration - who came through. We have case files but we want personal stories. We want to tell the story of everyday Americans," said Erika Gee, education director at AIISF.
The non-profit AIISF is working on a book about Pacific immigration at Angel Island from 1910-1940 which is scheduled to be released in 2010 along with the opening of the new immigration museum. The Japanese immigrants' story will be a key part of this new project.
"We're hoping people are more amenable to passing on their histories to us," said Judy Yung, professor emerita at UC Santa Cruz, who is helping to write the narrative for the upcoming book. "It's going to be hard to find people but it's important that their history be recorded."
Recalling Angel Island
Marvin Uratsu, 81, was a young boy of six when he and his older brother traveled from Kumamoto, Japan to be reunited with their parents in California in 1931. Arriving on the ship Taiyomaru, Marvin recalls bits and pieces of his two-day stay at Angel Island Immigration Station before his father picked them up.
Although he doesn't recall specifics about his stay, Marvin remembers the all-male barracks and seeing a lot of Asian men. He assumes these were the Chinese immigrants who endured lengthy stays at the facility.
"It was kind of a time for expectation for going back to where my parents were," said Marvin. "And so, nothing negative, and contrast to what the Chinese people experienced at Angel Island, our time was relatively simple and carefree."
Ken Ishibashi remembers his grandfather Shinobu Mashiko's tales of entering the U.S. via Angel Island as a young boy in 1919. Shinobu and his younger sister had been living in Japan when their father called for them to head to Los Angeles to come live with him.
From Yokohama the siblings boarded the Korea Maru ship and landed at the Angel Island Immigration Station. They ended up staying for a week since the telegram announcing their arrival date did not reach their father in time.
"As [my grandfather] was being called over by his father, he was asked many questions about him and the family make up," said Ken, who currently lives in Tokyo. "He told me that they all had a physical examination, and he recalls that there were a few people who were rejected and were scheduled to be sent on the first ship back to Japan."
The Japanese Immigration
Many of the Japanese immigrants who passed through Angel Island entered during the facility's early years, mostly during the 1910s, before immigration laws became restrictive. Most found work in farming, railways, factories, nurseries, and fisheries. Of the 150,000 Japanese immigrants, the majority were picture brides and Kibei, those born in the U.S. but raised in Japan.
Efforts to curtail Japanese immigration resulted in the Gentleman's Agreement in 1907-08 which restricted Japanese laborers from entering the country but continued to allow non-laborers and the wives and children of those already in the U.S. But by 1924 Asian immigration was virtually halted with the enactment of the Immigration Act which prohibited all "aliens ineligible for citizenship" from entering the country.
Unlike the Chinese immigrants of Angel Island, many of the Japanese had government documents that helped expedite the process and often only remained at the immigration station for a few days. This is in stark contract to the Chinese who often endured weeks of detention, sometimes for years, and intense interrogation sessions to prove a family relation to a U.S. resident.
But one thing all of the Asian immigrants had to endure was the humiliating medical examinations. During Hisayo's exam, doctors discovered she had intestinal parasites and she was detained and treated at Angel Island for a few weeks before being released.
Although Marvin was only six during his short stay at Angel Island, one thing he clearly recalls is the humiliating medical exam.
"They stripped us than looked us over. I remember that part, it was embarrassing, for six years old to have to strip it's kind of humiliating to say the least," said Marvin.
Eventually both were released to their family members.
A New American Life
Departing Angel Island, Hisayo met her husband-to-be for the first time and they wed on Sept. 13, 1912. The newlyweds lived in Loomis, Calif. where Sahei worked on a fruit orchard. Life was tough for the new bride but she adjusted, eventually having six children.
Like many of the JAs in the U.S. at this time, the onset of World War II would bring a second chapter of hardship with families forced to leave everything behind only to be incarcerated in internment camps.
Hisayo and her family were interned at Amache, Colorado during the war. Marvin's family would also eventually end up at Amache. His family had owned a fruit orchard prior to WWII and were part of the lucky few who were able to come back to their property after their incarceration.
"It does irritate me when I think of the injustice of incarceration. That should not have been," said Marvin who noted that his older brother was already with the MIS when the rest of the family was incarcerated.
"Japanese immigrants moved two times. They immigrated from Japan and then they were detained by the U.S. government," said Gee.
Angel Island officially closed in 1940 and it became a WWII prisoner of war processing center. For several years after it lay abandoned, forgotten except for by a few. In 1963 Angel Island became a State Park and in 1997 it was given National Historic Landmark status.
Recording Their Stories
Hisayo passed away at the age of 97 leaving behind 19 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.
Marvin recently went back to visit Angel Island, his first since his stay in 1931.
"I remembered the barracks we were in," said Marvin. Seeing the Chinese calligraphy, something he did not recall from his childhood memories, he noted: "It was not easy to write on the walls but they were so emotionally upset, longing for their freedom. They wanted to leave something for posterity."
Hisayo and Marvin's stories of immigration and overcoming hardships are just some of the stories from the JA community AIISF hopes to tell in their upcoming project.
"There are so many questions, so much we want to know," said Daphne Kwok, AIISF executive director. "We are trying to capture their stories."
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