NikkeiWest--Northern California Japanese American Newspaper

By J.K. Yamamoto

There was a sense of both joy and urgency as state and university officials announced the details of the California Nisei College Diploma Project, whose goal is to provide honorary degrees to Japanese Americans who were forced to leave their college studies because of the World War II internment.

The project is the implementation of AB 37, a bill introduced by Assemblyman Warren Furutani (D-Long Beach), passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The California Community College, California State University and University of California systems are all involved.

Press conferences were held on Nov. 12 at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California in San Francisco’s Japantown and Nov. 13 at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo.

Wendy Tokuda of CBS 5, who emceed the San Francisco event, said that the project had a very personal meaning for her. “My mom, who now has Alzheimer’s, was able to get her diploma at the University of Washington a year and a half ago. She was a senior in college at UW, a literature major, when she was interned.”

Tokuda, who is originally from Seattle, brought a photo of her mother, Tama, at age 21 at an assembly center, and a copy of a letter from UW stating that Tama had a grade of “incomplete” in two courses taken in the spring of 1942.

“When we told her that the University of Washington was going to be giving these honorary degrees,  she said, ‘Oh, it’s such a long time ago. Who cares?’ But we talked her into going,” Tokuda recalled. “Her sister went as well, and at the event she saw all of her classmates from that year. They all stood up together. There were a thousand people there, 60-some from her class of 1942, and she said, ‘I feel so young.’ Afterwards, she said, ‘I was surprised how meaningful it was.’ ”

Tokuda, who did a television news story about her mother’s ceremony, also felt a sense of completing an unfinished chapter “in a wonderful way ... You can tie a ribbon on it.”

A 40-Year Journey

Furutani, well-known as a community activist before becoming an elected official, remembered hearing about the internment as a child:

“When there was a family gathering or a community event ... someone would ask what camp was your family in ... And if they were in the same camp they wanted to know what block they lived in, and if they weren’t in the same camp, did you know so-and-so who was in that camp.”

In 1969, Furutani and other young activists organized the first Manzanar Pilgrimage. “As a sign of our ignorance, we went ... in December between Christmas and New Year’s, and that’s no time to be in that part of the state, believe me. It was so cold.”

They later learned more about Manzanar from two Issei ministers, Rev. Sentoku Maeda and Rev. Shoichi Wakahiro, who had been returning to the camp site every year since it closed to conduct services in the camp cemetery. Today, the pilgrimage is held in the spring, attracts hundreds of participants, and includes an interfaith ceremony.

Furutani was elected to the Los Angeles Board of Education in the late 1980s, around the time that redress for Japanese American internees was achieved. In 1992, he helped organize a diploma ceremony for Nisei who had attended Los Angeles High School in 1942 including his mother-in-law, archival researcher Aiko Yoshinaga Herzig.

For the former students, who had been told by the principal that they didn’t deserve diplomas, the ceremony was “a tying together and coming full circle around that experience,” Furutani said. “Then high schools in the L.A. area started doing it on their own, and then other places in the state.”

In 2004, a bill authored by then-Assemblywoman Sally Lieber (D-Mountain View) codified similar graduation ceremonies for high schools statewide. The California Nisei High School Diploma Project was launched to locate recipients or their surviving family members.

“We had a big ceremony in L.A. ... Hundreds and hundreds of people came. Nisei came with caps and gowns,” said Furutani, adding that ceremonies were also being conducted at the college level. “University of Southern California had a program. Short of honorary degrees, they made the Nisei honorary alumni.”

Furutani, who also served on the California Community College Board before being elected to the Assembly, said the idea of “unfinished business” kept gnawing at him. “People were doing it in fits and starts, and my office decided to do something to codify it and put it in legislation.”

He said of the CCC, CSU and UC systems, “They view themselves as independent of the Legislature, and they pretty much said, ‘We don’t like you telling us what to do.’ ” In response to a suggestion that the ceremonies not be mandatory, “my staff and I said if they were so sincere about wanting to do this, they had 60 years to do it. So what are they waiting for now?”

