(Joseph Yasutake was interviewed together with his sister Mitsuye (Yasutake) Yamada and surviving brother, William Toshio Yasutake, in group sessions on October 8-9, 2002. He was also interviewed individually on October 9, 2002.
Before being contacted by Densho, the Yasutake siblings had planned to conduct their own family history interviews. Individually and jointly, they and other family members had written and gathered material documenting their family history. They shared much of this with me to assist with research and preparation for the Densho interview. Mitsuye's daughter Jeni had coordinated much of the family history work. Jeni participated as a secondary interviewer during the group sessions, October 8-9, 2002.The group interview sessions were conducted in Seattle at the home of Tom Ikeda, executive director of Densho. The oldest Yasutake sibling, Reverend Seiichi Michael Yasutake, had passed away less than a year before the Densho interviewing, in December, 2001. The remaining siblings emphasized that his absence left a gap in their discussion of family history. In addition to Jeni Yamada and videographers Dana Hoshide and John Pai, also present during some portions of the group interview were Tom Ikeda, and Mitsuye Yamada's son Kai Yamada.)","extent":"01:20:38","links_children":"ddr-densho-1000-136","creators":[{"role":"narrator","oh_id":130,"namepart":"Joe Yasutake"},{"role":"interviewer","namepart":"Alice Ito"},{"role":"videographer","namepart":"John Pai"}],"format":"vh","language":["eng"],"contributor":"Densho","rights":"cc","genre":"interview","location":"Seattle, Washington","creation":"October 9, 2002","status":"completed","search_hidden":"Joe Yasutake narrator \nAlice Ito interviewer \nJohn Pai videographer","download_large":"denshovh-yjoe-01-a.jpg"},{"id":"60","model":"narrator","index":"16 1641/{'value': 1655, 'relation': 'eq'}","links":{"html":"https://ddr.densho.org/narrators/60/","json":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/narrator/60/","img":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/narrators/mtomio.jpg","thumb":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/narrators/mtomio.jpg","interviews":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/narrator/60/interviews/"},"display_name":"Tomio Moriguchi","bio":"Ni-ten-gosei (Nisei/Sansei) male. Born April 16, 1936, in Tacoma, Washington. During World War II, was incarcerated with his family at the Tule Lake concentration camp, California. After the war, resettled in Seattle's Nihonmachi, where his father reestablished the family business, Uwajimaya, selling Japanese foodstuff and other items. Worked at Uwajimaya throughout his childhood -- along with his seven brothers and sisters -- prior to and while attending Bailey Gatzert Elementary, Garfield High School, and the University of Washington. Worked at the Boeing Company before leaving to help run Uwajimaya, becoming CEO and President of Uwajimaya in 1965. In addition, actively serves and holds leadership positions in more than 40 civic, social, and professional organizations, and has received numerous honors and awards from both the Nikkei community, and the non-Nikkei mainstream. Uwajimaya is presently the largest food-related Japanese American owned business in the Pacific Northwest, generating over $60 million in annual gross income. It is also remains largely a \"family business,\" employing six out of the seven siblings in key roles."},{"id":"182","model":"narrator","index":"17 1642/{'value': 1655, 'relation': 'eq'}","links":{"html":"https://ddr.densho.org/narrators/182/","json":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/narrator/182/","img":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/narrators/scharles.jpg","thumb":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/narrators/scharles.jpg","interviews":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/narrator/182/interviews/"},"display_name":"Charles Z. Smith","bio":"Born February 23, 1927, in Lakeland, Florida. Left home at age fourteen to live under the educational supervision of Dr. William H. Gray, Jr., attended Florida A & M, and graduated with a degree in business administration from Temple University. Graduated from University of Washington Law School in 1955, then served as law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Matthew W. Hill. Worked as both deputy prosecuting attorney for King County and in private law practice, before moving to Washington, D.C., to take position as Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the United States in the legal field. Justice Smith was appointed to the Washington State Supreme Court in 1988, where he served until his retirement in 2002. Justice Smith received the University of Washington Law School's Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1990, and was appointed by President Clinton to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in 1999. He has also won the Asian Bar Association's Judge of the Year award as well as the Lifetime Service Award from the Washington State Bar Association. During his long and illustrious career, Justice Smith has served on the boards of several Asian American community organizations, and worked on behalf of immigrants' rights."