From the Desk of Consul General Osumi

 


  　On November 13, 2023, then-Foreign Minister Kamikawa came to San Francisco Japantown to meet with leaders of the Japanese American community. At the time, I said, “I have also heard that as generations pass, the Nikkei identity as a whole has been diluted. For Japan, Nikkei communities have special historical ties with Japan, and for us at the Consulate, they are first and foremost partners. I strongly feel that we should not take their presence and activities for granted but maintain and strengthen our relationship with them.” (Consul General’s Essay 1) Based on our awareness of this issue, we held a “NextGen Japan-US Innovation” networking event on March 13 this year at the Japan Innovation Campus in Palo Alto to connect young Japanese Americans with Japanese residents and “friends of Japan” (Consul General’s Essay 9), and followed that up with a second event along with our partner organizations, “Nikkei NexGen 2 – Networking in SF Japantown” on November 22 in San Francisco. It was wonderful to see people from the younger generations mingling, and we hope to continue to strengthen these community bonds.  
 
　It’s been roughly 170 years since Commodore Perry first arrived in Japan, bringing our two distant countries together. And although the United States and Japan fought each other 80 years ago, today we stand together as steadfast allies. The Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco opened in 1870 and was the first Japanese diplomatic missions abroad—I am the 57th head of mission here at our office. In modern Japanese history, the port of San Francisco has been the gateway to the United States and the rest of the world, and the influence of our predecessors is still visible in this region. I have always felt that the current Japan-U.S. relationship exists thanks to the work of previous generations, and that Japanese nationals owe their peaceful and comfortable life here in California to the strenuous efforts of Japanese Americans and to the respect they gained throughout the course of modern history. As such, I believe it is the duty of our generation to learn about this past, and so whenever I meet with Japanese citizens living here in California, I always try to raise this topic.
   In this essay, I will introduce 11 places relevant to this history, in approximate historical order, and share my experiences with them. It is my earnest hope that you will visit some or all of them if having not been there yet.


1. Monument commemorating the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Japanese naval ship Kanrin Maru in San Francisco (Lincoln Park, San Francisco)
　In Lincoln Park, right next to the Legion of Honor, there is a magnificent stone monument commemorating the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Japanese ship, Kanrin Maru, in San Francisco in 1860. Upon my arrival in San Francisco in autumn 2023, I visited this site, which overlooks the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge didn’t exist when those leaders who helped build modern Japan such as Captain Katsu Kaishu, Fukuzawa Yukichi, and John Manjirō sailed into the San Francisco Bay after their gruelingly long voyage across the Pacific. I wondered what went through their minds, gazing over the hills on both sides.

   In 1860, the Tokugawa Shogunate dispatched an envoy to exchange ratifications of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Japan and the U.S. As an accompanying ship of the USS Powhatan, the Kanrin Maru spent 37 days on the Pacific. On its way to San Francisco, it stopped in Honolulu, and the Hawaiian King Kamehameha IV give the crew an audience.

   On March 9th 1860 (in the historical Japanese lunisolar calendar), the official record states, “At early dawn, we descried the dim light from the lighthouse on a foothill at the entrance to the Bay of San Francisco. A gun was fired from our ship as a signal for the pilot.” (Diary of the first Japanese embassy to the United States: compiled by the Japan-America Society).
   Afterwards, at a banquet on shore, Vice Ambassado Muragaki Norimasa wrote, “The sound of a bottle of champagne being cut open is like the sound of a cannon,” and that the rare hospitality of their foreign hosts made him feel as if he were in a dream.
   To express this feeling, he wrote a poem:
“A rare party by our foreign hosts makes me wonder if a hermit lives in this kind of cozy shack.”
   Later, after gazing up at the moon, he wrote:
“Even in distant lands it is the same heavens, the same moon we gaze at through the misty night sky.”
   The last poem alludes an ancient poem by Abe Nakamaro who became a senior official in Tang dynasty China in the eighth century. He wrote about a memory of the moon over his home in Nara, Japan, to which he could never return from the Tang dynasty’s capital in Xi’an.

