After 59 years, interned Japanese Americans receive diplomas
By Associated Press
In 1942, George Kurose would have been the valedictorian at Graduation ceremonies at Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Wash.
Instead, he was hundreds of miles away in California, forced by the U.S. government into a dusty and desolate internment camp for Japanese Americans.
Now, nearly 59 years later, Tacoma school officials say they’re doing what they can to amend this dark chapter in American history. Last week, they sent Kurose and nine other Japanese Americans their diplomas.
“It’s nice to have, especially at my age,” says Kurose, now 76 and living in Norwalk, Conn. “It’s a nice gesture on their part ... even at this late date.”
Kurose was one of 120,000 Japanese-Americans sent to camps in the West during World War II. Most from Tacoma were sent in May 1942 to Pinedale Assembly Center near Fresno; then to Tule Lake in Northern California; and finally to Minidoka in Idaho.
At Pinedale, Kurose and his Japanese American classmates staged a commencement — with no gowns, no Pomp and Circumstance and no diplomas. If Lincoln High School sent diplomas, the documents were lost in transit. Japanese Americans from Tacoma’s Stadium High School received theirs.
“I don’t think anything was taken away from me, except for the opportunity to give a speech,” Kurose, a retired chemical engineer, told The News Tribune of Tacoma.
Kurose, who earned a 3.87 grade-point average, said he wasn’t bothered by not having an actual diploma.
Two of his classmates were, however: Joe Seto, who now lives in Los Angeles, and George Hayashi of Seattle. Seto and Tacoma historian Ron Magden wrote school officials asking them to issue diplomas.
Lincoln Principal Grant Hosford was one of several district officials to research the request.
“I felt it was really an honor for Lincoln to be able to go back and issue more diplomas,” Hosford said.
The school had new diplomas made, based on the 1942 documents. They were dated Feb. 19, 2001, 59 years to the day after President Franklin Roosevelt signed the order authorizing the internment camps.
Classmate Henry Matsui said he couldn’t remember whether he received a diploma in 1942, but he appreciated school officials’ effort.
“After all these years, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “They took our rights away. I know it wasn’t right. I was an American citizen born here. Of course we were fighting Germans, they didn’t intern Germans on the East Coast, like Japanese on the West Coast. You know there was prejudice there.”
Four of the men’s Japanese American classmates have died. The others receiving diplomas are: Tomio T. Horita, of Evanston, Ill.; Jerry T. Kikuchi, of Westminster, Calif.; Alice Y. (Kubo) Okada, of New York; Kiyoshi Taki, of Seattle; Masato T. Toki, of San Francisco; and Kunio Urushibata, of El Cerrito, Calif. |