},{"id":"1018","model":"narrator","index":"18 1643/{'value': 1655, 'relation': 'eq'}","links":{"html":"https://ddr.densho.org/narrators/1018/","json":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/narrator/1018/","img":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/narrators/ddr-densho-1000-528_narr.jpg","thumb":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/narrators/ddr-densho-1000-528_narr.jpg","interviews":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/narrator/1018/interviews/"},"display_name":"Frank Abe","bio":"Sansei male. Born 1951 in Cleveland, Ohio. During World War II, father was incarcerated the Pomona Assembly Center, California, and the Heart Mountain concentratin camp, Wyoming. Mother came to the United States from Japan in 1950. Frank grew up in Cleveland, where his parents owned a boarding house. Earned a B.A. in theater directing from the University of California at Santa Cruz and received professional actors' training at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. An original member of the Asian American Theater Workshop in San Francisco. Helped organize the first Day of Remembrance event in Seattle in 1978. Instrumental in creating the National Council for Japanese American Redress in Seattle. Worked as a reporter for KIRO Newsradio in Seattle, and was the co-founder of the Seattle chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association. Later worked as Director of Communications for the King County Executive in Seattle. Filmmaker who made the documentary Conscience and the Constitution with Shannon Gee, author of JOHN OKADA: The Life & Rediscovered Work of the Author of No-No Boy, and lead author of the graphic novel, We Hereby Refuse."},{"id":"1033","model":"narrator","index":"19 1644/{'value': 1655, 'relation': 'eq'}","links":{"html":"https://ddr.densho.org/narrators/1033/","json":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/narrator/1033/","img":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/narrators/ddr-sjacl-2-35_narr.jpg","thumb":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/narrators/ddr-sjacl-2-35_narr.jpg","interviews":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/narrator/1033/interviews/"},"display_name":"Joy Misako S. Germain","bio":"Ana Tanaka and Dr. Kyle Kinoshita led a conversation with Joy Misako St. Germain, detailing how she became involved with JACL and became a Seattle leader. Being one of just a few Japanese American families where she grew up, she felt a deep longing for a sense of community. Her love for Japanese American culture is one of the main factors that led to her moving to the Pacific Northwest. Joy was welcomed into the Seattle Chapter, and quickly became active. Chapter members were very encouraging, and soon she was active in the issues that JACL was engaged in during the 1990's. A clear leader who cared about the organization and was committed to their mission statement, she became chapter president. Joy helped establish many of the organizational structures that helped the Seattle Chapter sustain itself into a new century. Joy is optimistic about the newer generation of JACL activists and the work the organization has done to engage the younger generation. With the renewed focus of allyship with other communities and organizations, she feels as though everyone--the younger and older generations--can learn from each other as the JACL continues its work."},{"id":"ddr-densho-1000-129","model":"entity","index":"20 1645/{'value': 1655, 'relation': 'eq'}","links":{"html":"https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-1000-129/","json":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/ddr-densho-1000-129/","img":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/ddr-densho-1000/denshovh-hbill-01-a.jpg","thumb":"http://ddrmedia.local/media/ddr-densho-1000/denshovh-hbill-01-a.jpg"},"title":"Bill Hosokawa Interview","description":"Nisei male. Born in Seattle on January 30, 1915, and attended Washington grade school, Garfield High School and the University of Washington. He grew up as a typical Nisei, working summers in Alaska salmon canneries and Western Avenue produce brokerages to pay for his education. He became interested in writing at Garfield where he was sports editor of the school paper. While attending the University he worked at the weekly Japanese American Courier published by the late Jimmie Sakamoto. A faculty adviser at the University urged Hosokawa to drop out of the journalism school \"because no newspaper in the country would hire a Japanese boy.