Next, here are four short stories about the Kanrin Maru:

1) The stone monument was donated by Osaka City, which entered into a sister-city relationship with the City of San Francisco in 1957, and it bears the name of former Mayor Mitsuji Nakai. On the back of the monument is engraved the following inscription:
“Presented to the city of San Francisco by its sister city Osaka as a token of its sincere desire to further strengthen the ties of friendship and goodwill between the United States and Japan and as part of the program to mark the centennial celebration of the opening of their diplomatic relations.”
   This monument symbolizes the spirit of the postwar era, when Japan-U.S. relations were revitalized. Besides this monument, the City of Osaka has contributed greatly to grassroots exchange with San Francisco.

2) Despite the Shogunate’s prohibition on overseas travel, prominent clans would send their promising youth abroad to ensure their clan’s growth and survival. Among these are the famous “Chōshū Five,” which included Hirobumi Itō, future Prime Minister of Japan, from the Chōshū clan, as well as the “Satsuma Nineteen,” which included Mori Arinori, the first Education Minister, and Nagasawa Kanae, who was called the “Wine King of California” before World War II. As described in Consul General’s Essay 13, President Reagan mentioned Nagasawa in his speech to the Japanese Diet in 1983. Nagasawa himself could not inherit his vast empire when he died in 1934, but the seedlings that Nagasawa developed saved Ridge Vineyards, one of the leading brands of California Wine, when its grape cultivation struggled to recover after Prohibition was finally lifted. In the 1980s, Ridge Vineyards was acquired by Otsuka Pharmaceutical, and I was told that Otsuka Pharmaceutical has invested in a hotel in Tokushima called Hotel Ridge, where Ridge Vineyards’ wine is served in the hotel’s restaurant, which is called “California Table.”

3) For John Manjirō, his journey on the Kanrin Maru marked a return to the land he had left ten years prior. Manjiro was born in Tosa Province in 1827. When he was 14 years old, he went fishing with his friends and got lost, ending up stranded at Torishima, an uninhabited island near the Ogasawara Islands. He survived for 143 days by catching albatrosses and eating them raw, before being rescued by an American whaling ship. After that, Manjirō was brought to the U.S. and studied there before sailing around the world.
   He could never suppress his longing to return home, and thus in 1850 he came to California, joined in the Gold Rush, and earned enough money to make his way back to Japan. He was imprisoned right away because overseas travel had long been prohibited in Japan, but Commodore Perry’s forcible opening of Japan in 1853-54 upended that prohibition. The needs of the time instantly called for his special set of skills, and so he got aboard the Kanrin Maru and returned to San Francisco in 1860 as an interpreter and experienced navigator (see Consul General’s Essay 5).

4) To the very right of the entrance to Pier 9 is a plaque commemorating the 150th anniversary of diplomatic ties between Japan and the United States. While the plaque may seem small compared to the monument celebrating the 100th anniversary, it remains a permanent fixture on the streets of San Francisco. It’s said the Kanrin Maru was moored between Piers 7 and 9, near Vallejo Street Wharf.
 
2. Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony (Gold Hills, El Dorado County, Near Sacramento)
　 Almost two and half hours by car from San Francisco, beyond Sacramento and up the headwaters of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, you can find where the Gold Rush began. Not far from there is the Wakamatsu Colony, which commemorates the first Japanese settlement in the United States. I visited the site on October 29th , amidst the autumn foliage. The name “Wakamatsu” here doesn’t reference a person, but rather Aizu Wakamatsu, a city in Fukushima Prefecture.
   Barely eight years after the Kanrin Maru arrived in San Francisco, the Meiji Restoration shook Japan. In the Battle of Aizu, one of the fiercest battles in the Boshin war, the Aizu clan was defeated by forces representing the new government. In May 1869, Henry Schnell, a Prussian who sold arms to the Aizu Daimyō and had been given the Japanese name of Hiramatsu Buhei by the Aizu Daimyō, traveled to San Francisco along with his Japanese wife and several Aizu samurai and their families, bringing with them 50,000 mulberry trees and silk worms and 60,000 tea plant seeds. From San Francisco, it’s believed they traveled by boat upriver to Sacramento, eventually arriving at this spot nestled amidst the mountains.
   However, soon after that, the Schnell family disappears from the record, and in less than two years the colony collapsed. I Most of the members ultimately returned to Japan, but Itou Okei, a nursemaid who had travelled with Schnell family, died tragically at the young age of 19. A tombstone for Okei was later erected by the other Japanese who stayed in California.
   I can imagine that after being cast out from their home in Aizu Wakamatsu’s Tsuruga Castle, as they adjusted to their new lives deep in the Sierra Nevada with coyotes’ cries in the air, these samurai must have been filled with a deep sense of longing. I wonder what Okei was thinking as she met her end so far from home. I don’t think she could have imagined how her name would become part of history after so many years.
   The house where the colony was located was owned by the Veerkamp family, who took over the land following the colony’s collapse, and the site is now maintained by the American River Conservancy, which acquired it in 2010. Ms. Melissa Lobach, a key player in the project, told us that they bought the land as part of an effort to preserve the nature and river in the area, but that due to the 2008 financial crisis and the Great East Japan Earthquake, they couldn’t raise the full amount necessary at the time and are still paying off the debt. Despite initially having no knowledge of Japanese-American issues, Ms. Lobach has since visited Japan many times, deepening her understanding, and now speaks more in depth about the Aizu Clan than most Japanese people. The Aizu clan’s crest was displayed in the memorial hall, and in 2019 the site held a commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Wakamatsu Colony, receiving a visit from the descendant of the Aizu Matsudaira Clan. I imagine Okei-san would be pleased to hear this.     
   Also in attendance at the 150th anniversary commemoration was the 19th head of the Tokugawa clan, along with descendants of the samurai who had been part of the Wakamatsu Colony. A group photo of them with then-Consul General Uyama is still on display at the site. We owe a debt to the volunteers who have maintained the memorial hall in such a remote place. We are grateful to them and feel that we should do what we can to support them.
 

