KANAGAWA, Kiyoshi Robert (1917-2004)

Kiyoshi Robert Kanagawa

     Kiyoshi Robert Kanagawa was born on 9/10/1917 on a ranch in Fresno County.  His parents were Yasoichi Tom and Sumi (Jitsuyo) Kanagawa. Robert graduated from Sanger High School and attended Central California Community College. 

     After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, his family was evacuated and arrived at the Poston internment camp II in Arizona on 7/15/1942. Robert was employed as a teacher at the Poston II High School in the Commercial Department. On 12/12/1944, he married Yukiye Nakamura from Poston camp III. On 2/8/1945, Robert , his wife and his parents, left Poston, Arizona and returned to run the family's nursery business and 85-acre citrus farm located at Rt. 2, Box 606 in Sanger, California. 

     Robert Kanagawa founded the Sanger Nursery, and later became the president of Agricultural Exports of California, Inc. Kanagawa was a charter member, secretary, treasurer, and past president of the Sanger Rotary Club, and served as District Governor in 1974-1975. He spent 7 years on the Sanger City Recreation Commission, 5 years as chairman for the Fresno Fair's Agriculture display for Sanger, and chairman for the Grape Bowl Festival.  He was a life member of the Sanger High School PTA, a charter member of the Sanger JACL, and  director of the Sanger Chamber of Commerce and the Citrus Association.  Kanegawa was selected as Sanger Man of the Year. 

     After his first wife Yukiye died in 1991, he remarried. Robert died on 9/25/2004 in Fresno County. He was survived by his second wife, Reiko, three sons, two stepsons, and two grandchildren.  

Source: http://www.sangerrotary.org/library/GildedGear/GG2007-2008Q4.pdf

JACKSON, George F. PhD (1920-2004)

     George F. Jackson was born on 11/23/1920, and lived in the state of Oklahoma.  In 1944, he was hired as a Poston camp III high school counselor & teacher. He resided in government housing located outside the camp during the year he taught there, and sympathized with the internees, according to his ex-spouse, Sandra Jackson.

      He was a World War II U.S. Army veteran, and later earned a PhD.  He taught U.S. and African American History at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento, California for 21 years until he retired in 1991. He contributed minority-affairs articles to  The Sacramento Bee newspaper during 1970-1975.  He had written and published the first edition of his book in 1975,  "Black Women Makers of History a Portrait."  In 1977,  the book was reprinted by Sacramento printers,  Fong & Fong.

     Dr. George F. Jackson died on 1/19/2004 in Sacramento.  Sacramento Memorial Lawn Cemetery

SHIMIZU, Dr. Toyo (1911-1990)

     Toyo Shimizu was born on 1/29/1911 in Los Angeles, son of immigrant parents from Nara, Japan. His  father was a master gardener for homes in Hollywood, and in his youth, Toyo worked as a newspaper delivery boy and delivered groceries to the large homes of the rich and famous. He graduated from Hollywood High School and UCLA, and was accepted into the USC School of Dentistry and graduated in 1934 with honors.  Toyo opened a practice in Japan Town in Los Angeles in 1935, and married Kiyo in 1937.  Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, his family was evacuated to the Santa Anita Assembly Center, then  temporarily stayed at a camp near Prescott, Arizona waiting for completion of the permanent camp at Poston, Arizona. 

      At Poston, Toyo volunteered to serve as a clinical dentist, the camp's health board, and was  part of a developing public health and TB control intervention using public health nurses and volunteers.  He worked with the TB campaign with fellow internee, Dr. Kazu Kasuga, a TB specialist, and acquainted with Dr. Ralph Snavely, a US Public Health Service medical officer, serving as the Office of Indian Affairs District Medical Director for the Colorado River Indian Reservation.

     Toyo and his wife, Kiyo and son, Russ, lived at Poston for about two and a half years.  He volunteered and transported his dental equipment on donkeys into the Havasupai Canon to serve the Indians living there.  When he was finally accepted in to Yale University for graduate public health training, he was rejected after they discovered his Japanese ancestry.  He contacted Dr. Ralph Snavely,  and was offered a job as the first Indian Health clinical dentist. He worked as a traveling dentist, and based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and later able to set up his own traveling clinical practice at Whiteriver, Arizona.