\" Hosokawa rejected the advice, but when he graduated in 1937 he found the professor was right. After working as a male secretary writing letters, Hosokawa and his bride, the former Alice Miyake of Portland, Oregon, went to Singapore in 1938 to help launch an English language daily. A year and a half later Hosokawa moved to Shanghai to work on an American-owned monthly magazine, the Far Eastern Review. Then, sensing the inevitability of war, he returned to Seattle in 1941 just five weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor. When war came, Hosokawa served as executive director of Seattle JACL's Emergency Defense Council helping people in the community to cope. He and his family were removed to the Puyallup Assembly Center, Washington. When other Seattleites were moved to Minidoka concentration camp, Idaho, Hosokawa and his wife and infant son were sent to Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Later, he learned he had been separated from his Seattle friends because he was considered a potential troublemaker. He was in Heart Mountain for 14 months, working as editor of the camp newspaper, the Heart Mountain Sentinel, before being released to join the Des Moines, Iowa Register in 1943. In 1946 he moved to Denver to work on the Denver Post. In 38 years at The Post he held such assignments as executive news editor, assistant managing editor and Sunday editor. He covered the Japanese peace treaty in San Francisco in 1951, the Summit meeting in Paris in 1960 and the Zengakuren student riots in Japan that same year. He also had assignments as war correspondent in Korea and Vietnam, and for 17 years was editor of Empire, the Post's prize-winning Sunday magazine. For his last seven years at the Post Hosokawa was editor of the editorial page -- a Japanese American imprisoned during World War II as a potential security risk who now directed the opinion section of a major American newspaper. After retiring from the Post in 1984 he served the Rocky Mountain News as ombudsman columnist for seven years. Hosokawa has taught journalism classes at the University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado and University of Wyoming. He wrote a weekly comment column called \\\"From the Frying Pan\\\" in JACL's weekly Pacific Citizen from 1942 until 1999. Among other honors, Hosokawa is a former president of the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors and a member of that organization's Hall of Fame, a charter member of the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame. He was named JACL's Nisei of the Biennium in 1958, and has published 12 books. Hosokawa and his wife Alice, who died in 1998, had four children.","extent":"03:14:22","links_children":"ddr-densho-1000-129","creators":[{"role":"narrator","oh_id":124,"namepart":"Bill Hosokawa"},{"role":"interviewer","namepart":"Alice Ito"},{"role":"interviewer","namepart":"Daryl Maeda"},{"role":"videographer","namepart":"Dana Hoshide"}],"format":"vh","language":["eng"],"contributor":"Densho","rights":"cc","genre":"interview","location":"Seattle, Washington","creation":"July 13, 2001","status":"completed","search_hidden":"Bill Hosokawa narrator \nAlice Ito interviewer \nDaryl Maeda interviewer \nDana Hoshide videographer","download_large":"denshovh-hbill-01-a.jpg"},{"id":"ddr-densho-122-26","model":"entity","index":"21 1646/{'value': 1655, 'relation': 'eq'}","links":{"html":"https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-122-26/","json":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/ddr-densho-122-26/","img":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/ddr-densho-122/denshovh-hbill-02-a.jpg","thumb":"http://ddrmedia.local/media/ddr-densho-122/denshovh-hbill-02-a.jpg"},"title":"Bill Hosokawa Interview","description":"Nisei male. Born in Seattle on January 30, 1915, and attended Washington grade school, Garfield High School and the University of Washington. He grew up as a typical Nisei, working summers in Alaska salmon canneries and Western Avenue produce brokerages to pay for his education. He became interested in writing at Garfield where he was sports editor of the school paper. While attending the University he worked at the weekly Japanese American Courier published by the late Jimmie Sakamoto. A faculty adviser at the University urged Hosokawa to drop out of the journalism school \"because no newspaper in the country would hire a Japanese boy.