Discover Nikkei

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/397/

Mother's immigration to U.S. as a treaty merchant

And so my mother had to come in a different status, which was called the treaty merchants. And from what I understand, to be a treaty merchant that had to mean that you were fairly comfortable. And so, though my father, being a young man, didn't have the funds, they had to pretend that they were wealthy enough and signed up for the first-class and my mother was told that she had to behave very properly, and that's how they came.


immigration migration treaty traders

Date: August 3 & 4, 2003

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Alice Ito

Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Interviewee Bio

Nisei female. Born December 30, 1927 in Seattle, Washington. Lived in Japan for fifteen months as a child, before returning to Seattle to attend junior high school. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, father was picked up by the FBI and taken to the Department of Justice camp at Missoula, Montana. Removed to the Puyallup Assembly Center, Washington, before being reunited with father at the Minidoka incarceration camp, Idaho. Family volunteered to leave for Japan in 1943 on the U.S. government's exchange ship, the USS Gripsholm. Attended high school in Japan, and participated in military and air raid drills. During the U.S.'s postwar occupation of Japan, attended Doshisha University and worked for a U.S. army station hospital library. Returned to the U.S. and enrolled at St. Mary's teaching hospital in Rochester, Minnesota. Denied redress because of expatriation to Japan, but succeeded in obtaining redress in 1996 after filing a class-action lawsuit.

*The full interview is available Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Sakane,Hiroshi
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Sakane,Hiroshi

On returning to post-war Peru (Japanese)

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Oda,Harunori

Deciding to come to America

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Oda,Harunori

Getting started in America

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Expanding business

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Oda,Harunori

Life Philosophy

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Ohtomo,Hachiro
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Ohtomo,Hachiro

Facing discrimination in America (Japanese)

(b. 1936) Shin-issei welding business owner

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Uesugi,Takeo
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Uesugi,Takeo

His father urged him to go to the US

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Calloway,Terumi Hisamatsu

Regret (Japanese)

(b. 1937) A war bride from Yokohama

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Ohtomo,Hachiro
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Ohtomo,Hachiro

My daughter couldn’t fit in Japan, so I decided to go back to America (Japanese)

(b. 1936) Shin-issei welding business owner

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Takashio,Akira
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Takashio,Akira

Tough life at boarding house (Japanese)

Shin Issei – owner of izakaya (Japanese-style tavern) and kappo (small Japanese diner) restaurant, Honda-Ya

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Yuki,Tom
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Yuki,Tom

His family's migration to Salinas, California

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Bashi,Kishi
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Bashi,Kishi

His Shin-Issei parents

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Yamashiro,Michelle
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Yamashiro,Michelle

General reasons why people left Japan for Peru

Okinawan American whose parents are from Peru.

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Yamada,Mitsuye
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Yamada,Mitsuye

Her mother came to the U.S. with a group of picture brides

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Yamada,Mitsuye
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Yamada,Mitsuye

Her father bought her mother American clothes after she arrived from Japan

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