3. San Francisco Japantown
　San Francisco Japantown is one of San Francisco’s most famous landmarks, bustling with people every weekend. And there is no place that better symbolizes the struggles, and successes, of the Japanese American community.
   San Francisco was transformed by the Gold Rush, growing from a small population of 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 in 1849. In 1852 the Wells Fargo Bank was established, and the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, and the iconic cable cars were first installed in 1873. However, sentiment against Chinese immigrants, who had been active in the labor force, intensified, leading to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882.
   According to an 1874 report by Takagi Saburo, former Vice Consul at the Consulate General in San Francisco, there were only “68 Japanese, including 8 women and 4 children, in California” at that time. But shortly thereafter, Japanese immigration began in earnest, and by 1910 the Japanese population had increased dramatically to 72,157. After the 1906 earthquake, Japanese immigrants moved to a relatively undamaged part of the city, forming what would become Japantown. But by then, it was the Japanese community which was in a position to experience its own story of ostracization.
   Kinmon Gakuen, which I have visited several times since last year, is a school for the Japanese community established in 1911, located in a corner of Japantown. San Francisco city authorities prohibited Japanese children from attending public schools on the pretext that many school buildings were overcrowded after sustaining damage in the Great Earthquake. While that policy was rescinded by the 1907 Japan-US Gentlemen’s Agreement, in the midst of this kind of prejudice, Kinmon Gakuen was established by the local Japanese American community as an educational organization for children.
   After the outbreak of war in 1941, it became a place to register Japanese Americans before they were sent to incarceration camps, and after the war, it became not only a school but also a community venue, where Japanese movies were shown for the Nikkei community and neighborhood children. In 1960, the then-Crown Prince and Princess (now Their Majesties the Emperor Emeritus and Empress Emerita) visited the school. Although the building has deteriorated and is currently undergoing a renovation campaign, it has been designated as a historical site. Standing in the old auditorium, I could almost hear the chatter of anxious families preparing to head to the incarceration camps and the echoes of children’s laughter after the war. I could feel the weight of more than 100 years of history.After the war, Japantown faced city-led “redevelopment” efforts involving large-scale forced evictions and land seizure, leading to its current state. The center of the redevelopment was a mall (known today as the Japan Center Malls) next to Peace Plaza, which itself featured a five-story pagoda donated by Osaka City. Additionally, a large-scale commercial facility called the Japanese Cultural & Trade Center built by Kintetsu and other large corporations, as well as a hotel and theater, all opened in 1968. The Consulate General was also located in Japantown at that time. The first Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival was held to celebrate this event, and this year marked the 57th Cherry Blossom Festival. I was honored to participate and wrote about it earlier this year (Consul General’s Essay 8). The block around the Buchanan Mall was developed under community leadership, and Osaka Way, named for San Francisco’s first sister city, includes the Origami Fountains, created by Ruth Asawa, the celebrated second-generation Japanese American sculptor and artist.
   In 1994, then-Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko visited Nihonmachi Little Friends and the Japanese Cultural Community Center of Northern California (JCCCNC). Former Foreign Minister Kamikawa also visited in 2023 (Consul General’s Essay 2). KIMOCHI, a senior care center, can also be found in Japantown. This neighborhood is very much alive today, acting as a hub for all aspects of Japanese American life.
   While the Japantown Bowl closed in 2000 and Kintetsu, the previous owner of the mall, fully withdrew in 2006, groups like the Japantown Task Force and Japantown Community Benefit District remain active. I hope that the Consulate can also lend its support to ensure that historical Japantown continues to shine.