\" Hosokawa rejected the advice, but when he graduated in 1937 he found the professor was right. After working as a male secretary writing letters, Hosokawa and his bride, the former Alice Miyake of Portland, Oregon, went to Singapore in 1938 to help launch an English language daily. A year and a half later Hosokawa moved to Shanghai to work on an American-owned monthly magazine, the Far Eastern Review. Then, sensing the inevitability of war, he returned to Seattle in 1941 just five weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor. When war came, Hosokawa served as executive director of Seattle JACL's Emergency Defense Council helping people in the community to cope. He and his family were removed to the Puyallup Assembly Center, Washington. When other Seattleites were moved to Minidoka concentration camp, Idaho, Hosokawa and his wife and infant son were sent to Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Later, he learned he had been separated from his Seattle friends because he was considered a potential troublemaker. He was in Heart Mountain for 14 months, working as editor of the camp newspaper, the Heart Mountain Sentinel, before being released to join the Des Moines, Iowa Register in 1943. In 1946 he moved to Denver to work on the Denver Post. In 38 years at The Post he held such assignments as executive news editor, assistant managing editor and Sunday editor. He covered the Japanese peace treaty in San Francisco in 1951, the Summit meeting in Paris in 1960 and the Zengakuren student riots in Japan that same year. He also had assignments as war correspondent in Korea and Vietnam, and for 17 years was editor of Empire, the Post's prize-winning Sunday magazine. For his last seven years at the Post Hosokawa was editor of the editorial page -- a Japanese American imprisoned during World War II as a potential security risk who now directed the opinion section of a major American newspaper. After retiring from the Post in 1984 he served the Rocky Mountain News as ombudsman columnist for seven years. Hosokawa has taught journalism classes at the University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado and University of Wyoming. He wrote a weekly comment column called \"From the Frying Pan\" in JACL's weekly Pacific Citizen from 1942 until 1999. Among other honors, Hosokawa is a former president of the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors and a member of that organization's Hall of Fame, a charter member of the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame. He was named JACL's Nisei of the Biennium in 1958, and has published 12 books. Hosokawa and his wife Alice, who died in 1998, had four children.","extent":"00:25:36","links_children":"ddr-densho-122-26","creators":[{"role":"narrator","oh_id":124,"namepart":"Bill Hosokawa"},{"role":"interviewer","namepart":"Frank Abe"}],"format":"vh","language":["eng"],"contributor":"Frank Abe Collection","rights":"cc","genre":"interview","location":"Salt Lake City, Utah","creation":"August 4, 1994","status":"completed","search_hidden":"Bill Hosokawa narrator \nFrank Abe interviewer","download_large":"denshovh-hbill-02-a.jpg"},{"id":"115","model":"narrator","index":"22 1647/{'value': 1655, 'relation': 'eq'}","links":{"html":"https://ddr.densho.org/narrators/115/","json":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/narrator/115/","img":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/narrators/fjoseph.jpg","thumb":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/narrators/fjoseph.jpg","interviews":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/narrator/115/interviews/"},"display_name":"Joseph Frisino","bio":"Male of Italian and Irish descent. Born 1919 in Baltimore, Maryland. Grew up in the countryside outside of Baltimore with his parents, younger sister, and maternal grandmother. Raised Catholic, he attended public schools until graduating in 1936 at age seventeen. Began working for the Baltimore News Post in 1937 until the draft of 1940 when he was called to serve one year in the U.S. armed forces. Joined the army at the age of twenty-one, well aware of Hitler's aggression in Europe and fairly certain the U.S. would have to join the war effort to stop him. Went through basic training and was just 2 months away from being discharged at the time of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Mr. Frisino shares his memories of the day Pearl Harbor was bombed and his own personal reaction to the bombing. Went through training as a radio operator, met and married his wife, Harriette, and went through rigorous Officer Candidate School before being shipped overseas to fight for 2 years in the jungles of Burma as a communications supply officer. In 1945, returned home to his wife in Seattle, Washington and began his career at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer where he worked for over 50 years. In this interview, Mr. Frisino shares the memories of his own life, as well as his perspective on issues of race and ethnicity."