Maybe people could leave their own history and comments on TOTG?

Or is silence the proper response to such an event 70 years ago.

nels on 11th May 2012 @ 12:58pm

What is TOTG Nels? I would suggest that we can't learn to prevent this terrible blemish happening again if we are silent.. Many of my generation who grew up in HR were too young to have first hand knowledge but thanks to the multiple books published we can now learn what our community did during these years. While my birth was pre-war, it was only a couple of months.....
I look forward to seeing the plaque in the depot. Arlen

Arlen Sheldrake on 11th May 2012 @ 4:56pm

TOTG is "Talk of the Gorge," a local political chatroom. I hope people will leave their recollections and reflections here at Historic Hood River, because this photoblog is forming an archive for the museum. We hope to keep these comment threads open indefinitely, and plan to archive both the images and the comments for future readers.

Arthur on 11th May 2012 @ 6:01pm

My mother was just out of high school and worked as a housekeeper for a wealthy Portland family.
They provided her with a place to stay and some income while she attended art school.
She often told the story about the Japanese house servant who saved the tungsten from the burned out light bulbs and sent it back to Japan.
According to my mom, he told her that they would attack us and win.

Nels..I'm not defending the internment. It was wrong to do to our citizens, and our government used the census to locate the Japanese families.
It was wrong to tell them to pay their property tax early and then take their land. But, hindsight makes things clearer.
It is hard for us to understand the feelings of 70 years ago.

Seeing the military in each of these photos, makes you realize this was a Federal Government decision with military backing.
Not an easy situation to protest.

l.e. on 11th May 2012 @ 9:57pm

As we all seem to agree this was a very "dark cloud" on our local history. But............let us keep in mind what some of our Hood River Japanese young men did when they were finally allowed to serve THEIR country. Many heroic young boys fought just like their white counter parts. We MUST salute this..

Many of the Japanese, that I grew up with and are friends with were born in the camps. In a conversation not too long ago that I had with one of my friends, knowing that he was born in one of the camps, such as Tulle Lake, etc. I asked him where he was born and did I give him a funny look when he informed me he was born in a BARN. Then I snickered as was certain he was putting me on........So I asked where he REALLY was born.......Again the same reply. Well, he was born in a barn....a stable in fact. One of the big distribution places was in Calfiornia, at Santa Anita Race Track..........yes, he was born in one of the stables at Santa Anita. After that, all I could do was shake my head.....

Charlott on 12th May 2012 @ 9:19am

One of the many things that confused me growing up (and still does) and being "reared" in the Asbury Methodist Church in HR was the existense of the Japanese Methodist Church a ways out of town. Why a separate church? Was it a language issue or ?

Arlen Sheldrake on 12th May 2012 @ 9:40am

I don't know, but would think that language may have played a part, because many of the very elderly Japanes were not fluent in English. If it was a Methodist church I would assume they had the same doctrines.

There are always two sides to even a tragic story. There were some people in Hood River who used this terrible situation to profit for themselves. Howevwer, on the other flip of the coin I know of one family, white farmer, in particular who took over the running of his Japanese neighbors farm, keeping a very acurate account of debits and credits, not to mention that he stored their belongings. Upon the Japanese families return he did a thorough accounting of the ranch while they were away. With such a wonderful neighbor, caring about his neighbor that Japanese family were able to pick up their Hood River lives and go forth. Too bad there weren't more considerate neighbors............

Charlott on 12th May 2012 @ 5:21pm

I agree, it is hard to understand the feelings of 70 years ago

judy on 16th May 2012 @ 11:04am

I will put here, very sadly, that our grandfather, Dick Scearce, was active in the Legion Club at this time, in Hood River. He and fellow member, Mayor Joseph C.Meyers, were very involved with the, "Japanese Question," as it was called. I have the pamplet which was circulated, by that name. Mom was so very angry with her father, because of his involvement, that she didn't speak to him for almost three years, and transferred from U. of O. to U.C. Berkeley, to get away from what was happening in Hood River. One of her friends, was a son of someone being sent away. {If I remember right, she said he was a Yasui,} he loved a white girl, and wanted to marry her. He was forced to give her up. He committed suicide because of it. Mother was hurt by this, all of her life, and made me promise, not to speak of it, until she died.
Does anyone else know anything about the boy she could have been talking about? Mom graduated from Hood River High School in 1942.