Furutani credited the passage and implementation of his legislation to Japanese Americans “in all of these organizations at very high levels” who served as advocates. “That’s how you get things done oftentimes, and as a result of that we have a bill that’s been passed. It didn’t have one ‘no’ vote. All the Republicans, everybody was on board in the Assembly and the State Senate, and the governor signed it.”

He added, “But this bill would be a hollow reference point, would be of very little substance ... if it didn’t have anything to do directly with the community. That’s what gives this life.” He thanked JCCCNC Executive Director Paul Osaki for taking the lead on the diploma project.

Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi (D-Hayward) shared her personal connection to the project: “My father-in-law, George Hayashi, received an honorary degree from the University of Washington (in 2008) in engineering ... He had passed away earlier that year, so he wasn’t able to attend, but my mother-in-law did ... His family very much appreciates the recognition.”

“George Hayashi got his life together after the war, and with determination he carved out  a very successful career and raised a very loving family in the Los Angeles area,” she said. “He worked as a civil engineer at the L.A. Department of Water and Power for over 40 years ...

“I think this bill has been very long overdue ... Community colleges and universities now can act quickly and confer these important symbols of respect and honor to these former students and their families.”

Furutani and Hayashi are the chair and vice chair, respectively, of the Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus.

Memories of 1942

Two local recipients of honorary degrees spoke at the press conference.

Kimi Yamaguma was living in Japantown when she enrolled at City College of San Francisco in the fall of 1941, and was interned with her family at Tanforan Assembly Center in San Bruno and later Topaz in Utah.

“My sister and I left Topaz with $25 that the government gave us and settled in Cleveland, Ohio,” she said. “Fortunately, I had worked for the federal government in Utah, so I was able to transfer to another federal office. But when the war was over and we were allowed to come back to California, my sister and I came back to San Francisco, and that was 1946.

“I always wanted to complete my education, but because of finances and family circumstances, I was never able to do so. So when I read about the University of Washington conferring degrees to their former students, I wrote to the chancellor of City College of San Francisco.

I told him about the College of San Mateo and Professor (Lewis) Kawahara also trying to find former students.

“So I was honored that I was included in the graduating class of 2009 on May 22 of this year. It was quite a thrill to go, to wear my cap and gown and be on the stage with all the dignitaries and trustees of the college, and to get my degree after 67 years at the age of 85.

Shortly after that, Assemblyman Furutani asked me to go to Sacramento to address the Senate Committee on Education.”

Edith Tanita was in her junior year as a nursing student at UC San Francisco when the war broke out. She returned to Napa to be with her family and was interned at Merced Assembly Center and the Amache camp in Colorado. When Nisei were offered the opportunity to attend college, she chose the University of Colorado because it was relatively close to her family in camp.

“At that time my dad was not well ... My dad passed away in camp,” she remembered sadly.

After earning a degree in nursing, she and a friend moved back to San Francisco, where she got a nursing/pediatrics job at St. Francis Memorial. She later got married. “I have six children and they’re all doing well,” she said. “Now I’m staying with my middle daughter.”

“It’s been a long haul for me (but) I’ve had a good life,” Tanita concluded.

“A New Beginning”

Osaki of the JCCCNC explained, “the Nisei College Diploma Project is a program sponsored by the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program in cooperation with Union Bank. Our job, our task, our responsibility is to assist with the outreach and education of this bill, to assist colleges and universities in helping to identify their Nisei college diploma recipients wherever they are, or their families ...

“From 2003 to 2005, the JCCCNC also assisted the State of California with AB 781, the Nisei High School Diploma Project, where we were successful in helping to locate and identify over 1,200 Nisei and their families to receive their long-awaited high school diplomas.

“My father was part of the first graduating class of Tule Lake concentration camp. It was called Tri-State High. He was one of those who received his high school diploma. At first reticent and a little unsure, he felt that he had already graduated high school ... So why receive another diploma?

