Takako Day

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Takako Day, originally from Kobe, Japan, is an award-winning freelance writer and independent researcher who has published seven books and hundreds of articles in the Japanese and English languages. Her latest book, SHOW ME THE WAY TO GO HOME: The Moral Dilemma of Kibei No No Boys in World War Two Incarceration Camps is her first book in English.

Relocating from Japan to Berkeley in 1986 and working as a reporter at the Nichibei Times in San Francisco first opened Day’s eyes to social and cultural issues in multicultural America. Since then, she has written from the perspective of a cultural minority for more than 30 years on such subjects as Japanese and Asian American issues in San Francisco, Native American issues in South Dakota (where she lived for seven years) and most recently (since 1999), the history of little known Japanese Americans in pre-war Chicago. Her piece on Michitaro Ongawa is born of her love of Chicago.

Updated December 2016

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戦前シカゴの日本人

無名戦士たちの墓

Por Takako Day
29 Ago 2023

シカゴに日本人墓地ができたのは、1935年１月に設立された日本人共済会の努力のたまものである。もともと共済会は、会員百数十名から50セントの会費を集め、会員が病気になったときは医師及び入院の世話、死亡の際の葬儀及び死亡手続きの一切をひきうけることを目的に設立された。と同時に、設立当初から、共同墓地購入と基本金確保を目的に、約1000ドルの寄付を同胞から募集する運動も開始した。当時、シカゴ市内のどの墓地も日本人にはなかなか土地を売ってくれなかったという。しかし共済会は、設立２ケ月後の1935年３月、シカゴ北部にあるモントローズ墓地の一角、200フィート四方を600ドルで確保することができた。墓地代として450ドル、永代墓地整理費用として150ドルを支払っての購入だった。以後、シカゴで日本人が死亡すると、このモントローズ墓地日本人セクションに埋葬されるようになった。それでは、1935年以前はどうだったのだろう。当時の日本人はシカゴ市内のあちこちで暮らしていたが、死後も市内のあちこちの墓地に埋葬された。資料に一番よく出てくるのが、シカゴ南部にあるオークウッド墓地である。なぜ日本人がオークウッド墓地を好んだのか、その理由は今のところ不明である。　オークウッド墓地に最初に記録を残した日本人は岐阜県出身の清水鉄吉である。清水は、1890年にシカゴにやってきて醸造業をはじめた高…

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Japanese Women in Chicago

Part 6: Across the Pacific

Por Takako Day
30 Abr 2023

Read Part 5 >> Did Fujinkai gradually change in character because the wives of Chicago Japanese consuls started becoming involved in local Japanese women’s activities as honorary presidents? According to a Japanese government report, the Japanese Women’s Society of Chicago (Fujinkai) was recorded as having been founded at the JYMCI (747 East 36th) in 1924.1 These members of Fujinkai in Chicago did not hesitate to address the issues of women in Japan, as Fujinkai was well connected to Japanese female activists from various organizations in Japan who came to C…

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Japanese Women in Chicago

Part 5: New Japanese Women as Comrades — Fujinkai

Por Takako Day
23 Abr 2023

Read Part 4 >> The 1920s began with the success of American women’s suffrage movement, and, around this time, a new type of Japanese woman came to Chicago, almost as if sucked in by the energy of the incredible American women of those days. These Japanese were liberal women educated under the social influence of the Taisho democracy in Japan. Yone openly welcomed these forward-thinking women from Japan. In June 1920, Mrs. T. Matsumoto, Miss F. Koga, and Miss K. Tsutsumi, all visiting from Japan, joined Yone for a citizenship class at the Woman’s City Club and learned how…

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Japanese Women in Chicago

Part 4: World War I - Japanese Loyalty to the US

Por Takako Day
16 Abr 2023

Read Part 3 >> Although they were not US citizens and could not get involved in political matters, as assimilated immigrants, Japanese were very eager to show their loyalty and contributions to the US, as well as to American society in general. This demonstration of loyalty was common on the West Coast as well. One Chicago newspaper reported the following message from Japanese in San Francisco with some surprise: “‘Our present duty is to help the United States with all our might and with the genuine spirit of loyalty which has been characteristic of our people throughout t…

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Japanese Women in Chicago

Part 3: For Mothers and Children—Haha No Kai

Por Takako Day
9 Abr 2023

Read Part 2 >> With Yone, Misaki Shimazu founded Haha No Kai (Mother’s Home) in 1913 to supervise and take care of children. The home also served as the Shimazu’s own residence.1 One of the reasons they opened the home was that Yone herself became a mother; around 1913 the childless Shimazu couple adopted and began raising two Japanese children, a boy and a girl. When adopted, the girl, Fumiko, born in 1909 in New York, was four, and her brother, Yoshio, born in 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri, was six. The story of the two Shimazu children goes something like this: their moth…