Heart Mountain Photos from Michihiko Wada
Mr. Michihiko "Mike" and Honey Wada's family album. Permission from cousins Kevin, Michi, and Gary Wada.
After graduating high school in Hiroshima-ken, Japan, Michihiko Wada came to the US with his mother (Kuni), sister (Midori) and younger brother (Yasushi) under the sponsorship of the American Baptist Home Missions to join his father, Rev. Masahiko Wada and older sister Mutsu Wada Homma.
He attended University of Redlands and taught Sunday School at Gardena Valley Baptist Church. After college, he went to New York with the "Okura 7" to find work as an engineer. In New York, he continued his education at NY University. Michihiko Wada returned to Pomona, CA from New York after his parents were arrested.
Younger sister Midori had called her brothers, Mike and Yasushi, to notify them that when she came home from Pomona City College and found out that her parents were arrested on March 13, 1942. He was given Power of Attorney over the Wada family assets after his parents were arrested by the FBI.
American Baptist Home Missionaries were able to find out where their father, Rev. Wada, was being held. Mike, Midori, and Yasushi were able to visit their father, Rev. Wada, at the INS Tuna Canyon Detention Center before the government transferred him to Satna Fe and Lordsburg, New Mexico.
Mrs. Kuni Wada was arrested and taken to Terminal Island women's INS Detention and then transferred to Seagoville DOJ Women's prison in Texas in August 1942. This was the last time seeing their parents until they were reunited at Amache, CO in 1944.
Mike Wada would also drive the Imamoto sisters to visit their father at the INS Tuna Canyon Jail and mother at the Terminal Island women's prison from the Garden Grove area.
The Pomona Baptist church members stored the family belongings at the First Baptist Church of Pomona for the duration of the war. They would ship some of their household goods to the family in Amache then to Seattle after the war where the Wada family resettled.
When relocation time came, Mike was taken to Pomona Assembly Center then to Heart Mountain Internment Camp in WY.
At Pomona Assembly Center, he saw his brother-in-law's relatives, Yorozu and Shigee Homma. At Heart Mountain, Uncle Mike worked in the warehouse.
Mike was an avid photographer learning photography from Dr. Kyushiro Homma before he left for New York. The photo collection includes the family stories of Mike taking the warehouse truck full of internees to go fishing at a nearby lake.
After Dr. Homma (Mustsu's husband) became ill, the American Baptist help get Mike transferred to Amache where he was a silk screen artist and X-ray technician.
After his release from Amache in Oct 1945, Mike returned to New York and worked for Mitsubishi North America.
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