George Aratani dies at 95; L.A. philanthropist who funded Japanese-American causes. He endowed the nation's first academic chair for study of the internment of
Japanese-Americans during WWII and contributed to local and national educational
and cultural programs.
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| George Aratani |
By Rebecca Trounson, Los Angeles
Times
February 21, 2013
George
Aratani, a Los Angeles businessman who donated millions of dollars to Japanese-American causes, and with his wife, the former Sakaye Inouye (Poston
318-5-D), endowed the
nation’s first academic chair to study the World
War II internment of people of Japanese descent and their efforts to
gain redress, has died. He was 95.
George Tetsuo Aratani was born May 22, 1917, in Gardena, California the
only child of Setsuo and Yoshiko Aratani, Japanese immigrants.
The young family soon moved to the seaside town of Guadalupe near Santa Maria,
where Setsuo Aratani overcame racist land laws to become a successful produce
farmer and entrepreneur, with interests in hog farming, chemical
fertilizers and large-scale shipping and distribution of farm products.
Young George Aratani had hoped to enroll
at Stanford University, but his father, a native of Hiroshima, wanted him to
study in Japan to learn the culture and language. George lived his
grandmother and worked on his Japanese language skills for 10 months. He enrolled at Tokyo's
prestigious Keio University, and studied political science for two years.
George's mother had died while he was in Japan and his father
remarried. His father became seriously ill, and George returned home. He enrolled as a junior at Stanford University in 1940. His father died a short time
later, and George Aratani left Stanford to run the family business.
In February of 1942, George Aratani and his stepmother, Masuko, were forced
under Executive Order 9066 to evacuate with others of Japanese ancestry from the west coast, leaving behind theiir business in the hands of
non-Japanese associates — the owners of an ice company with whom the Aratanis
did business — and they ended up losing most of it.
The Aratanis were incarcerated at the Gila River camp in Arizona. Miss Sakaye Inouye (Poston 318-5-D), had met
George Aratani through friends before the war. She was evacuated with her family from Reedley, California and incarcerated at the Poston camp 3, also in
Arizona. The two camps, about 100 miles apart, shared medical facilities and
when Sakaye needed dental
work, she was taken to Gila, where she and George were reacquainted, she had reported to the The Times in 1981.
George Aratani was bilingual and left Gila camp to serve in U.S. Military Intelligence
Service (MIS). He taught the Japanese language to American soldiers. On returning to his Army base in Minnesota, he stopped at the Poston, Arizona concentration camp 3 to ask Miss Sakaye Inouye (Poston 318-5-D) to marry him. They were married in Minneapolis in 1944 and later, lived in Hollywood, California.
George Aratani was an entrepreneur who founded the Mikasa china and Kenwood
electronics firms. After retirment, he pent the
last years of his life involved in many philanthropic activities.
"Japanese-Americans suffered terribly with the forced
evacuation, and a guy like me, fortunate enough to have succeeded in business,
should help keep the memories alive," George Aratani said in the 2004 interview.
For years, George Aratani was among the nation’s most generous contributors to
Japanese-American educational and cultural causes, especially in Southern
California.The couple, longtime supporters of the Asian American and East
Asian studies programs at UCLA, gave $500,000 to UCLA in 2004 to establish the
first endowed chair to study the wartime relocation and detainment of 120,000
Japanese- Americans at U.S. internment camps, and the postwar efforts to redress
the injustice.
“I like to see Japanese-Americans get to Washington, even if I don’t believe in
their philosophy,” George Aratani told The Times in 2004. George and his wife, Sakaye, helped sustain Japanese-American cultural
centers and museums, retirement homes and sports programs. They have donated to
Japanese-American religious institutions and supported politicians of Japanese
ancestry, both Democrats and Republicans. In
2004, George Aratani estimated that he had given $10 million to several institutions,
including the Japanese-American National Museum, Japanese-American Cultural
& Community Center, Keiro Senior HealthCare and UCLA's Asian American and
East Asian studies programs.
George Aratani died Tuesday at the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center from
complications of pneumonia. He had lived at the Keiro nursing facility in
Lincoln Heights since last summer.
He is survived by his wife, Sakaye; daughters Linda Aratani, and Donna Kwee; seven
grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
Memorial service: March 2, 2013 at 2:00 PM
Japanese American Cultural & Community
Center
Aratani/Japan America Theatre
244 S. San Pedro Street
Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, California.
Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-george-aratani-20130221,0,6929609.story
