Stuff contributed by jonathan

The legacy of Toyo Takata, Who Captured the Voice of Japanese Canadians

Jonathan van Harmelen

The book Nikkei Legacy served as an important reminder to Canadians of the suffering that Japanese Canadians endured during the war.

Making History: Remembering Nikkei Legacy

Jonathan van Harmelen


Fresno Stories

Dutch Leonard - The Ballplayer who challenged Fresno's racism

Jonathan van Harmelen


Bill Mauldin – An Artist with a Cause

Jonathan van Harmelen


Our Man on the Hill: Sidney Yates — Part 2

Jonathan van Harmelen

Read Part 1 >>

Our Man on the Hill: Sidney Yates — Part 1

Jonathan van Harmelen

The wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans resulted in thousands of former inmates migrating throughout the United States. Among the cities to welcome resettlers leaving camp, Chicago received the most. By the end of the war, over twenty thousand Japanese Americans called Chicago home, making it the second-largest Japanese American community …

Joe Oishi’s Nursery and The Promised Year

Jonathan van Harmelen

In October 2022, during a trip to Berkeley, California to do research at the Bancroft Library, I stopped in at Eastwind Books. Normally, when I go book shopping, I usually look for copies of older works that are either out of print or unavailable online. Sometimes, by good fortune, I …

Fresno Stories

Dr. T.T. Yatabe, the American Loyalty League, and the Birth of the JACL

Jonathan van Harmelen

Today, the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) is the largest Japanese American community organization in the United States. Founded in 1929, the organization has evolved over the course of the 20th century from a small group of community leaders to a national civil rights organization with chapters across the U.S. Yet …

Father Francis Caffrey – A Priest for the Stars and Students Alike

Jonathan van Harmelen

In my previous columns on Maryknoll clergy, I profiled several noteworthy priests and nuns who assisted Japanese Americans during their wartime incarceration. The vast majority of these clergy worked in Los Angeles, where the largest Japanese American enclave in the United States existed until 1942. While most priests worked solely …

Remembering Roger Daniels—A Reflection

Jonathan van Harmelen

Last Saturday, I was saddened to learn of the passing of the esteemed historian Roger Daniels at 95 years old. To say that Daniels helped shape Japanese American history would be a real understatement. Over the course of his five-decade career as a historian at UCLA and the University of Cincinnati …

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