The Instructors of the Army Japanese Language School: From Concentration Camps to College Campus

Year
2024

In the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the United States government reacted with an immediate and unfounded distrust of Japanese Americans. Just two months following the tragedy, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which gave legal clearance for the forced evacuation and incarceration of over 100,000 people of Japanese descent by declaring large swaths of the West Coast a “military area” that civilians could be excluded from.

The great irony of war is that it is imperative to intimately know the opposing side. At the same time that Japanese Americans were being unjustly imprisoned based solely on their ancestry, the knowledge of Japanese language and culture that many of them possessed was crucial to the American military.

Wartime in Ann Arbor

Ann Arbor was critical to the war efforts and located enough to the east to be exempt from the arbitrary military status that resulted in forced relocation. The University of Michigan contributed to the training of JAG lawyers, Navy seamen, Army Air Corps, and housed the Army Intensive Japanese Language Course (Military Intelligence), eventually known more simply as the Army Japanese Language School.

With the war efforts in mind, the University’s accelerated courses of Japanese language instruction began in February 1942 for civilians. The next year, in January of 1943, the Army language school began under a contract between the War Department and the University. Instruction lasted until December of 1945, with various offshoots including The East Asia Area and Language Army Specialized Training Program, The Civil Affairs Training School Far Eastern Program (Japan), and a translation program. The goal was “to give basic training in the Japanese spoken and written languages to officers and enlisted men of the United States Army” and “incidental to the above, to teach many facts pertaining to Japan and the Japanese.”

soldiers information

Initially, the school was composed of approximately 45 instructors, 15 of whom were women. The majority were Nisei, American-born children of Japanese immigrants. Ann Arbor had very few Japanese American residents at the time the war broke out, which was unsurprising given the exclusion of Japanese immigrants under the Immigration Act of 1924. Of the city’s 29,815 residents in 1940, only 101 were not classified as Black or White according to the census, and far fewer of them were Japanese American specifically. In 1941, there were 15 Japanese American students at the University of Michigan.

Choosing instructors for the school was first undertaken by Colonel Kai E. Rasmussen of the US Army before the responsibility was given to Joseph Yamagiwa, a professor of Japanese at the University of Michigan. In the summer of 1943 he became the school’s director and remained in that position until the program ended.

Forced Relocation & Recruitment

The first instructors for the school were largely recruited from concentration camps. Most had no prior teaching experience. They had been receptionists, college library assistants, insurance salesmen, accountants, secretaries, florists, caterers, journalists, preachers, bank tellers, farmers, lawyers, and more.

Western Union telegram from Joseph Yamagiwa to Tomio Takahashi

In a 1945 report, Director Yamagiwa described what this experience must have been like for these new recruits, “the instructors had come to Ann Arbor to teach an enemy language, talked, written, and read by an enemy people with whom the instructors were racially connected. At first some did not dare even to go to a church, let alone a movie theatre.” Understandably “with stories of their experiences in various assembly centers and in the W.R.A. camps, some assumed for a time a certain cautiousness in their dealings with people in and around campus. No doubt many chimeras were created which had no real reason for being; actually, the community was either receptive or unnoticing.”

In an interview from 1974, former city council member and longtime Ann Arborite John Hathaway recalled the city’s reaction, “These Nisei were people who had been displaced from California on the West Coast, and had been sent to concentration camps. The university and the Ann Arbor community was quite outraged by the way these people were being treated.” 

Despite Hathaway’s memory of local indignation, structural prejudice was explicit policy for the University at the time. In 1942, as students of Japanese descent were forced to leave their places of study on the West Coast, a Seattle paper implied that the University of Michigan would welcome these pupils. UM President Alexander Ruthven quickly and plainly disputed this, “The newspaper report that the University of Michigan has agreed with West Coast institutions to accept students of Japanese blood from the evacuated areas is incorrect. It is the policy of the University to discourage such students from seeking admission here.”

A group of Japanese American men play cards around a table

As the war continued, the University faced a staff shortage for their dormitories, cafeterias, and hospitals. So, simultaneous to their exclusion of Japanese American students, the school began to recruit Japanese Americans from concentration camps to fill these positions.

By the fall of 1943 the University had 400 Japanese American workers. A year later, Ruthven reiterated the enrollment ban in response to this growth, “There are already in the University somewhat more students in this category than we had before the war. When to this number are added the several hundred Japanese Americans employed in Ann Arbor, it is the opinion of the Board (of Regents) and of others concerned with this matter that we now have in this vicinity as many of these people as can be properly cared for and protected in the community.”

