Masaru Edmund Nakawatase: From Seabrook to Social Justice

Masaru Edmund Nakawatase (b. 1943) is a Japanese American civil rights organizer, educator, and advocate for peace and justice. Born in the Poston War Relocation Center in Arizona during World War II, Nakawatase was part of a generation of Japanese Americans shaped by the legacies of wartime incarceration and postwar resettlement. His family relocated to Seabrook Farms, New Jersey, after leaving camp, a company town that became a significant resettlement site for Japanese Americans, as well as Estonian and Ukrainian refugees and Black and Latino laborers.

Growing up in Seabrook, Nakawatase was immersed in a multiracial, multilingual community where former incarcerees and immigrant families worked together under challenging conditions. Though still a child, the experience of living among people displaced by war and injustice profoundly shaped his political and moral outlook. His later commitment to racial justice and nonviolent activism would be rooted in the early lessons of solidarity and resilience learned in this unique environment.

Nakawatase briefly attended Rutgers University, but in 1963, he made a life-altering decision to leave college and join the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Atlanta. There, he became one of the few Asian Americans involved in the Black-led civil rights movement of the 1960s. Working closely with SNCC organizers, he contributed to grassroots efforts to register Black voters and challenge systemic racism in the American South.

After his time with SNCC, Nakawatase joined the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker-founded peace and justice organization. Over the course of more than 30 years with AFSC, he worked on a wide range of issues—from Native American land rights and community organizing to international peacebuilding and racial equity in education. His work was grounded in Quaker principles of nonviolence, simplicity, and equality, but also deeply informed by his identity as a Japanese American and his personal experience of postwar displacement.

Nakawatase played a supportive role in the Japanese American Redress Movement of the 1980s, helping promote oral history and memory work as a form of justice. He is the President of the Seabrook Educational and Cultural Center,  collaborated with institutions like Densho, and various Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) chapters to document and preserve stories from Japanese American incarceration and resettlement, especially those from communities like Seabrook, often overlooked in mainstream narratives.

Even after his retirement from AFSC, Nakawatase remained deeply involved in community-based education and mentorship. He served on the boards of organizations such as Asian Americans United (AAU) in Philadelphia and the Folk Arts, Cultural Treasures Charter School, and continued to speak and write on issues of race, identity, and cross-cultural solidarity.

Through a lifetime of quiet but determined service, Mas Nakawatase has built bridges between communities, generations, and movements. His legacy is one of principled activism, ethical listening, and the conviction that justice must be rooted in lived experience and collective memory.

Selected References and Further Reading

Oral Histories and Interviews

Biographical Articles and Author Profile

Institutional and Community Histories

Public Presentations

Subject:
Masaru Edmund Nakawatase
Year:
1943
THEME:
Related Exhibits:
Witness and Memory: A-Bomb and WWII Testimonies in New York/New Jersey
Unforgotten New York Stories: Japanese and Japanese Americans in the 1940s
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Description written by:
DMHJNY

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