“But through our urging, and particularly his granddaughter, who graduated from high school that very same year, we came to realize that his graduation ... was not really a graduation ceremony. A real graduation ceremony is not just about academic achievement, it’s about a new freedom, a new beginning, a liberation  ... His graduation was in a desert behind barbed wire, shadowed by guard towers with soldiers with guns, full of uncertainty ...

“He did finally have his day in 2005, over 60 years after the war ended. The Nisei College Diploma Project ensures that every Nisei college student of 1942 also has their day.”

Citing some of the difficulties of locating these individuals, Osaki said, “A lot of them enrolled under their Japanese (first) names and since had changed it after the war and legally gave themselves an American name ... Females got married, so their (last) names had changed.

“But ... we’re a small community. We have one degree of separation.

And in the Fresno area, it took one phone call and one person identified every single person on that list and gave us phone numbers of living relatives if they lived outside the area .... It’s going to work on a grassroots level, person to person.”

He added, “Together we can make this happen. I think the greatest shame would be that we miss someone ... because we were unable to locate them.”

UC, CSU Gearing Up

Judy Sakaki, vice president of student affairs for the UC system, called the project “personally and professionally the most important work I’ve done in my 30 years in the UC system and CSU. It is really very emotional in terms of my parents and all our families sharing the camp experience ...

“At UC there was a moratorium on offering honorary degrees, and it was quite a big hurdle for us to overcome. In fact, there had not been any honorary degrees given in the UC system for over 30 years. So when I co-chaired the task force that began looking at this, many said ... it’s going to be very difficult. I was pleased that members of our task force would not see any other option except honorary degrees. We were able to take that to the regents in July this past year and it passed unanimously.”

Sakaki said that about 700 students from four UC campuses are being tracked down. The first ceremony is scheduled for Dec. 4 at 3 p.m. at UCSF. The next will be held Dec. 12 at 10 a.m. at UC Davis, followed by UC Berkeley on Dec. 13 at 3 p.m., and UCLA in the spring.

“They have the largest group of students, 500 students that we are working to identify,” she said of Berkeley. “So far, I’m told that about 100 invitations have gone out, but we need more assistance.”

Carole Hayashino, vice president of university advancement at CSU Sacramento and a board member of CCLPEP, noted that San Jose State University had the largest number of Japanese American students in 1942, over 100. Her counterpart at San Jose State, Fred Najjar, also attended the event.

“In line with the mission of the CSU, our Board of Trustees did vote unanimously at its September meeting to award special honorary bachelor of humane letters degrees to the CSU students of Japanese ancestry,” Hayashino said. “Historical documents shows that there were about 250 Japanese Americans enrolled at six CSU campuses in 1942 ... San Francisco State, San Jose State, San Diego, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Pomona and Fresno State.

“While the board realizes that it’s difficult to fully redress the injustices of the past ... the CSU campuses are very committed to working with Assemblymember Furutani and organizations like the JCCCNC to present the honorary degrees to the former students in a meaningful and respectful way at campus ceremonies in the spring of 2010.”

CSU has set up a dedicated phone number, (562) 951-4723, and e-mail address, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , for this project.

“We are looking forward to working with the campuses and community to cull through a number of campus archives, student newspapers, alumni records and yearbooks,” Hayashino said.

In 1996, when Hayashino was working at San Francisco State, she found a document listing 19 Japanese American students who would have graduated had it not been for the internment. With the blessing of SFSU President Robert Corrigan and the help of the Department of Justice, 17 of the 19 were found. They were recognized during commencement ceremonies in the spring of 1998.

She stressed that in addition to stories of hardship and humiliation, the former students recalled the “extraordinary acts of kindness of members of the university faculty and staff,” such as a music professor who wrote to his students at Tanforan, Topaz and Tule Lake.

These individuals were also honored for “being courageous in supporting the Japanese American students.”

“On behalf of all three systems, we’re looking forward to working with the Japanese American community statewide,” Hayashino said.

For more information, contact the project coordinator, Aya Ino, at (415) 567-5505 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it