Lesa on 14th March 2013 @ 5:23pm

Lesa, I surely must be the "Yasui" boy who was a classmate of your mother, who must have been MaryAnn (sp?) Scearce. I'd known Mary Ann for many years as a Jr. High School, then a HRHS, classmate.
But it was my oldest brother, Kay Yasui, who committed suicide, not me. And Kay did not commit suicide because of a thwarted love affair between him and a white girl.
Lauren Kessler has accurately written about Kay's suicide in her book, "Stubborn Twig", which was published in 1993.

Homer Yasui on 29th May 2015 @ 12:15am

Arlen, here is a Yasui family story of why the Japanese in the Valley established a "Japanese Methodist Church" on West Sherman Avenue.
In the first place, this was NOT a Japanese Methodist Church -- although this building, called the Japanese Community Hall -- was used on Sundays for Methodist Church services, and on Wednesday nights for prayer meeting, as well as for many other functions. It was a multiple purpose building.
Our family story says that the Asbury Methodist Church did allow the Japanese Methodists to use their church for services, but in the basement, NOT in the main sanctuary. We did not feel welcomed...we were "suffered".. in the best traditions of latter day Christianity.
Because of that perceived affront, our story goes, we built our own gathering place around 1927, where we could be ourselves.

Homer Yasui on 29th May 2015 @ 12:32am

Charlott, I am very intrigued by your conversation with your Japanese friend who said that he was born in a barn at the Santa Anita Race Track, because the Santa Anita Assemby Center had a hospital of sorts, staffed by Japanese doctors and nurses (W.C.C.A. Assembly Centers, Volume I, by Stone Ishimaru; TecCom Productions, 1987)
His family may very well have been living in one of the reconditioned horse stalls when he was born at Santa Anita, but it would be very surprising if he was literately born in a horse stall/stable/barn there.

Homer Yasui on 30th May 2015 @ 9:15pm

To Homer Yasui,
Thank you for coming to HHR and leaving your comments. They are a valuable insight to the actual history. I often look at these silent black and white photos taken by Alva Day and question myself.
What would I have done as a member of the community?
Would I have been outspoken in what I thought was wrong treatment of my neighbor and his property?
Would I have stood up for the rights of a minority?
Would I have believed that what was happening was justified?

L.E. on 31st May 2015 @ 12:48pm

Just noticed something in this photo.
Why are at least 5 of the men wearing a dark plaid shirt?
It also looks like possibly a Native American woman standing in the crowd. I know of a Native American family that was interned, I think at Tule Lake. Their father was Japanese and their mother was Warm Springs.

L.E. on 31st May 2015 @ 12:57pm

L.E., the Japanese man of whom you write must have been George Danzuka, who married Lorraine Bruno who was a Wasco Indian (I think). They had a bunch of kids, and initially most of the Danzuka family were incarcerated at the Tule Lake War Relocation Authority camp. However, Lorraine and several of the Danzuka kids were released to return to the Warm Springs reservation around 1943, I think.
Around 20 years ago, Sam Danzuka was living at the reservation, and I think that his nephew, Luther Danzuka, died of a rattlesnake bite some time before.
See "Faces of a Reservation: A Portrait of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation" to see a picture of a young Masami Danzuka dancing at a PowWow

Homer Yasui on 2nd June 2015 @ 9:53pm

Yep. Those are the correct names.

L.E. on 2nd June 2015 @ 10:14pm

How do you guys know the names of my grandparents?

Masami Smith on 13th August 2020 @ 7:32pm