November/December 1996 We Almost Wept The Sad Journey of Yamato Ichihashi: From Stanford To The Internment Camps ‘ W E A LMOST WEPT’ PROFESSOR YAMATO ICHIHASHI WAS A RESPECTED SCHOLAR COMMUNITY, BUT THAT WASN’T ENOUGH TO SPARE HIM THE HUMILIATION OF BY GORDON H. CHANG HEN FRIENDS CAME TO check on Professor Yam- AND MEMBER OF THE STANFORD ato Ichihashi and his wife, Kei, on the evening of INTERNMENT Dec. 7, 1941, they found his campus home on Sal- vatierra Street quiet and dark. There seemed to be no one home at the Victo- rian home where the couple had lived for 20 years. Or per- haps another explanation could be offered, perhaps they Wpreferred the consolation of darkness on a day that had caused them such personal pain. ■ The next day, Professor Ichihashi – a Stanford alumnus and teacher for 30 years – peered into his classroom and asked apprehensively, “Shall I come in?” The students welcomed him into the room. Though sympathetic to the people of his homeland, Ichi- hashi condemned the Japanese military for starting the con- flict and began monthly purchases of hundred-dollar U.S. war bonds through the university. And despite the compas- sion of his students, Ichihashi, feeling betrayed and disgraced by his homeland, was too distraught to continue teaching. He visited Edgar Eugene Robinson, the chair of the History Department, and talked about what he should do. After the meeting, Robinson wrote in his diary that Ichi- hashi had been “the gentleman” he always had been and that his longtime friend had seen “the death of all his hopes and his life.” Ichihashi next went to see Stanford President Ray Ly- man Wilbur and submitted his resignation. But the support- ive and insistent Wilbur convinced Ichihashi to take a leave of absence instead. As it turned out, by the spring of 1942 the federal gov- ernment required Yamato and Kei Ichihashi and more than a dozen other Japanese Ameri- cans on campus – along with 120,000 other persons of Japanese ancestry throughout the Western states – to move into “relocation centers.” The Ichihashis did not return to Stanford until April 1945. The experience devastated the couple professionally and personally. Ichihashi never resumed his teaching or schol- arly writing. He would become estranged from his only child, Woodrow, under the pressures of internment and they would ABOVE: ICHIHASHI’S not see each other again until 1963, just months before the FIRST BLUE-BOOK DIARY, father’s death. SANTA ANITA I.D. TAG; The materials left from Ichihashi’s experiences during LEFT: EARLY ARRIVALS the war – his diaries, AT AMACHE, 1942 November/December 1996 STANFORD TODAY 51 letters and research essays – leave a record that is far the anti-Japanese sentiment in more than a poignant personal tale, though. His docu- the country. But he decided to ments provide the richest and most complete firsthand give Stanford a try and began account of the internment of Japanese Americans during teaching in 1913. World War II. One of the important influ- ences on Ichihashi’s decision to AMATO ICHIHASHI WAS BORN INTO A stay was Payson Treat, Stan- former samurai family in 1878 in ford’s first Ph.D. in history. Nagoya, Japan, and arrived in the Treat was one of the first American specialists in Asian stud- United States in 1894 to attend public ies. He and Ichihashi developed a close friendship and school in San Francisco. He continued helped make Stanford a principal center of teaching and re- his study at Stanford, where he distin- search in Asian studies. guished himself, earning bachelor’s and In the 1920s and 1930s, Ichihashi regularly wrote and master’s degrees in economics and an invitation to join spoke on Japanese history and diplomacy. In 1928 he pub- YPhi Beta Kappa. He later earned his doctorate in politi- lished The Washington Conference and After, a history of the cal economy from Harvard. 1922 naval armaments conference. Ichihashi had attended Ichihashi had planned to pursue an academic career in the meeting as the personal aide to the chief Japanese dele- Japan. But his mentor, David Starr Jordan, and others at gate. David Starr Jordan presented a copy of Ichihashi’s book Stanford encouraged him to return and teach subjects re- to the Emperor during one of his frequent trips to Japan. lated to Japanese studies. Jordan was keenly interested in Ichihashi developed a distinguished career at Stanford. developing ties between He held the university’s first endowed chair and served as Stanford and Asia and he be- acting chair of the History Department. Yet he never relin- lieved Ichihashi could help quished interest in the experience of his fellow Japanese in develop the relationship. Jor- America. In 1932 , the Stanford University Press published dan had high regard for the Ichihashi’s study, The Japanese in the United States, which