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Chicago Japanese American Historical Society Archive Internship |
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Alexandra Vasilou The Chicago Japanese American Historical Society (CJAHS) is a non- profit group dedicated to preserving the dynamic history of Japanese Americans in Chicago. This blog is dedicated to my experience assisting with the organization's interesting and complex archive. Read More: http://cjahsarchivevasilou.blogspot.com/ Jake Vasilakes My name is Jake Vasilakes and I am an intern at the archive of the Chicago Japanese American Historical Society. I work to organize and preserve historical artifacts and documents as related to Japanese American history from the arrival of the first immigrants to the present day. |
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The Japanese Mutual Aid Society - Montrose Cemetery Film Project |
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The CJAHS is researching and producing a film with the Japanese Mutual Aid Society and Mako Fuwa, an award winning filmmaker, on a documentary focusing on the struggles of the Japanese American community in Chicago to overcome discrimination by cemetery owners before and immediately after World War Two. After the war, people of Japanese descent were released from the concentration camps and ordered to relocate to the larger cities and not return to their former homes on the West Coast. The population of people of Japanese ancestry in Chicago swelled from 300 to about 30,000. The problem of having no place to bury the departed escalated during this post war period. Cemeteries in the Chicago area would not bury people of Japanese ancestry and consequently refused to allow the burial of fallen US Army soldiers of Japanese descent.
The role of the Japanese Mutual Aid Society, who led the fight against burial discrimination, will be highlighted. The focus of the film will be the Montrose Cemetery, one of the only Chicago cemeteries that accepted people of Japanese ancestry, including the veterans, and which is now the site of an annual commemoration on Memorial Day. The film will combine archival material, interviews with surviving family members, the owners of the Montrose Cemetery and Japanese Mutual Aid Society officials. |
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The CJAHS is partnering with Densho on the Japanese American Legacy Project. As part of the Project, CJAHS is helping to collect firsthand video interviews which document the unjust incarceration of the Japanese American during World War Two and consequential resettlement experience to Chicago. The Densho Digital Archive holds over 500 visual histories (more than 1,000 hours of recorded video interviews) and over 10,800 historic photos, documents, and newspapers. Densho.org |
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The Founding of the Chicago Japanese American Historical Society |
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 Shortly after the 1980s’ Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWIRC) hearings in Chicago, Yoji Ozaki led discussion groups for Japanese American senior citizen residents at Heiwa Terrace. These watershed hearings gave psychological permission to former internees to finally discuss their concentration camp experiences. As was the case in many other Japanese American communities, these discussions provided a much needed opportunity to come to terms with past traumatic events. Later, in the early 1990s, Scott La France from the Chicago Historical Society asked the Japanese American community for its help in developing the exhibit “Chicago Goes to War, 1941-45.” Yoji Ozaki responded and the Japanese American story was included in this major exhibit. Following this experience with the community, La France saw a need for formalizing historical documentation and recommended forming a Chicago Japanese American Historical Society.
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Japanese American Team Spirit: The Chicago Nisei Athletic Association |
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"Japanese American Team Spirit," is a multimedia gallery of photos and artifacts from the Chicago Nisei Athletic Association, a collection of sports leagues organized by Japanese American community leaders from the 1940s to the 1980s. The gallery is based on an exhibition which debuted at the Chicago Historical Society in October 2003. It takes a look at the earliest years of the CNAA, showcasing the organization's basketball leagues through archival photos and audio commentary from former participants.
 At the end of World War II, 30,000 Japanese Americans left the internment camps and settled in Chicago. Living in this vast and unfamiliar city, many younger, second generation Japanese Americans or Nisei felt anxious, disoriented, and isolated after making the transition from the concentration camp environment. It was vital that they be able to engage in recreational and social pursuits, have fun and make friends. The Chicago Nisei Athletic Association was formed to meet this demand. The CNAA developed into a hub of activity within the Chicago Japanese American community during the postwar period. CNAA offered basketball, softball, volleyball, bowling, golf, and tennis to hundreds of participants. The organization waned in the second half of the 1950s as its members began growing older and focusing on other things. It witnessed a resurgence in the 1960s, as third generation Japanese Americans or Sansei entered their teen years. Many churches were team sponsors, and groups outside of the Japanese American community, especially Chinese Americans became involved in league play. Swimming and track & field were incorporated as activities, and by 1973, the CNAA even had its own newsletter. After four decades of operation, the organization dissipated in the late 1980s as the last of the Sansei came of age. A successor of sorts, the Sansei-Yonsei Athletic Association, began offering youth sporting activities in a much more limited capacity during the 1990s, and still operates today. Yonsei refers to fourth generation Japanese Americans.
This multimedia gallery takes a look at the earliest years of the CNAA, and showcases the organization's basketball leagues. Each photo is accompanied by a brief audio recording of a former CNAA participant sharing his or her recollections. These recordings are taken from interviews conducted by Alec Yoshio MacDonald in 2004 with Aiko and Yosh Amino, Jane and Richard Hidaka, Tak Hiyama, Tom Mayahara, Jim Matsumoto, Shig Murao, Tsune Nakagawa, and Chiye Tomihiro. Continue to Gallery |
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Census 2000 Portrait of Japanese Americans in Metropolitan Chicago |
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REgeneration Oral History Project: Rebuilding Japanese American Families, Communities, and Civil Rights in the Resettlement Era |
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REgenerations Oral History Project From June 1997-2000, the CJAHS partnered in the “REgenerations Oral History Project” supported by the Japanese American National Museum (JANM). This collaboration with JANM, the Japanese American Historical Society of San Diego, and the Japanese American Resource Center/Museum in San Jose produced community-based oral histories on the post-WWII era (1942-65) when Japanese Americans were struggling to rebuild their lives after their incarceration in America’s concentration camps. The REgenerations’ four-volume set of interviews one each from Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Jose is available locally at the Chicago Historical Society. Information on the REgenerations Oral History Project: http://www.jamsj.org/regen/regeninfo.html University of California website with interviews and information on the REgenerations Project: http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=ft600006bb&query=&brand=calisphere Available at the JANM store: The REgenerations Oral History Project: Rebuilding Japanese American Families, Communities, and Civil Rights in the Resettlement Era: http://janmstore.com/23000x.html |
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