     In 1951, he moved his family to Fort Defiance where he accepted a commission in the US Public Health Service and worked without a dental assistant.   He was finally able to complete his Masters of Public Health degree in 1958 at the University of Pittsburg, and became the Area Dental Officer in the same year in Albuquerque. In 1964, he transferred to Phoenix to become the Area Dental Officer, which he held until retirement in 1973. He died in 1990. 

Survived by his wife, Kiyo, daughter Margo (Dr. Rick) Snyder and Dr. Russ T. Shimizu.  

Source: The IHS Primary Care Provider, March 2009, Vol 34, No 3

ISHIBASHI, Tom Tomu (1928-2011)

Tom Ishibashi

     Tom Tomu Ishibashi, was born November 15, 1928 in San Pedro, California to Japanese immigrant parents, Tomizo and Umeno (Iwahashi) Ishibashi, who raised their seven children in a farmhouse in the Portuguese Bend area of Rancho Palos Verdes.  Tomizo Ishibashi was part of a large community of Japanese immigrants  to farm the peninsula in the early 1900s,  at a time when Japanese and Chinese immigrants were not allowed to own property. 
     Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Tomizo took Yukiko and Tom and voluntarily relocated to Strathmore to continue as farm laborers.  On July 17, 1942,  they were evacuated to the Poston, Arizona internment camp 2 along with other relatives.  On January 24, 1944, the family left Poston and resettled in Garland, Utah.

     In 1949, the Ishibashi family leased around 150 acres of land located at the Torrance airport. Tom Ishibashi took over the plot from his cousins in the early 1960s when they retired.  Tom developed farming techniques to accommodate the airport location, which offered land on the side of the property and between the runways. The airport plot, grew strawberries, corn, tomatoes, squash and cucumbers,  and was the last piece of the original Ishibashi farm remaining in Torrance.

      The Ishibashi farm stand located on Crenshaw Boulevard sells the farm's produce and is known for its fresh strawberries. At its peak, the Ishibashi farm employed about 15 workers on 50 acres. The promise of fresh fruits and vegetables drew customers from all over the South Bay, and lines formed long before the stand opened at 10 a.m.  Though they have had to scale down the menu over the years, the stand continues to be popular among Torrance residents.

      Ishibashi retired briefly in October 2005 to care for his wife, Maya, who was fighting an illness that affected her eyesight, and he reopened the stand in April 2006.  Tom died on May 20, 2011 in Lomita, California, where he was a long-time resident. He is preceded in death by his wife, Maya (2009); father, Tomizo (1966); mother, Umeno (1997); and  brothers, Ichiro (1999) and Katsumi "Kat" James (2002) .

     He is survived by his daughters Marcia Oto and Mimi Tamura; son, Thomas; brother, Tsuyoshi Daniel Ishibashi;  and sisters, Yukiko Yumori, Suzuko Hashimoto, andNaomi Hamach. 

Sources: http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_18124668#
Los Angeles Times on June 3, 2011

Ancestry.com

CRAWFORD, James D. (1908-1975)

Director of Poston Camp II

James D. Crawford

     James Daniel Crawford was born June 23, 1908 in Routt, Colorado, located near Steamboat Springs to John D. and Minnie Crawford.  His father was a county clerk of Routt County for many years, and his grandfather, James Harvey Crawford, founder of Steamboat Springs.  
      After graduating from Steamboat Springs High School, James attended the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1931 with a major in geology. He went to California and in 1933 he married Emogene Harrison of Inglewood, California. James spent the Depression years working for the Federal Works Progress Administration, first in Lakeport, California (100 miles north of San Francisco)  where he drew mining claim maps for the Recorder's Office in Lake County, and later in San Francisco,  where he was assigned to the California Division of Mines to help complete the California geologic map published in 1938.
      In 1938, James Crawford obtained permanent employment with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).  He was assigned to the United Pueblos Agency in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he conducted  the 1940 U. S. Census on the Indian reservations in the area. His wife, Emogene died of heart problems due to childhood rheumatic fever. 

     James Crawford married Hildegard Ruth Stoeckly of Garden City, Kansas, who he had met at college. Their first daughter, Nancy, was born in 1941. 