young academic: He once became a classic work combining demographic, historical wrote a Japanese industrial- and sociological approaches. At the outbreak of war, Ichi- ist that Ichihashi was “one of hashi was one of the most eminent and highly respected the best students with whom Japanese in the United States. He was destined, however, I have ever come in contact.” to take on a less enviable honor: He became perhaps the Ichihashi assumed a post most famous person interned in the camps. at Stanford reluctantly, how- Even before he left Stanford in 1942, Ichihashi had ever. He was not trained as planned to write a book on relocation. He sensed the his- an Asianist and, equally im- toric significance of what was about to happen and knew he portant, was sensitive about was uniquely qualified to document that experience. He was TOP CENTER: WOODROW ICHIHASHI, 1921; ABOVE: THE LAST AMACHE INTERNEES LEAVE FOR HOME, OCTOBER, 1945; RIGHT: ICHIHASHI (SECOND FROM RIGHT, TOP ROW) WITH OTHER STUDENTS AND DAVID STARR JORDAN, C. 1905 TOP LEFT: TULE LAKE RELOCATION CENTER; ABOVE: LUNCHTIME FOR WORKERS ON THE FARM AT TULE LAKE; BELOW LEFT: AN EVENING CLASS IN ADULT EDUCATION AT AMACHE, DECEMBER, 1942 a trained social scientist who under- published any of his research in the last 20 years of his life. stood both Japanese and American Colleagues remember him as bitter and increasingly reclu- cultures and was fluent in Japanese sive after his return to Stanford. It was a sorry postscript to and English. a distinguished, pioneering early career. He painstakingly documented Although Ichihashi was not an easily likable subject – his internment experience from he was arrogant, domineering and contemptuous of those the day he left Stanford until his beneath him in social position – much in his life experi- return three years later. (He began ence resonated with my own. We shared parallel schol- his record using Stanford exami- arly interests and I found the challenges of his life – facing nation “blue books.”) He also racial prejudice, his experience as one of the first people used his private daily diary and of Asian ancestry in American academia – particularly extensive typewritten correspon- moving. dence with Stanford colleagues – When I first encountered the Ichihashi manuscript Payson Treat, Edgar Robinson collection in the Special Collections department at Stan- and Ray Lyman Wilbur, to name ford’s Green Library, I was immediately intrigued but put a few – as further research mater- it low on my list of priorities because of the demands of ial. These documents form an ac- other research. But, slowly, I began to learn more about count that is unequaled in precision and depth. Ichihashi’s life and uncovered other documentary mater- But, in the end, Ichihashi did not complete his own ac- ial in the papers of his Stanford colleagues. And most im- count. The strain of relocation had taken its toll and he let portant, when Woodrow Ichihashi generously shared 20 his precious research materials languish, never mustering years of his father’s diaries with me, it brought about a the will and energy to finish the project. In fact, he never change of heart. I saw that completing a biography and November/December 1996 STANFORD TODAY 53 A PERSONAL JOURNEY BIOGRAPHER GORDON CHANG FEELS A KINSHIP WITH HIS SUBJECT By Diane Manuel S HE READ THE SINGLE-SPACED, was pleasant in many ways, but not so conge- Soviet alliance. His dissertation, published by four-page letters that Yamato nial in other ways. I was the only person of Chi- Stanford University Press, drew on three Ichihashi typed from the Tule nese ancestry in a class of 200 and I did pretty months of research at the University of Bei- Lake Relocation Center to his well but it was still an odd situation.” jing and was titled Friends and Enemies: The colleagues back on the Farm, Chang went East for college and majored United States, China, and the Soviet Union, AGordon Chang began to identify with the per- in history and East Asian studies at Princeton, 1948-1972. sonal and professional dilemmas the Japan- where he was one of five Asian Americans in a class of 800 men. After becoming active in the ese professor had faced. Today Chang is developing a course on the anti-war movement, he came to Stanford in “He was primarily, intellectually interested future of the United States in the Pacific and in- 1970 to study the early history of the commu- in economics, but he was pushed to teach East vestigating the international dimensions of the nist movement in China with Lyman Van Slyke Asian studies because of race,” Chang says. Asian American experience, including percep- – and to push for more Asian American history One of only two faculty members ap- tions of Chinese Americans during the Korean and culture in the curriculum.