First Families : Prized Exhibit on Japan Immigrants to End 2-Year Run

Alien hardships Made bearable by the hope I hold for my children . --Katsuko (pen name of an issei)

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Two years and 100,000 visitors later, an acclaimed exhibition depicting the stirring but forgotten saga of the issei, the first generation of Japanese settlers in the United States, is closing--much to the chagrin of many in the Japanese American community

They are saddened at the prospect of not being able to walk into the Japanese American National Museum and view the exhibit after next week.

“We feel so emotional about it,” said Robert Uragami, 65, whose father’s 1916 letter to his future bride is prominently displayed in the exhibit. “I wish we could have a permanent exhibit honoring our parents.”

“Issei Pioneers: Hawaii and the Mainland, 1885-1924,” closes to the public next Tuesday and will be viewed the following day by Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko as part of their Los Angeles visit.

Even from a practical standpoint, the display will be missed, said Uragami’s wife, Rumi, a volunteer who has guided hundreds of schoolchildren and other visitors through the exhibit.

“We need to show what an issei looks like when we explain to kids,” she said. “If you don’t have something visual to point to, it’s so hard to explain.”

For younger Japanese Americans, the display has been a vehicle for learning more about their own families, and for others, it has contributed to better understanding of the place of Japanese Americans in U.S. history. Many viewers have been astounded to learn that Japanese immigrants have been in the United States for 120 years or that they were interned in camps during World War II solely because of their ancestry, she said.

Most agree about the exhibit’s importance, but there is simply no room at the museum to continue the display and have capacity for upcoming shows. Come July 9, an exhibit about a creative Japanese American family in Berkeley will occupy the space. Officials will put the issei exhibit in storage in the hope that it can be remounted when the museum is able to expand.

In the display are bits and pieces of early settlers’ lives that had been tucked away inside dusty wicker trunks and in boxes in garages, gathered during the 10 years of planning and fund raising. The exhibit includes clothing, tools, photographs, letters, poetry, documents and home movies that were part of the lives of 300,000 early Japanese immigrants who helped build the West.

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The impeccably planned opening event, on April 30, 1992, was overshadowed by the Los Angeles riots, which began the previous night. Because of the timing, that defining moment for the Japanese American community received scant coverage in the mainstream media.

“Issei Pioneers” documents Japanese immigrants as they made America their new home with the single-minded purpose of properly raising their children. Most issei arrived here between 1885 and 1924, when the U.S. government banned immigration from Asia.

The exhibit was both a way for second-generation Japanese Americans--the nisei--to honor their parents and a way to make their history part of the American legacy.

Uragami’s father, Eji, came in 1902, working first as a migrant farmer, then engaging in a variety of occupations, including selling typewriters and running a restaurant.

When it was time for him to marry, he wrote his parents, like other bachelors, for a bride. But unlike most, who sent glowing descriptions of America to lure prospective brides, Eji Uragami, was candid.

“Contrary to what you hear, gold does not grow on every tree in America,” he wrote his future bride, selected by his family. “Life is tough in America.”

The letter did not deter his “picture bride,” who came to join him in Los Angeles two years later. Together, Eji and Kinuyo Uragami worked, often side by side, raising a family of three sons and a daughter, all of whom went to college or trade school.

The elder Uragamis told their American-born children to become “good Americans.” They also brought them up on old-country beliefs and customs. Guiding precepts in the home were gaman , perseverance without complaining, and shikataga-nai, acceptance of a misfortune without rancor, as something that can’t be helped.

“The only time I remember Mother being upset was when my sister complained that her closet was small,” Robert Uragami said.

Along with about 120,000 other people of Japanese ancestry, the Uragamis lost everything during World War II when they were ordered out of their home and business in Los Angeles on a moment’s notice and sent to Granada Relocation Camp in Colorado. But when they returned, everyone pitched in to get back on their feet, practicing gaman and shikataga-nai.

Unlike her husband’s family, Rumi Uragami’s parents, Toyone and Gengoro Tonai, came to Los Angeles in 1920 as newlyweds after her father’s family business failed in Japan.

Her mother was ahead of her time, Uragami remembered recently at the museum with her husband, a retired engineer, and another museum volunteer, David Masuoka, a retired research scientist.

Her mother had completed two years of college in Japan and even managed to learn a little English, at a time when girls were supposed to stay home quietly and prepare for marriage. And she loved singing so much that she found a way to engage in her hobby over her parents’ objections.

“Mother went to a Methodist church so she could sing,” Rumi Uragami said. She never became a Christian, but she went to church and sang to her heart’s content.

Arriving in America, Rumi’s mother promptly traded in her kimono for a Western dress, worked alongside her husband and made sure her American-born offspring--two daughters and three sons--had a better life than she.

“My parents told us we had to be better than anybody--to be equal,” Rumi Uragami said.

Remembering her parents, she said: “There are so many things I want to ask them, but it’s too late.”

With a tinge of sadness and regret in her voice, she said that by the time one is old enough to appreciate one’s parents and family history, they are not around anymore.

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The history of the issei is so compelling that she and her husband have been driving into Little Tokyo several times a week from their home in Costa Mesa to volunteer at the museum.

Pictures taken by David Masuoka’s father, Naoichi, a pioneer photographer, record many activities of a close-knit Los Angeles Japanese community where the immigrants sought refuge from the hostile world that surrounded them. In Los Angeles, many early Japanese settlers lived in Little Tokyo, San Pedro and what today is Koreatown.

The elder Masuoka’s gigantic photos show pioneers at work and play. He recorded such proud moments as the opening of a Japanese hospital, as well as carefree moments such as church picnics and other community activities.

He even took pictures of prospective bridegrooms who wanted to pose in front of his car (a Maxwell) to send to prospective brides, his son said.

David Masuoka says he has an abiding respect for the issei and the legacy they left to their progeny. They were courageous and persevering, he said. “Imagine the courage of people coming to a strange country without knowing the language and customs.”

“The issei were extraordinary people,” said Rumi Uragami, adding that they make good role models not only for today’s Japanese Americans but for other people too.