Housing

As recruitment for Language School instructors increased alongside all the other wartime operations, a new problem emerged: where would these new arrivals to Ann Arbor live? People had flocked to the area for training at the University, or for plant jobs like those available at Argus and Willow Run, creating a major housing shortage. When the first instructors arrived they lived in a single fraternity house. As the school grew to include 75 instructors at its peak, some with families, tight living quarters were required.

A townsman who remained unnamed in Yamagiwa’s report purchased a home that was used to house four families, lending credence to Hathaway’s memory of Ann Arbor hospitality. More fraternity houses were also commandeered, with one home to an additional six families and another for male instructors. Alice Sano Teachout, whose father was an instructor, remembered the tight living quarters with fondness, “There were five families in this one fraternity house on Baldwin Street…That was really fun.” The most diligent instructors were able to find their own apartments, but at a high cost.

In September 1943 instructor Eiko Fujii, whose parents were imprisoned at Jerome Relocation Center, wrote to Fred S. Farr about the situation,

“My original plan was to call my parents out after I settled down - but the joke is on me, for houses and apartments simply aren’t available. Washington’s housing condition gets publicity because of the “glamour” attached to the city, but Ann Arbor “suffers” silently - in fact, one groans with our population. If one stops to listen one can literally hear houses creak with inflation. Besides, Ann Arbor has the distinction of being the second highest in living cost - next to New York or Washington, I forget which - and so I find myself unable to support my parents with the salary I get”

Reverberations & Resoluteness

When the school began, the Nisei instructors were young, with an average age of 25. Most spent their next three critical years in Ann Arbor. Director Yamagiwa reflected, “In a rather real sense they reached maturity during their stay at Michigan, in some cases getting married, having children, and finally growing up.” Newlyweds included instructors Karl Ichiro Akiya and Satoko Murakami, and instructor Arthur Y. Fujiwara to stenographer Miko Inouye.

Despite their government’s efforts to define them as separate from their fellow Americans, many of the instructors found honor and a sense of patriotism in their work. At age 90 Fumiko Morita Imai remembered her parents' pride in her teaching, which allowed her to escape the fate of the rest of her family who spent the duration of the war in a concentration camp.

In the same letter in which Eiko Fujii described the difficulties of finding housing in Ann Arbor she wrote:

“Except for the fact that I am remorseful about leaving my folks in camp, I feel grand. I don’t think you can realize, Fred, how appreciative we are of our freedom and our citizenship after ten months of camp life. Now that the bitterness is gone, one’s sense of loyalty becomes stronger. It’s the funniest thing - I never was much of a patriot until now, until I actually had the fact of my physical ancestral trait flung at my face. At first there was resentment, but now that that part of my life is ended, I’ve become more conscious of being an American.”

Instructor Frank Y. Nishio was born in the United States, received his education in Japan, and returned to America in 1940. The day after Pearl Harbor he volunteered for military service only to be rejected by the recruitment officer. In an oral history he recalls:

“[The recruitment officer] called me aside and said, “Look, you are of Japanese ancestry and you’re Japanese, aren’t you?” And I said, “I am an American of Japanese ancestry.” … He said well, we don’t know what to do with you guys. I said, “What do you mean, you don’t know what to do with us guys? I am a citizen of the United States volunteering my services to my country and you say you don’t know what to do with us guys.” He said, “Well, it isn’t my determination, it came from Washington.” So I felt I had a pretty good idea of what was happening so I hung my head and left and was greatly affected by that decision because it was a statement saying that I am not an American when they do things like that. And I went back to school with no intent of studying and when the semester ended, I quit and went out to do day labor because I saw no future in my country that would not even accept my services to defend the country.”

Soon thereafter he was imprisoned at Jerome until the spring of 1943 when he came to Ann Arbor to teach. Still, he longed to be a member of the military. He volunteered again in Detroit only to be told that his current work was a higher priority. Finally he met Colonel Rasmus, the military leader of the language schools, who heard his plea and arranged for his acceptance into the Army.

After the War

Translators for the International Military Tribunal for the Far East

When the language school concluded in December of 1945, many of the instructors continued to serve their country by offering their skills to the occupation of Japan. Six former instructors contributed to the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey: Eddie T. Inouye, Joseph K. Sano, Arthur Y. Fujiwara, Tomoo Ogita, Nisuke Mitsumori, and Takeshi Tabata. An additional nine were later appointed to the War Department at their own request: Saikichi Shirasawa, Shigeru S. Nagata, Albert S. Kosakura, Takeo Tada, Frank E. Kagiwada, Kinji Kanno, Robert T. Ono, Yuji F. Nakamura, and Robert T. Endo.

