Injustice & Reparations — Nissei Office Clerks
By Kyle Kinoshita
NAP Contributor
In the May 10, 2024, issue of The North American Post (NAP), the Seattle Japanese American Citizens League’s (Seattle JACL) Legacy Project “100 Years of Advocacy and Activism,” was featured. The creation of a nine-panel display, a collection of oral history recordings and eight decades of newsletters details the history of the Nikkei (Japanese American) community and contains literally hundreds of individual stories. NAP will occasionally feature occasional accounts from the Legacy Project.
Injustice and Reparations:
The 1942 race-based firing of 27
Nisei school office workers.
In a small conference room in the Seattle Public School district offices in Washington State, a commemorative plaque graces one of the walls. It features several photographs of Nisei (second-generation Japanese American) women and is titled, “When Justice Prevails, Everyone Benefits.” A closer examination reveals an almost-forgotten but gripping history of injustice and reparation spanning more than four decades.
A sad chapter in Seattle’s
Japanese American history.
February 1942. Several months earlier, Imperial Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the U.S. was now at war. Newspapers and radio broadcasts, in covering the attack, were full of accounts of how the Japanese American community in Hawaii and the West Coast had aided the Japanese attackers and were helping to prepare for an invasion. It was only later revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence had found that not one of the reports of espionage or sabotage were true. Nevertheless, editorial voices called for the wholesale removal or deportation of the dangerous Japanese population.
Among the February news reports was the revelation that 27 young Nisei women worked in Seattle school offices as clerks. This, by itself, would be newsworthy because in the pre-civil rights era, Japanese Americans, or for that matter, any people of color were never hired to work for the school district. War industries were gearing up even before the December 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, and white women left school district positions for more lucrative jobs. The labor shortage caused the school district to begin hiring young Nisei women, all educated in Seattle Public Schools, for office jobs — paying them less than the white workers they replaced.
One of the displays of the Nikkei clerks’ story. Photo credit: Kyle Kinoshita. ▶︎
The news reports centered on a group of West Seattle mothers who began a citywide petition campaign to fire all Nisei women clerks. The leaders of the campaign were quoted as saying that the Nisei women clerks were a danger to school children as they might poison school lunches or interfere with safety drills.
In the atmosphere of anti-Japanese war hysteria, this seemed perfectly credible, and the petition campaign spread like wildfire. Patriotic rallies were held to encourage signing of the petition. Very few publicly spoke up in defense of the young Nisei women. School districts and other community leaders were silent. One exception was a counter-petition started at the University of Washington, which garnered 1,000 signatures. School district leaders were concerned about doing anything to anger the public due to an upcoming levy election. The Seattle Public School assistant superintendent, who was left in charge when the superintendent left town on business, called a Seattle JACL leader to pressure him to intervene. In a move consistent with JACL’s controversial cooperative stance at the time, the JACL leader pulled together a meeting with the 27 Nisei clerks and told them if they did not resign, they would be fired anyway. A resignation letter had been prepared that all 27 Nisei women reluctantly signed. The signing of the letter made the news, and when interviewed, the West Seattle mother who led the petition campaign praised the women, saying that it was “very white of them” to resign instead of being fired.
Several months later, the U.S. presidential directive Executive Order 9066 forcibly incarcerated the Nisei women along with 7,000 of Seattle’s Nikkei community. It was a portion of community. It was a portion of the 120,000 individuals of Japanese ancestry removed from the West Coast and placed into concentration camps.
A discovery — was justice possible?
▲Nisei clerks in the lobby of the old Seattle Public School headquarters. Bottom left : Cherry Kinoshita, Seattle JACL; Bottom right: Toyo Okuda Cary, office clerk; Middle left: Mako Nakagawa, Seattle JACL; Middle right: May Daty Namba, office clerk; Top left: Alice Kawanishi, office clerk; Top middle: Ai Takizawa Koshi, office clerk; Top right: T.J. Vassar, Seattle School Board member. Photo credit: Seattle Public Schools.
