Photograph of University of Washington Students Helping a Recently Released Japanese Internee on His Farm.
Woodinville, Washington: 1945 or 1946. Single photograph measuring 6 ½ x 8 ½ inches. Brown Brothers label and typed caption verso, with other manuscript markings recto and verso. Excellent. Item #List2957
A photograph of the Funai family of Woodinville, just outside Seattle, riding on a tractor towing a group of students of various races and genders. The caption reads:
“University students aid returned Jap family to Woodinville, Wash…..Permitted to return to his truck garden near Woodinville, Kametaro Funai, just out of the Japanese relocation center in Idaho, ran up against the manpower shortage. But University of Washington students came to his assistance and turned out to help him with the farm chores until he got started. Funai drives a tractor here as he hauls his volunteer help to the scene of their labors.”
Prior to World War II, Washington state had a sizable Japanese-American population, especially near Seattle. Following Executive Order 9066, the Funai family was interned at Minidoka in Idaho; Japanese Washingtonians were sent either there or to Manzanar in California. Many chose not to return to the area when the camps closed, which is likely what led to Funai’s labor shortage.
Interestingly, the University of Washington had an established history of supporting the state’s Japanese population. Its president, Lee Paul Seig, had advocated for and helped Japanese students to transfer to universities outside the west coast so that they could avoid internment; in a letter sent to several universities asking them to accept these students, he wrote that “Our Japanese students deserve friendliness at this difficult time.”
Of interest to historians of Japanese internment and Japanese west coasters’ return postwar.
Price: $300.00
Status: On Hold