Rev. Hozen Seki
Reverend Hozen Seki emigrated to the United States in 1930 and founded several Buddhist churches, including the New York Buddhist Church in 1937.
During World War II, he was arrested on Elis Island in December 1942, then sent to Fort George Meade, before ultimately being released in January 1946.
He went on to found the American Buddhist Academy in 1948.
Hokubei Shimpo (New York Nichibei)
The Hokubei Shimpo, later the New York Nichibei, was a Japanese and English newspaper published in New York, New York from 1945 to 1993.
Miné Okubo
Miné Okubo was an American artist and writer who is best known for her book Citizen 13660, a collection of 198 drawings and accompanying text chronicling her experiences in Japanese American internment camps during World War II.
Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Okubo and her brother Benji were interned at the Tanforan Assembly Center and then the Topaz War Relocation Center from 1942 to 1944. During this period, she engaged in artistic production, creating over 2,000 drawings and sketches that offered a visual account of daily life in the camps.
The National Japanese American Student Relocation Council
The World Student Service Fund
The World Student Service Fund, sponsored by college organizations of the three major faiths, helped fellow students in Europe and Southeast Asia.
Toru Matsumoto
Toru Matsumoto was the author of multiple books, including the notable 1946 memoir A Brother is a Stranger. Following his return to Japan, he became celebrated as a popular media star and teacher of English.
Matsumoto was a pastor of the Reformed Church in America (RCA) and a missionary sent to Japan.
While he lived for years in both American and Japan, he never felt accepted in either place.
Minoru Yamasaki
Minoru Yamasaki, a Japanese American architect, is regarded as one of the most prominent architects of the 20th century for his design of the original World Trade Center in New York City and several other large-scale projects. He was born and grew up in Washington State, attended college at the University of Washington, and relocated to Manhatted in 1934, where he enrolled at New York University to pursue as master’s degree in architecture.
After graduating, he secured employment with the architecture firm Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, which was instrumental in keeping him out of the internment camps during WWII.
He was chairman of the Resettlement Council of Japanese American Organizations in New York City, and a representative of the Art Council of Japanese Americans for Democracy.
Yosei Amemiya
Yosei Amemiya was born in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, and immigrated to the U.S. in 1908. He moved to New York from the West Coast in 1914. He worked as both a painter and architectural and commercial photographer during the 1920s.
Issei and Internment at Ellis Island
Jiro Kozai (center) in New York City. c. 1930s. Courtesy of Kozai Family Collection at the JAANY Archive In the early 20th century, New York’s predominantly Issei Japanese community comprised a diverse range of professionals, including businesspeople, diplomats, merchants, industrial workers, business owners, domestic workers, artists, and writers. As the war intensified in the late […]
Unforgotten Stories
Unforgotten New York Stories: Japanese and Japanese Americans in the 1940s To commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the Digital Museum of the History of Japanese in New York has organized an online exhibit to trace the experiences of Japanese and Japanese Americans in New York in the 1940s. This […]