It was 1984. The Japanese American community was in the middle of the campaign for what became the redress for the Japanese American incarceration. TJ Vassar, Seattle School Board member, and Eleanor Toews, Seattle School District archivist, had discovered articles and documents about the disgraceful and forgotten chapter of the district’s history.
Vassar excitedly contacted Cherry Kinoshita and Mako Nakagawa of the Seattle JACL. Cherry and Mako located 10 of the 27 women clerks, all now in their 60s. They called a meeting at the home of one of the clerks to discuss the possibility of obtaining a redress.
The former school clerks initially offered their experiences with hesitation. However, it did not take long for the stories to become longer and increasingly emotional with clear recollections even after 42 years. The women recalled being stunned by the attacks reported in the press. They had been in their late teens and early 20s. For many, it was the first paid job that helped to support their families. A former clerk slowly shook her head and wondered aloud, “How do you prove you have no intention of poisoning school lunches?”
Kinoshita and Nakagawa outlined the process of making their case with the Seattle School board. At first, the former women clerks were receptive. However, they indignantly recoiled when told it would be necessary to make a public statement before the Seattle School board. To do so was asking them to go against their traditional, culturally defined roles. It also brought up the painful trauma from the vicious bigotry they had experienced in 1942. One of the women cried out, “We weren’t the ones who did wrong. Why should we have to be the ones who need to talk in public?” Many heads nodded and voices expressed agreement.
But as the group continued discussing their experiences — they had all experienced the incarceration — they were moved to tears, including Kinoshita and Nakagawa. Finally, one of the former clerks, May Namba, hesitantly volunteered to be a speaker but only if the Seattle JACL helped her write her statement and if she were joined by others. One by one, the women agreed to help with the effort. The meeting ended with all of them agreeing to write down their memories.
A showdown at a
school board meeting.
Board member Vassar prepared a motion to be introduced at the Seattle school board meeting on April 11, 1984. Kinoshita and the Seattle JACL put together a presentation, inviting Washington State and Seattle City officials to describe how they had won the redress for former Japanese American employees who had been forced to resign in 1942. They were followed by the former Japanese American school clerks. The women walked to the podium with dignity and self-assurance. They spoke calmly and clearly but with passion and compelling conviction. By procedure, the motion would be voted on two weeks later by the board at the April 25, 1984, meeting.
On that day, the Seattle school board meeting room was packed. Newspaper articles had generated public interest. Numerous individuals of the Japanese American community attended to support the resolution with the Nisei clerks in attendance. But this time, a group of white people also came out to show their opposition. They were fueled by the racist narrative that Japanese Americans were the enemy in World War II and deserved the treatment given to them. When the redress presentation began, the opposing audience heckled and shouted at the speakers. Some tried to force their way to the podium out of turn. The school board repeatedly had to call for order. The Japanese American attendees were taken aback by the outburst and clenched their teeth in silence.
The roll call vote came — four yes, two no and one abstention. The motion passed with an apology to the school clerks. A small amount of compensation acknowledged they had been paid less than the white women they had replaced. The heckling of the opposition continued with one man shouting, “We should have lynched you in Puyallup when we had the chance!” referring to the temporary prison camp at the Puyallup fairgrounds where Seattle Japanese Americans were held in 1942. Later, in the foyer, a Nisei veteran confronted the man, who towered over him. The veteran forcefully reproved the heckler and stressed the loyalty of Japanese Americans who had given their lives for America in World War II despite being incarcerated.
The women walked out of the meeting smiling with the dignity that came with winning a small measure of justice after 42 years. May Namba, one of the first clerks who agreed to speak at the fateful first meeting, immediately showed up at the district Human Resources office, She applied for and obtained a job in a Seattle school office. May went on to work as school office staff until her retirement and became a staunch member of Seattle JACL. All of the Nisei women involved wrote one more chapter of Seattle JACL’s “100 Years of Advocacy and Activism.”