     In May of 1942, James transferred to Poston, Arizona and he arrived on May 4th, four days before the first Japanese internees arrived. Initially, James lived for 10 days in Parker, a boom town holding 2,400 construction workers. For the first two months, he worked in Intake/Registration until he was promoted to Director of Unit II (Poston camp II) under Wade Head.  James became the first person to live at Unit II (Poston camp II)  when he took a cot and blanket on July 1, 1942 and used one of the barracks where he could see the stars.  
     At the end of July, 1942, his wife Ruth and daughter Nancy joined him. The Crawford family lived in two office rooms in one of the administration buildings in Unit II for about 5 months then moved to Building 28 in the personnel housing area.

      At  the end of 1943 when control of Poston was transferred  from the BIA to the War Relocation Authority (WRA), James Crawford was appointed Relocation Program Officer for all three units (Poston camps).
     In September, 1944, Sharon was born to James and Ruth Crawford, one week before James left Poston to become the BIA superintendent at the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in Belcourt, North Dakota.  He held similar positions at the Hopi Reservation in Arizona and the Fort Peck reservation in Montana.

     James Crawford ended his 32-year career with the BIA working in the area office in Billings, Montana as Community Development Officer, which was involved primarily with the schools on the Indian reservations in Montana and Wyoming. Two more children were born to James and Ruth Crawford.
      James Crawford was an elder of the First Presbyterian Church of Billings, Montana. He was an active member of the Lions Club and three times received the Distinguished Service Award. He served in local, state, and national capacities with the Boy Scouts of America and served on the board of the Girl Scout Council. James was also active in the Billings Archaeological Society and the Billings Garden Club and was an enthusiastic stamp collector.

     At the age of 67 years, Mr. Crawford died of cancer on July 28, 1975 in Montana. His wife, Ruth died in 2004 in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

Submitted by: Jim L. Crawford, son of James D. Crawford

YAMAKOSHI, Noburu "Noby" (1926-1995)

This story appeared in the Chicago Times in 1986

"A Survivor In Graphics As In Life"

August 11, 1986

By Matt O`Connor

     Noby Yamakoshi is the embodiment of the American dream. At 17 and with only $150, he followed a friend to Chicago in 1944 to study commercial art at the Academy of Fine Arts. He paid for school by working nights at the Drake Hotel. After graduation, Yamakoshi went to work for an advertising agency for $22 a week. Figuring that he could do better on his own, he started a business 1 1/2 years later with his wife working as a receptionist-illustrator. Years of 80-hour work weeks later, he has built Nobart Inc., his print graphics firm, into an operation with 325 employees and $22 million in sales last year serving such clients as Sears, Roebuck & Co. and J.C. Penney Co. Inc.

     These days, Yamakoshi lives in an opulent suburban home with six Japanese gardens in its 10,000-square-foot compound.

     Not surprisingly then, Yamakoshi, a California native of Japanese descent, says he considers the United States "the greatest country in the world. There`s more opportunity here."

     He speaks without a trace of bitterness for the two years he spent in World War II in a Japanese-American internment camp (Poston camp III) in the Arizona desert.

It is one of those experiences of life that can make or break a person.

    "It was a shock," he said of the forced evacuation of his family and thousands of other Japanese-Americans to camps in the Southwest and Midwest.

     "I thought I was a loyal American citizen like anybody else."  His family, which lived on a farm, was given a week to sell its belongings, including a new tractor that fetched a mere $50. Family members took to the camp only what they could carry.

     Yamakoshi remembers temperatures of up to 135 degrees Fahrenheit, sentries armed with machine guns, scorpions, rattlesnakes and sandstorms. After a storm, he would find two inches of sand in the tar paper barracks. Food was so sparse the first year, Yamakoshi said, that "we had to eat grass" until vegetables could be grown the next summer.

     He graduated from a camp high school whose teachers were internees with college degrees.

     "There`s nothing you can do about it," Yamakoshi said. "It's something that happens. . . . You come out and try to make the best of it." (He favors a national monument instead of reparation payments for internment survivors.)

     Camp life toughened Yamakoshi, gave him discipline, a burning desire to succeed in America and exposure to a wide range of professions that he couldn`t have gotten on a farm.

Source: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1986-08-11/business/8602270918_1_tar-paper-barracks-internment-college-degrees

Hard work pays off as Asian firms thrive here

Chicago Sun-Times, August 2, 1991

by Greg Burns

     To Noby Yamakoshi, the stereotype of studious, hardworking Asian immigrants rapidly achieving business success in the United States tells only part of the story.

