Discover Nikkei

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First Boy Scouts troop in San Francisco

The Japanese community, of course, the church, the Konkokyo church, they sponsored a Boy Scout, they just started to have this Boy Scout program. And we were the first Boy Scouts, or we were Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts had a good program, going camping, things like that. We had a very good parents association, they were a hundred percent behind us. They furnished the uniforms, equipment, transportation, the parties, and everything else.

We had a great drum and bugle corps, very famous in San Francisco. And we used to march every, all kinds of parties and parades. Lot of awards, and we had a great basketball team, we had three basketball teams. And then the uniform was, the uniform that we had was the same uniform that the Olympics used. It's a red, white and blue uniform, had the tops, white, either white or red, right? Then we had a sweatsuit on that's nice, too. We were first class. That's why everyone wanted to join our troop, they wanted to join us because we had all these...


Boy Scouts California Cub Scouts San Francisco United States

Date: September 20, 2019

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Tom Ikeda and Yoko Nishimura

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum and Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Interviewee Bio

George Kazuharu Naganuma was born in Lima, Peru to his Issei parents in 1938. His family were forced to board a ship, to be incarcerated at Crystal City, Texas, during World War II. They remained there even after the war had ended, without a place to go. They were able to leave via a sponsorship by a reverend in San Francisco, California, where they were able to find jobs and housing. George joined the Boy Scouts in San Francisco and was able to visit Japan with his troop. He joined the U.S. Army and worked as a clerical typist. (June 2020)

Hirabayashi,James

Involvement with theater

(1926 - 2012) Scholar and professor of anthropology. Leader in the establishment of ethnic studies as an academic discipline

Tanaka,Seiichi

Dedicated to the frontier spirits

(b.1943) Shin-issei grand master of taiko; founded San Francisco Taiko Dojo in 1968.

Naganuma,Jimmy

Postwar sponsorship (Inglês)

(b. 1936) Japanese Peruvian incarcerated in Crystal City