Beaumont, Texas, July 19 — Tears streamed down the faces of the Japanese Texans as the announcement was read. The Commissioners Court of Jefferson County had voted 4-1 to take down the name “Jap Road” near Fannett, Texas, at the southeastern tip of the state. A tradition going back nearly a century had ended with controversy that reached all the way up to the White House.
In a move towards community reconciliation, current Jap Road residents will submit a new non-offensive name to the county for approval at the end of this month.
Also approved was a historical marker that will explain how the road’s naming was related to Yoshio Mayumi, a Japanese banker, Texas farmer and local benefactor who lost all his American possessions in the 1920s. The Anti-Defamation League, County Commissioner Carl Griffith Jr., and resident and name-change opponent Wayne Wright have offered money to pay for the historical marker.
Public scrutiny of the name started about 15 years ago after Sandra Tanamachi discovered the road while taking her son to a restaurant. Her teenaged son refused to leave the car when he saw the sign “Jap.” She soon began lobbying city, county, state and national officials to change its name.
At the hearing she hugged her now grown son, Tim Nakata. “We won,” said Tanamachi’s mother, Kikuko, “I’m so happy.” All generations had tears in their eyes.
“I imagine all the Japanese,” Tanamachi said with a smile, “can be proud when they travel here, and hold their heads up high.”
Through her federal lobbying, she had elicited a letter of support from President Clinton, but her local efforts concentrating on County Commissioner Mark Domingue — whose district contained 75 percent of Jap Road — didn’t work. Ironically, by the end of debate Domingue was the only commissioner opposed to the name change.
Over 200 residents packed the chambers. The majority — all white — wanted to keep the name, and sat on the left side of the room. Almost all of those wanting a name change were Japanese, black or Jewish.
Jap Road is a ‘Memorial’
Supporters of the name said it was not a racist name, but a memorial to local history. “The people who consider themselves hyphenated Americans are the racists [for making that assumption],” said Jan Dixon.
Many were upset that “outsiders” had lobbied their local government, and some accused them of being “racist” in assuming that the local residents were bigoted. In private discussions and on the public microphone, Japanese Americans were referred to as “Asiatics” and foreigners.
In one heated discussion, an elderly white man used the word “Jap” and said it was not considered or used as a pejorative until outside organizations like the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) labeled the road’s name racist. One resident of the road argued that changing the name would be like being beaten down in one’s own home and then having the ax hung up as a reminder.
‘The Jap on Jap Road’
The road was named after Mayumi who would introduce himself, according to current residents of the area, as “the Jap on Jap Road.” Mayumi was a wealthy banker and landowner in Japan, who bought over 1,734 acres of land near Jap Road in 1905. He taught whites how to farm rice, and brought exotic rice seeds to the region, increasing yields tremendously.
Many whites expressed warmth toward Mayumi, who had allowed their grandparents and great grandparents to ride his car into town for trips to the hospital. He also built a community hall where people used to dance on Saturday nights.
In 1921, the state of Texas passed its Alien Land Law, prohibiting Japanese from owning land. Mayumi soon sold his land to friends and neighbors, and returned to Japan. He died during World War II. A short history of Mayumi and his “man-servant” Shuzo Matsuoko (who remained in Texas) was written for the meeting by an elderly Betty Jean Thornton. She wrote that the Japanese farmers “will always be part of our family.”
WWII Vets Oppose Name
Yeiichi “Kelly” Kuwayama of Washington, D.C., spoke of his battle comrade in the 442nd all-Japanese-American Regimental Combat Team, Saburo Tanamachi, who insisted on carrying the BAR automatic weapon, making him the chief target of Nazi firepower. Saburo Tanamachi was a former resident of Beaumont and was killed while the 442nd was on a mission to rescue the mostly Texan 1st Battalion of the 141st Regiment of the 36th Division in France. Many of the 442nd RCT and many of the rescued battalion wrote letters in support of the name change.
Marion Ferguson, a World War II veteran of the 36th Division, came to the meeting in his wheelchair and connected to his respirator. “They are our brothers,” he said of the Japanese American veterans. “I’ve never seen such resolute and brave soldiers.” Ferguson said before the vote, “I’ll do anything I can to change the name.”
Beaten at the age of 6
Kikuko Tanamachi was born in California and now lives in San Benito, Texas. She recalled how the slur “Jap” was used against her when her family was herded into horse stalls to live during the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II.
“‘Jap, Jap,’ over and over again,” remembers John Tateishi, the national JACL director, describing the last thing he heard while being beaten into unconsciousness at the age of 6 by white teenagers.
George Hirasaki, from Houston, explained that he was constantly verbally harassed as a child until he started fighting back. The 6-foot tall former high school football player said he fought each boy until they all eventually stopped. Hirasaki said he would also work to change the name of Jap Lane in nearby Orange County, where he recalls a substitute bus driver dropping him off and telling him, “You Japs can walk.”
East Texas Racial Legacy
One white supporter of the name change was concerned about the possibility of local children learning to be racist from the sign. Anti-Defamation League attorney Suzi Waldman Gerstenhaber said that vandals painted swastikas on the front door of her family’s Beaumont home some years ago. Local blacks compared their experiences of being called “the n-word” to the pain the Japanese suffer from the road’s name.
Most recently, African American James Byrd was dragged to death in the East Texas city of Jasper. In 1990 Vietnamese American Hung Truong was kicked to death by neo-Nazis in Houston. The Ku Klux Klan burned the boats of Vietnamese shrimpers along the Gulf Coast in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Griffith, concerned about the region’s racist image, voted to change the road’s name in an effort to undo the stereotype of its residents and East Texas’ legacy as one of the most racist areas in the country.