     "Necessity's the mother of invention," said Yamakoshi, an American of Japanese descent who heads Chicago's Nobart graphic arts company. "If you can't speak English and you're trying to make a living, you can't take things for granted. You're worried, so you work hard."

SHINGU, Frank Noboru (1912-2011)

Frank Noboru Shingu

     Frank Noboru Shingu was born on October 6, 1912, in Salinas, California. He moved to Palo Alto with his family where his parents farmed for some time. He graduated from Palo Alto High School and later attended San Jose State College. After college he and his parents returned to the Salinas Valley to continue farming.
     During the war, his family was interned in Poston, Arizona, where he met and married Fumi Yaguchi in 1943  (Poston block 213-11-B). After the war in 1945, he moved to the Monterey Peninsula. He began working for a painting contractor who was instrumental in helping him begin his own successful painting business.
     Frank's passion was golf and he spent many weekends on the course fine-tuning his game. He was one of the founding members of the Monterey Nisei Golf Club. He was also one of the members of the notorious Forty Thieves at Del Monte Golf Course. He made seven holes in one, two of which were made during the last month of his playing days at age 85. He enjoyed early morning surf fishing and would hike for miles on the beach searching for the right spot. He enjoyed trips to Tahoe with Fumi. Later, he traveled to Chukchansi with his sons or took occasional solo trips on the bus.  Frank died at the age of 98 years on February 4, 2011. He was preceded in death by his wife, Fumi (2001).
     He is survived by two sons, Garrett (Linda) Shingu and Clifford Shingu; and daughter, Marsha (Frank) Lee.

ROBERTSON, Georgia Day (1886-1991)

Georgia Day Robertson

Georgia Day Robertson born October 9, 1886 in rural Iowa. After  her graduation from Iowa State College, she went to China as a missionary teacher.  While in China, she met a mining engineer named John A. T. Robertson, who was born in Canada and immigrated to the U.S. in 1917.  They were married and their first child, Angus, who was born in China.  A second child, David, was later born in Missouri. 

Unfortunately, Georgia lost her husband early; but she continued her education and received advanced degrees in mathematics and education and then employed as a teacher at many institutions of higher education in the U.S.  In the late 1930's, Mrs. Robertson earned her living in Orange County, California with running a poultry farm, while teaching in an adult education program, and writing short stories for publication.

When the war broke out in December 1941, Mrs. Georgia Day Robertson had been employed by the USO Club which was managed by the Salvation Army in San Diego, California.  Within the year, she was hired by the War Relocation Authority to supervise the Nisei mathematic teachers in the three camp high schools located in the Poston War Relocation Center outside of Parker, Arizona.  There she gained the information and insight into the Evacuation found in The Harvest of Hate.  Mrs. Robertson taught Trigonometry and became the Vice Principal of Poston II High School, and also taught math at the Poston III High School.

It was the postwar return to her native Iowa and the discovery that many Midwesterners had never heard of or refused to believe in the reality of the Evacuation that impelled her to put pen to paper in the service of civil liberties and social justice.

In the postwar years, Georgia Day Robertson continued for a number of years to teach school, not only in her adopted Orange County, where she has stayed in contact with many Japanese American friends from Poston days, but also in Japan (during the Korean War).  She has also continued to write professionally, though The Harvest of Hate was her first published novel.  On October 9, 1986, she celebrated her 100th birthday.   

Georgia Day Robertson died on December 6, 1991 in Orange County at the age of 105 years.

MATSUSHITA, Mary (Sakata) (1919 -2011)

Mary (Sakata) Matsushita

Mary was born in Lompoc, CA to Mr and Mrs Kyusaburo Sakata. After leaving Lompoc as an infant, Mary grew up in Watsonville, CA until World War II when the family was

relocated and interned at Poston, AZ (block 216) . 

     Upon their release, the family purchased farmland in Ontario, OR where they grew potatoes and onions until the early 1950’s when Mary and her husband, Toshio Matsushita, returned to Watsonville. Resettling in the Pajaro Valley, the family grew iceberg lettuce, potatoes, and green onions on the ranches there. Later, in Santa Barbara, she lived with daughter and son-in-law, Karen and Jack Byers.

     Mary was preceded in death by her husband Toshio and her son Matt. 

     She is survived by her daughter, Karen (Jack) Byers  of Santa Barbara.

Source: WATSONVILLE-SANTA CRUZ JACL Newsletter May 2011