Others left Michigan to reunite with their families or try to reestablish themselves out West. Some decided to stay and make Ann Arbor their permanent home. Joseph K. Sano was a WWI veteran who had earned his law degree from the University of Southern California and at one time served as a FBI special investigator in California. He left for Japan in October of 1945 and spent at least three years working for the military government, including as a translator and interpreter for the Tokyo war crimes trials. His wife Sakae and son Roy remained in Ann Arbor. Upon his return he worked for the University of Michigan’s Library translating Japanese volumes and compiling a dictionary of Japanese characters. The Sano family grew to include two more members: Alice and George. Joseph Sano died of pneumonia in 1964.

Portrait of Dr. Joseph Sasaki

Joseph Sasaki quickly transitioned from instruction back to his work in optometry. He had graduated from the University of California and practiced for 5 years before the war. In November of 1945, he opened his private practice at 304 ½ S State Street. He was an active member of the Ann Arbor community with roles in the Ann Arbor-Washtenaw County Council of Churches, Optimist Club, YMCA, Freemasons, and the Izaak Walton League. In 1955, his commitment to the city was recognized with an appointment to First Ward Supervisor for Washtenaw County. Apart from his more formalized service work for decades, he hosted Japanese-style Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day feasts at his home, inviting scholars and students from Asia so they wouldn’t be alone during the holidays. In 1989 his kindness was repaid by the recipients, who furnished a trip to Japan for him.

The Japanese Language School would not have been located in Ann Arbor without Joseph Yamagiwa’s expertise. He had received his Masters and Doctorate from the University of Michigan, where he remained as a member of the faculty for 31 years. Like many of the instructors he had recruited, he spent time in Japan after the war in service to the military. In a 2017 interview, his daughter Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro recalled making friends with the children of other instructors as “the first time I had Japanese American friends. Otherwise, there were two of us my age in Ann Arbor at the time.” Overall, she recalled a lack of prejudice “because there were so few of us,” acknowledging that her “experience was completely different from the 95 percent who were put in the camps.” Still, what she lived through left enough of a mark to inspire her play Behind Enemy Lines about Japanese American detention during WWII.

Second in command to Joseph Yamagiwa was the school’s Head Instructor Hide Shohara. Instructor Shohara had earned her bachelors from the University of Michigan in 1926 and joined the faculty in 1927 as an assistant in general linguistics. She was eventually promoted to a professor of Japanese alongside Director Yamagiwa. She retired from Michigan in 1965 to join the faculty of the University of Minnesota. The Department of Asian Languages and Cultures maintains a fellowship in her honor.

Only A Fraction

With a total of 100 instructors over the school’s three years this is only a glimpse into the consequential lives each one of them lived.

Instructor Roy Toshiro Nakagawa developed a partnership with former student Max Hugel to export Japanese products that resulted in the formation of Brother International Corporation.

Ruth Hashimoto was a staunch advocate for peace. She was in attendance for President Regan’s signing of the bill that provided $20,000 in restitution for Japanese Americans who were detained. She donated half of her payment to the Japanese American Citizens League and the rest to charities devoted to fostering peace and understanding.

Karl Ichiro Akiya was a labor and community activist who was awarded for his work against racial discrimination.

Reverend Andrew Y. Kuroda went on to a 35 year career with the Library of Congress.

Leonard Ida was an instructor in the spring of 1945 when he wrote to Estelle Ishigo, who was then imprisoned at Heart Mountain:

“It has been a long time and perhaps long forgotten me. I can always remember the evening teas and listening to the Tokyo broadcast in your home… Those were the good old days. Quite by accident that I heard that you and your husband were in Ht. Mt. yes, you were taking judo lessons at the time of the evacuation… I’ve been outside these past two years teaching Japanese language… I’m here with the University of Mich. This work is interesting and [I] hope to play a great part in the future peace of the world through the medium of language.”