 

4. San Jose Japantown and Japanese American Museum of San Jose
　If the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles is the “national” museum, then the Japanese American Museum in San Jose is its local—but no less impressive—counterpart.
Much as was the case in San Francisco, the first Japanese people to live in San Jose settled near Chinatown, which remains the basis for the San Jose Japantown of today. Despite being a hub of Silicon Valley and boasting an even greater population than San Francisco today, in the early days, San Jose was almost entirely farmland, and the Japanese immigrants who moved to area worked mainly in agriculture, replacing the Chinese population which had been aging and shrinking due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Japanese immigrants worked in agriculture not only for economic reasons, but also to avoid military service in the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars. Some also immigrated to San Jose after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
   Norman Mineta, Secretary of Commerce during the Clinton administration from 2000 to 2001, Secretary of Transportation during the Bush administration from 2001 to 2006, and the first Japanese American to serve as a U.S. Cabinet secretary, was a native of San Jose Japantown. Mineta’s father moved to San Jose and began working in insurance in 1919, after a bout of Spanish flu which left him unable to work in agriculture. Mineta’s father told his son to “contribute to the community,” and a mentor of his told him that “the internment of the Japanese must never happen again. The problem was that we didn’t have access to people in public office.” Mineta would go on to become the first Asian-American mayor of San Jose and a U.S. Congressman (1975-95), and was the first person to shake President Reagan’s hand after President’s formal signing of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which provided reparations and a formal apology to Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II.
   In 2019, I was in Tokyo to assist with the coronation of Emperor Naruhito, and Mr. Mineta was a member of the Japanese American delegation that came to Japan to attend the enthronement ceremony. I wonder what Mr. Mineta, who had lived through the turbulent Showa era, was thinking as he watched the ceremony that marked the beginning of the Reiwa era. Sadly, Mr. Mineta passed away in 2022, but his hometown airport was renamed the Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport in honor of his achievements.
   The Japanese American Museum in San Jose opened as Japanese American Resource Center/Museum in November 1987 because of the efforts by local Japanese Americans to preserve the history and identity of Japantown amidst a wave of urbanization. The museum includes a display of pre-war farm machinery used on the Sakauye farm, a recreation of an incarceration camp, and pre-war maps showing various Japantowns around the Bay Area. This was all expertly explained to me by Mr. Michael Sera, former chairman of the museum board. Among the farming machinery, there is a machine developed to improve the efficiency of strawberry harvesting and shipping, and a handmade device made to cut broccoli stems. The skill and ingenuity of the Japanese Americans really amazed me.
   The actual incarceration camps are located in very remote areas, so it’s not easy to visit them, but the museum’s recreation gives you a sense of what it would be like to be forced into such an environment. Mr. Sera spoke about these heavy topics in an accessible manner, and even my son, a middle school student who is not normally enthusiastic about museums, was absorbed by his lecture. You can read the explanations of these exhibits, but it is even more interesting to listen to a guided tour, so I recommend that you make a reservation.
   Finally, San Jose Japantown has a very “hometown” feel. Groups such as the San Jose Japantown Community Congress (JCCsj) and Yu-Ai Kai, a senior care organization, play an active role in the community and add their own unique character to the neighborhood. Compared to the other two existing Japantowns (San Francisco and Los Angeles), the San Jose Japantown is small, but when you walk down the street you see community members talking and laughing, enjoying each other’s company.