},{"id":"123","model":"narrator","index":"23 1648/{'value': 1655, 'relation': 'eq'}","links":{"html":"https://ddr.densho.org/narrators/123/","json":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/narrator/123/","img":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/narrators/bpaul.jpg","thumb":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/narrators/bpaul.jpg","interviews":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/narrator/123/interviews/"},"display_name":"Paul Bannai","bio":"Nisei male. Born July 4, 1920, in Delta, Colorado. Grew up in small mining and farming towns in Colorado, Utah and Arizona, until his family moved to Boyle Heights in the Los Angeles, California area. After graduating from high school, he tested discrimination and employment practices and eventually succeeded in obtaining a job at a bank. During World War II, his family was held in Manzanar concentration camp, California. Mr. Bannai joined the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, and was later transferred to the U.S. Military Intelligence Service. He served in New Guinea and elsewhere overseas, was an interpreter for the Allied Translator and Interpreter Service (ATIS), and interpreted at the surrender of Japanese forces at ceremonies in Indonesia. Married and eventually resettled in Gardena, California, where he worked in the floral industry before founding the Bannai Realty and Insurance Company. An extremely active community and civic volunteer, Mr. Bannai joined the Elks Club as well as many veterans' and other organizations. He was elected to the Gardena city council in 1972, and in 1973 was elected to the California State Legislature. In 1980, Mr. Bannai became the executive director of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC). In 1981, he was appointed chief director of the Memorial Affairs Department of the Veterans Administration by President Ronald Reagan."},{"id":"1030","model":"narrator","index":"24 1649/{'value': 1655, 'relation': 'eq'}","links":{"html":"https://ddr.densho.org/narrators/1030/","json":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/narrator/1030/","img":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/narrators/ddr-sjacl-2-30_narr.jpg","thumb":"https://ddr.densho.org/media/narrators/ddr-sjacl-2-30_narr.jpg","interviews":"https://ddr.densho.org/api/0.2/narrator/1030/interviews/"},"display_name":"Theo Bickel","bio":"Elaine Kim and Joy Misako St. Germain interviewed Theo Bickel. Theo's introduction to JACL was as an intern at the National JACL. At a JACL National Convention in Las Vegas, Bill Tashima invited Theo to work with and collaborate with the Seattle JACL Chapter. Theo's focus has been to strengthen communications among JACL members, executive JACL leadership and to encourage community engagement in the work on civil rights and social justice. Theo reflected on one of the most meaningful events for which he helped coordinate which was alongside the Puyallup Valley JACL chapter the 75th anniversary of the Puyallup assembly center, \"Camp Harmony,\" an event that reconnected different generations of Japanese Americans to the site of Camp Harmony where many individuals shared stories which helps with healing through the trauma that incarceration created within the fairground during WWII. Theo shared his thoughts about the importance of the JACL and activism in the fight for justice and eradicating hate created by prejudice. The Seattle JACL chapter serves as a strong platform for making genuine connections with authentic individuals who are committed to enacting social change for the Japanese American, BIPOC and immigrant communities. While many dear JACL friends and colleagues have passed, Theo expressed confidence that the future of the chapter can be transformative in ways that cannot be compared to the past."}],"query":{"query":{"query_string":{"query":"Where","fields":["id","model","links_html","links_json","links_img","links_thumb","links_children","status","public","title","description","contributor","creators","creators.namepart","facility","format","genre","geography","label","language","creation","location","persons","rights","topics","image_url","display_name","bio","extent","search_hidden"],"analyze_wildcard":false,"allow_leading_wildcard":false,"default_operator":"AND"}},"aggs":{"facility":{"nested":{"path":"facility"},"aggs":{"facility_ids":{"terms":{"field":"facility.id","size":1000}}}},"format":{"terms":{"field":"format"}},"genre":{"terms":{"field":"genre"}},"rights":{"terms":{"field":"rights"}},"topics":{"nested":{"path":"topics"},"aggs":{"topics_ids":{"terms":{"field":"topics.id","size":1000}}}}},"_source":["id","model","links_html","links_json","links_img","links_thumb","links_children","status","public","title","description","contributor","creators","creators.namepart","facility","format","genre","geography","label","language","creation","location","persons","rights","topics","image_url","display_name","bio","extent","search_hidden"]}}