Read More

Center for Japanese Studies: The US Army's Intensive Japanese Language School

From Unwelcome to Essential Japanese Americans At Michigan During World War 2

University of Michigan Heritage Project: These Young Americans

Scholars In Uniform - Ann Arbor Observer, August 1990

U-M Goes Nuclear: The Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project

Year
2024

(Michigan Daily, January 15, 1947)

Origins: From J-Hop Raffle to Functional Memorial

It was December 1946 -- just over a year after the end of World War II -- and University of Michigan students were excited to bring back the highly popular Junior Hop (J-Hop), a glittering three-day student formal started by fraternities in the 1860s that included dancing, morning-after breakfasts, hayrides, and house parties. This year's lineup featured big band leader and saxophonist Jimmie Lunceford, and former star trumpeter with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Ziggy Ellman. However, many students were concerned that such frivolity clashed with the tenor of a world so recently ravaged by war. As a result, the J-Hop Committee persuaded the Student Legislature to turn its traditional J-Hop raffle into a fundraiser for a living memorial, and a student committee urged the University regents to adopt a resolution to pursue the idea of such a functional memorial.

Functional - or living - memorials were becoming increasingly popular after World War II as a more palatable alternative to the traditional statue or obelisk associated with memorials of earlier generations. The J-Hop committee’s initial idea was to build a chapel or recreation building in the Arboretum.

By January 1947, there was considerable enthusiasm for the project -- especially among the burgeoning World War II student veterans taking advantage of the G.I. Bill (of the 18,000 U-M students at the time, 12,000 were WWII veterans) -- and this prompted the creation of a significantly larger joint student-faculty-alumni fundraiser and the J-Hop raffle funds were turned over to this effort. An executive committee was formed that included a central committee of all student organizations; a sub-committee of the student legislature; and a faculty-alumni advisory group.

Thus began the University’s first major fundraising effort to date.

On May 17, 1948, the Michigan Daily published a full page dedicated to the memorial project.

The Board of Regents unanimously approved this yet-to-be-named project upon the recommendation of U-M President Alexander Ruthven. Ralph Sawyer, Dean of the Rackham Graduate School, took up the initiative by appointing a War Memorial Committee. Among this committee's members were three WWII veterans: Arthur DerDerian, an aviation cadet; Arthur Rude, a first lieutenant in the Army; and E. Virginia Smith, a nurse in the Pacific Theater.

 

Harnessing Atomic Energy for the Greater Good

But what would this memorial look like and how would it function? What would it be called?

War Memorial Committee chair and Dean of Students, Erich A. Walter, approached several friends and former alumni. The University also sent letters to world leaders, authors, and stars -- figures such as Winston Churchill, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, E. B. White, and Orson Welles -- seeking advice and input.

But it was Fred Smith, a 39-year-old U-M alumnus and New York publishing executive, whose proposal for the memorial most engaged U-M’s student body and administrative leadership. His idea? To harness the power of the atom for the greater good. He wrote, “As vital to the future of mankind as the continuation of religion; and the devotion of the people involved in it should be no less unstinted... We have named the memorial The Phoenix Project because the whole concept is one of giving birth to a new enlightenment, a conversion of ashes into life and beauty.” 

The Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project (MMPP) would be "a living, continuous memorial" - a unique endeavor dedicated to exploring ways that the atom could aid mankind rather than destroy it. The MMPP was created by action of the U-M Board of Regents on May 1, 1948, and in his Memorial Day address that year, U-M President Alexander Ruthven called it “A memorial that would eliminate future war memorials.” 

The idealism was matched only by its danger: To bring such a destructive force to a college campus with the intent of harnessing its power for the benefit of mankind was a radical idea requiring a radical approach.

 

"The most important undertaking in our University's history." 

Phoenix Memorial Local Committee, May 1950 (Photo by Eck Stanger, Ann Arbor News.)

Under the leadership of National Executive Chairman Chester Lang, the Phoenix Campaign grew into a national effort that would be the first significant fundraising campaign initiated by the University -- at the time "the most important undertaking in our University's history," according to Ruthven. The Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project Laboratory would eventually be funded by over 30,000 alumni and corporate donors. By 1953, the campaign raised $7.3 million for a research building and endowment eventually amounting to over $20 million.

The project would mark many firsts:

* The first fundraising effort in U-M history
* The first set of laboratory buildings on the new U-M North Campus
* The first university in the world to explore the peaceful uses of atomic energy
* And it would initiate the U-M’s new Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences, the first such university program in the world

 

“M Glow Blue!” Henry Ford Donates a Nuclear Reactor

The Ford Motor Company alone donated $1 million to build the Ford Nuclear Reactor (FNR) as part of the Laboratory.