5. Angel Island (San Francisco Bay)
　On November 15th, I visited Angel Island. The walls of the facility still bear inscriptions from Japanese Americans and Japanese interned here, keeping the memories of that time fresh. Before the war, Japanese nationals were second only to Chinese in terms of number of people who underwent immigration screening here, and President of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation Board of Directors Darlene Chiu Bryant, AIISF Executive Director Ed Tepporn, and Ranger Casey Dexter-Lee told their stories with grace and care. In October 2024, approximately 250 people visited Angel Island as part of the sixth biennial Nikkei Angel Island Pilgrimage organized by the Nichi Bei Foundation.
   The 1907 U.S.-Japan Gentlemen’s Agreement restricted Japanese immigration to the U.S. However, since spouses could still immigrate, more than 20,000 “Picture brides” came to the United States after finding partners by exchanging photographs through relatives in Japan. This practice continued until the Immigrant Act of 1924 was passed. Angel Island was an immigration screening site for the Pacific region from 1910 to 1940, so it is likely that many of the picture brides passed through here. The most famous of these was Ms. Kane Watanabe, who married Kunisaku Mineta and became Norman Mineta’s mother. Kane was questioned on January 20, 1914. When asked when, where, and how she was married, Kane reported that she was “married in Japan by photograph in April, 1912.” On display at Angel Island is a document from Kunisaku verifying that he could support his new wife and a letter from Yasutaro Numano, acting Consul General of Japan, certifying that Kunisaku was “a man of good character.” The Issei who passed through here formed families and created the Nisei generation, making Angel Island an important place in the history of Japanese Americans. Angel Island was also the detention site for approximately 700 Japanese American “dangerous elements,” mainly from Hawaii, in the early days of the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
   In addition, Japanese Navy Ensign Sakamaki Kazuo was briefly detained here as the first POW to be captured by US forces after his submarine ran aground during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Sakamaki returned to Japan after the war and joined Toyota, even serving as president of Toyota’s Brazilian subsidiary. In an interview in 1977, Sakamaki said, “You can’t just toss away the fact that you lived, the fact that your birth had meaning, to die like some dog. After all, if we are alive, we must cherish that life. As Japanese, and as human beings, we must live in a meaningful way.” In 1991, the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, he traveled to the U.S. and was reunited with his submarine, which was preserved in a museum in Texas.

 

