World War II Incarceration
This week HistoryLink features new essays posted in July thanks to a grant from the Kip Tokuda Memorial Civil Liberties Public Education Program. This program was created by the state legislature in 2015 to fund public educational activities and materials and to provide grants "for the purpose of establishing a legacy of remembrance as part of a continuing process of recovery from the World War II exclusion and detention of individuals of Japanese ancestry."
We begin with a bio of Kip Tokuda, a Sansei (third generation) Japanese American civil rights leader, public servant, Washington State legislator, and advocate for the rights of children, disabled persons, and LGBTQ+ individuals. Tokuda's parents were both incarcerated during the war (his mother is shown above in 1942). Tokuda (1946-2013) is credited with cofounding both the Japanese Cultural & Community Center of Washington in Seattle and the state legislature's annual observance of the Japanese American Day of Remembrance.
George Hirahara and his family ran the Pacific Hotel in Yakima from 1926 to 1942 before being sent to the Heart Mountain incarceration camp in Wyoming along with 1,100 others from the Yakima Valley with Japanese heritage. While there, he and his son Frank documented life in the camp, taking more than 2,700 photos. After the war, the Hiraharas moved back to Yakima and later to Southern California. In 2010, Patti Hirahara (Frank's daughter and George's granddaughter) donated many of their photographs to WSU, and in 2015, some of them were used in an exhibit curated by the Smithsonian Institution.
James Okubo grew up in Bellingham, and in 1942 he and his family were sent to the Tule Lake camp in Northern California along with 33 other Whatcom County residents. When the famed 442nd Regimental Combat Team – a segregated Japanese American unit – was formed, Okubo left the camp to serve as an Army medic. He survived the war but died in a 1967 car accident, 33 years before receiving posthumous top military honors for extraordinary valor in one of the bloodiest battles in Europe in 1944.
Finally, we are very proud to announce a new lesson plan we've created for K-12 students. This series of activities engages students with HistoryLink’s biographical essays on Japanese Americans – and their allies – who have lived and contributed to the history of Washington state.
Quite a Lofty Destination
This week marks three anniversaries from both atop and above Mount Rainier. On July 28, 1896, Olof Bull carried his violin to the summit and played several solo pieces, including "Nearer, My God, To Thee." Thirteen years later, on July 30, 1909, the summit had other visitors of note, when a group of suffragists joined The Mountaineers to plant a "Votes for Women" banner atop the mountain.
And on July 25, 1920, Seattle aviator Herbert Munter became the first person to overfly the peak when he soared above the summit in his Boeing Model 8 biplane. Ever the showman, Munter circled the peak three times before crossing over it. Spectacular for the time, his feat of aviation was bested 30 years later when another intrepid pilot actually landed his plane atop the mountain.