Ford Letter acknowledging the donation of a nuclear reactor (Bentley Historical Library Image Bank)

In February 1955, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) licensed the Ford Nuclear Reactor (FNR) and construction on the reactor began later that summer. The reactor would be built in a special unit at the north end of the Laboratory and it was the first reactor ever requested for construction by an agency other than the AEC. The FNR was dedicated on November 16, 1956, reaching its first critical mass on September 19, 1957, and level 1 megawatt on August 11, 1958. Eventually operating at two megawatts of power, the “icy blue glow” of the more than 55,000-gallon reactor pool inspired the motto of the reactor workers: “M-Glow Blue!”

Moreover, the Department of Energy would fabricate, transport, and dispose of the fuel at no cost to the University.

Professor Gomberg at the Phoenix Memorial Lab, August 1961 (Ann Arbor News)

U-M professor of electrical engineering Henry Gomberg was the first director of the Phoenix Project. And the College of Engineering was responsible for developing its instructional and research program. The FNR would operate 24 hours per day for the next 50 years. 

 

Bubble Chambers and Mummies: Research at the Phoenix Laboratory

Schematic of Ford Nuclear Reactor (Bentley Historical Library Image Bank)

 

 

Research at the Laboratory took place across multiple disciplines, helping to fund studies on the applications of nuclear technology in fields as diverse as medicine, chemistry, physics, mineralogy, archeology, engineering, zoology, anthropology, and law. It saw uses for cancer treatment, bone grafts, medieval coins, and even an Egyptian mummy.

Former MMPP director David Wehe remembers, “I recall lively lunchroom discussions with engine researchers from GM and Ford discussing measurement techniques with the nuclear chemists inventing new diagnostic pharmaceuticals and archeologists testing the authenticity of ancient relics -- all of them working within the Phoenix Memorial Laboratory.” 

Project highlights include Gamma ray sterilization; carbon-14 dating; radioactive iodine for cancer treatment and detection; gravitationally-induced quantum interference, as well as the bubble chamber design allowing rapid, easily interpreted photographs of rare atomic interactions that won Donald Glaser a 1960 Nobel Prize in Physics. The laboratory also included a greenhouse and saw foundational research on the effects of radiation on plant life.

Oppenheimer visits. (Michigan Daily, Feb 9, 1962)

The FNR was also used to train utility workers in nuclear instrumentation and reactor operation and was visited over the years by world leaders and distinguished scientists such as Robert Oppenheimer and Hans Bethe. MMPP leadership was also instrumental in founding the International Cooperation Administration (ICA) arm of the AEC.

By June 1997, however, the Ford Nuclear Reactor Review Committee estimated the reactor was costing the university an average of $1 million a year and requested input from university departments, as well as organizations outside the university community, on continued use of the facility. Although many groups actively campaigned to keep the reactor operational, the decision was made to close it. The reactor took nearly a decade to dismantle and was officially decommissioned in 2003.  

Rededicating the MMPP 

After extensive renovations, the former Phoenix Memorial Laboratory in 2013 became the home of the U-M Energy Institute, which continued to support the Project’s unique memorial mission. In spring 2017, after a decade of dismantling the FNR and clearing the building of radiation, the building was rededicated as the Nuclear Engineering Laboratory with a focus on advancing nuclear security, nonproliferation, safety, and energy. In 2021, the Energy Institute was disbanded and the Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences (NERS) program regained proprietorship. In April 2019, the department launched the Fastest Path to Zero Initiative, with the mission of “identifying, innovating, and pursuing the fastest path to zero emissions by optimizing clean energy deployment through energy innovation, interdisciplinary analysis, and evidence-driven approaches to community engagement.” The Fastest Path offices are now housed within the MMPP. 

A rededication of the MMPP took place in 2022. The labs and offices are occupied by two groups: NERS and the Materials Research Institute (MRI).

According to former MMPP director David Wehe, “Today, the MMPP continues its legacy of honoring WWII veterans by providing seed funding to researchers seeking to harness the atom for the public good. While the building also serves other purposes now, the hall still echoes those exciting discoveries that came from the MMPP.”

Historical photos and articles about the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Project

The October 15, 1969 Peace Rally

The peace rally at Michigan Stadium on October 15, 1969, was the largest of all the anti-war protests in the 1960s in Ann Arbor. Including some 20,000 attendees, the rally was the culmination of Ann Arbor’s participation in a nationwide event -  The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam - that took place that day, with many businesses, churches, and colleges across the country closing to protest continued involvement in the War. Related events at the University of Michigan included teach-ins and forums, and the day concluded with a 6 p.m. torchlight parade winding from the University of Michigan central Diag to Michigan Stadium, followed by a rally inside the Stadium.