6. MIS Historic Learning Center(Presidio, San Francisco)
　As you drive down 101 and approach the Presidio and Golden Gate Bridge, on your right will be the Military Intelligence Service Historic Learning Center. The center was originally a bunker where Cessna planes could be stored, so it is a spacious facility. The National Japanese American Historical Society, headquartered in San Francisco Japantown, operates this center.
   When my eldest son, a university student living in Japan, was here for a short stay, he had an opportunity to listen to Ms. Naomi Shibata, a storyteller at MIS. He praised it as “the best museum experience I have ever had” and recommended that I also listen to her story. On November 17th, I visited the museum with the Dutch Consul General, his wife, and the Australian Consul General. Over the course of three hours, we were briefed on history in detail.
   Presidio means “fort” in Spanish, and there are several “presidios” located on the northward path from San Diego to Santa Barbara and eventually Monterey, and in former Spanish territories in Mexico. The Presidio of San Francisco was built in 1776 and was the northernmost fort. It survived as an army base until the end of the Cold War, serving as a strategic point overlooking the mouth of the Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge.
   The Military Intelligence Service was established by the U.S. Army in secret to prepare for the war against Japan, and was a training school for Japanese speakers for military missions. The first class of students began their studies in November 1941, but due to the outbreak of war the one-year course was shortened to six months. In May 1942, 40 Japanese American students and 2 Caucasian students graduated.
   The former group was made up mostly of “Kibei,” who were Nisei sent by their parents to Japan to study as an “insurance policy,” since their parents did not have U.S. citizenship. The latter were the sons of missionaries and English teachers who had lived in Japan. The school was moved to Minnesota shortly thereafter, and the subsequent 6,000 graduates were active on the Pacific front in calling for surrender, interrogating prisoners of war, and translating Japanese military documents, “bringing the war to an end two years earlier and saving the lives of one million American soldiers.” (Testimony from the Nisei Veterans Committee, 1985, taken from First Class: Nisei Linguists in WWII) According to Ms. Shibata, there was an incident where a Japanese soldier, bound by his military duty to sacrifice his life rather than be captured, was convinced to surrender by an American Nisei soldier. Both men had been farmers prior to the war, and the Nisei convinced the Japanese soldier to surrender by asking him, “If you die here, who will plow the fields of your home?”
   Ms. Shibata told us that it was thanks to the efforts of those first some 40 graduates that the image of Japanese Americans improved during a time of fierce discrimination, particularly in the military. Without their dedicated service, it’s possible that the 442nd Infantry Regiment—the most decorated regiment in U.S. military history, composed almost entirely of Nisei soldiers—would never have been put together, and there might not have been a place for Japanese Americans in US society following the war. “What made it possible were the virtues of courage and perseverance that ran through them,” she said.
   Upon welcoming the 442nd back home in July 1946, President Truman declared, “You fought not only the enemy, but also prejudice—and you won.” However, the reception of their efforts was not uniformly positive. The 442nd also participated in the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau on the European front, but their efforts are conveniently missing from the U.S. military's archival footage, according to a documentary film “Defining Courage”. Their families were also subjected to the dishonor of being forced into 75 facilities, including 10 large incarceration camps across the U.S., in violation of the U.S. government’s Constitutional provision. In these camps, Issei without U.S. citizenship were interned as “Japanese” and Nisei with U.S. citizenship as “non-Japanese.” The Nikkei community’s fight continued until 1988, when then-President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.
   Shortly after the war started, MIS facilities were moved to Minnesota, where Edwin Reischauer, who served as Ambassador to Japan in the 1960s, studied. The Navy established a language school at UC Berkeley to teach Japanese mainly to non-Japanese Americans, and Dr. Donald Keene, a leading authority on Japanese culture who became a naturalized Japanese citizen after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, also studied there. MIS and the Naval Language School were then merged to form the Defense Language Institute (DLI), which is now located in the Presidio of Monterey here in California.
   When I visited the DLI in September, I had a chance to see the Japanese language class and learned that the school was designed to train liaison officers for the Japan-U.S. Alliance. Young soldiers in uniform from the four military branches were role-playing a scenario in which they were on business in Tokyo and had to catch a taxi after drinking at an evening banquet. In addition to Japanese, there are hundreds of students learning Chinese, as well as Russian, Korean, Farsi, and Arabic. The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ special language training program also has a strong connection with DLI. Looking down on the Pacific Ocean seen from the hilltop of the Presidio of Monterey, you get a sense of how truly unpredictable the course of history can be.

7. 442nd Nisei Exhibit（Alameda）
　Alameda, located across the bay from San Francisco and south of Berkeley and Oakland, was home to a large Navy base from 1940 to 1997, and was a major presence in the Bay Area, along with the Army base in the Presidio. Silicon Valley itself was historically driven by military industries.
The decommissioned aircraft carrier USS Hornet is moored at Alameda and is open to the public as a museum. The original Hornet participated in the Battle of Midway and was ultimately sunk in the South Pacific. The current Hornet was commissioned in November 1943, and joined a number of engagements, including the Battle of Leyte, the Battle of Mariana, and the Battle of Okinawa. After the war, she was based in Alameda until she was decommissioned in 1970, and even worked to recover the Apollo 11 astronauts at sea on their return.
   The 442nd Nisei Exhibit is located in one corner of the Hornet. On January 29, I asked Morgan Hill resident Brian Shiroyama, Vice President of the Friends and Family Association of Nisei Veterans (FFNV), to accompany me and a business group visiting from Tokyo to the exhibit. While it is a small part of the vast aircraft carrier, it’s an effective and compact exhibit that introduces the 442nd Regiment, MIS, and Japanese American incarceration. Due to the location of the exhibition in the middle of a decommissioned naval ship, one feels a variety of emotions looking through it.
   With the incarceration of Japanese Americans, many were forced to sell their furniture for a fraction of its real value before being first taken to a repurposed stable and then to a hastily assembled camp in the wilderness, carrying only the clothes on their back. I can't even begin to imagine the physical and emotional hardships they endured. Many Northern California residents were sent to the Topaz camp in Utah, and many Southern California residents were sent to the Manzanar camp in the mountains near the Nevada border. The Japanese Chamber of Commerce of Northern California (JCCNC) sponsors a biennial pilgrimage to Manzanar, the last one being held in 2023.


8. War Memorial Opera House(San Francisco)
　San Francisco’s opera house bears the impressive title of “War Memorial Opera House.” Although there is little trace today other than its name and photographs commemorating the event inside the building, this was the site of the signing of the 1951 Peace Treaty with Japan (San Francisco Peace Treaty).
On September 7, 1951, then-Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru opened his speech with the following:
“The peace treaty before the Conference contains no punitive or retaliatory clauses; nor does it impose upon Japan any permanent restrictions or disabilities. It will restore the Japanese people to full sovereignty, equality, and freedom, and reinstate us as a free and equal member in the community of nations. It is not a treaty of vengeance, but an instrument of reconciliation. The Japanese Delegation gladly accepts this fair and generous treaty.”

   He then read from a 30-yard long scroll of his speech in Japanese. This was an important moment for us today, as it marked a new beginning, displaying the new direction of the nation of Japan in the years to come.
At the signing, J.R. Jayewardene, who represented Ceylon at the conference and later became president of Sri Lanka, announced his renunciation of claims for compensation against Japan, quoting the Buddha's words, “Hatred ceases not by hatred, but by love.” In response to the Soviet Union's insistence that peace be conditional on the return of Okinawa and the Ogasawara Islands, he asked, “Then why does the Soviet Union not return the Southern Sakhalin and Kuril Islands to Japan?”
Jayewardene closed his speech with the following:
“We extend to Japan a hand of friendship, and trust that with the closing of this chapter in the history of man, the last page of which we write today, and with the beginning of the new one, the first page of which we dictate tomorrow, her people and ours may march together to enjoy the full dignity of human life in peace and prosperity.”

   The founding conference of the United Nations, which was mentioned in Prime Minister Yoshida's speech, was held at the Opera House from April to June 1945 (the UN Charter was signed at the Herbst Theater next door). San Francisco made a bid to become the home of the UN Headquarters, but lost out to New York, in part because European countries wanted it closer. Thus, the signing of the treaty in San Francisco was something of a consolation prize for the city.


9. Golden Gate Club(Presidio, San Francisco)
　After signing the Peace Treaty at the Opera House in the morning of September 8, 1951, Prime Minister Yoshida moved to the Sixth Military Command Presidio in the afternoon. According to Nishimura Kumao, then-Director General of the Treaty Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, after Prime Minister Yoshida's speech of acceptance of the Peace Treaty on the 7th, the U.S. delegates notified him that “the treaty will be signed at 5 p.m. on the 8th.” Explaining that “The Security Treaty is unpopular. It won’t be a good look for the other politicians here to sign it, so I will sign it alone,” Yoshida got into his car and rode up the steep hills of San Francisco, passing through the gate of the army base that was the heart of the former enemy's military operations against Japan. For a proud prewar diplomat like Yoshida, one can only imagine what must have been going through his mind. I assume that he rode in with the single-minded determination to regain independence and control its own future.
   The Golden Gate Club was erected in 1949 as a club for junior officers. It is a scenic facility overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge that now serves as a wedding hall. There are few reminders of the post-war era, but if you go through the main entrance and to the left, you will suddenly come upon a large photograph of Prime Minister Yoshida signing his name while Secretary of State Atchison, Special Envoy Dulles, and other U.S. envoys look on. To the right is a picture of the signing of the ANZUS Treaty (Mutual Defense Treaty between the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand), which occurred on September 1st, 1951, one week before the signing of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty. 　
   The Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, revised in 1960, determined the basic structure of Japan's postwar diplomacy and security. As someone who worked in the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty Section when I was young, I have long held a particular interest in this treaty.

10. Maritime Museum (Marina District, San Francisco)
　In 1962, a short 17 years after the war and 11 years after the signing of the aforementioned treaties, a young man named Horie Kenichi made a solo voyage across the Pacific Ocean on the Mermaid, a ship only 6 yards long. Before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and even before the legalization of private international sea travel, Horie, alone, set sail secretly from Nishinomiya Port near Kobe, and on a Sunday afternoon 94 days later, passed under the Golden Gate Bridge. Horie, in his words, arrived in the United States with “No Passport, No English, and No Money.” Whenever I talk about his journey with Americans or Japanese people, everyone is of course impressed—but then when I tell them that in 2022, at the age of 83, he sailed solo from San Francisco back to Japan, there’s a stunned silence. I would then always be quick to turn to anyone older who’s listening and joke, “No retirement for you!”
   The Mermaid is on display in the Maritime Museum in the city's Marina district. As an amateur sailor myself, I was impressed by just how small the ship was and all the different equipment it carried. At the same time, I felt a deep respect for the young Horie for taking a step to make his dream of crossing the Pacific a reality. Nowadays, we often hear calls for young people to go out into the world, to have a pioneering spirit, and to start their own businesses, but we can look to Mr. Horie for inspiration—he was fearless and greatly ambitious, and he realized his dreams.
  
　During the summer, I had the opportunity to take a ride out to sea on a yacht. As I looked around at the beautiful San Francisco Bay from the deck, I was moved by the thought that this is the kind of scenery young Horie must have seen. One of the sailors on board told me that he had assisted Horie when he came in 2022, and that he took the trouble to send Mr. Horie a copy of one of my essays. To my surprise, Mr. Horie then reached out and emailed me! He wrote that after he arrived on Sunday, August 12, 1962, the then Consulate General Yamanaka looked after him during his month in San Francisco, and that the Consul General had assisted him in donating the Mermaid to the City of San Francisco, where it has been well preserved and displayed these many years. Hearing this from someone I looked up to so much filled me with real childlike happiness.

 

11. Japanese Cemetery in Colma (Colma)
　When I speak to the older generations here, I feel that no matter their success in life, everyone is considering where they would like to be put to rest. It is not something we think about while we are young and healthy, but for someone with finite time, it is a serious matter. It’s also an extremely important issue for society, and in terms of creating a connection between generations. It is no wonder that every Consul General of San Francisco begins their work with a visit to the Colma Japanese Cemetery.
   Colma is a town of cemetaries. As San Francisco experienced a rapid growth in population due to the Gold Rush, it urgently needed a place to bury its dead. Colma became that place. Japanese immigration had been continuing since the 1880s, and they faced serious discrimination.
   In 1901 San Francisco banned grave burials within city limits, making a separate cemetery necessary, and so the Japanese Cemetery was established in Colma, with the Japanese Benevolent Society of California founded to administer it. According to the Society, the graves of Gennosuke (25 years old), Tomizo (27 years old), and Minekichi (unknown), three sailors of the Kanrin Maru who died of illness, were moved to cemetery around 1926 and commemorated with a stone monument. They are buried alongside leaders of the Japanese immigrant community such as the “Potato King of California” Kinji Ushijima (born in Fukushima, died 1926), “Rice King” Keisaburo Koda of Koda Farms (born in Fukushima, died in 1964), Makoto Hagiwara (born in Yamanashi, died in 1925) who created the Japanese Garden in Golden Gate Park during the 1894 World's Fair, and Shichinosuke Asano, founder of the LARA (born in Iwate, died in 1993). Today roughly 10 people are buried in the cemetery every year, I was told.
   Because of its importance, in the past the cemetery has received gifts from the Their Majesties Emperors Meiji and Showa, and his Imperial Highness Prince Hitachi and Princess Hanako visited in 1993. Prime Minister Kaifu and his wife visited in 1989, and Foreign Minister Kono and his wife, and as well as Foreign Minister Motegi visited in 2018 and 2020 respectively. More recently, Ambassador to the United States Shigeo Yamada also visited. In 2012, on the 100th anniversary of the donation of cherry trees from Tokyo Prefecture to Washington, D.C., Japan once again donated cherry trees to the United States, and some of the seedlings were planted in the cemetery grounds.
   I would like to let everyone know that every year on Memorial Day, the Japanese Benevolent Society of California holds a memorial service at the Colma Cemetery. This year I attended the 74th such event. Representatives of Japanese and Nikkei organizations living in the area were in attendance, as well as all religious leaders, and we all prayed for the repose of the souls of the deceased who have served the Japanese and Nikkei people in this region. The week before, on May 18, the Japanese Cultural Community Center of Northern California (JCCCNC) hosted a cleanup of the Cemetery, which was attended by over 200 people, mostly from the Japanese American community. I and 18 other members of the consulate and their families participated in the event. Remembering our ancestors is a fundamental part of any community, and I hope that you will consider participating if you ever get the opportunity.

   This essay has perhaps gone on a little long; maybe I let my passion for these topics get the best of me. But I hope that after reading this, you will consider visiting some of the sites introduced here.