My uncle's sixth birthday: Swedes and Japanese and Kingsburg, California

 

More on Kingsburg and Swedes and Japanese: Last month I made a trip to Fresno for my mother's brother's 90th birthday. I talked to him a bit about my mom and her Japanese classmates. A bit later someone asked him, do you remember any memorable birthdays from when you were growing up? 

He said, we were on the farm, there were 8 kids, dad (Bertil) was really busy, so birthdays weren't usually a big deal. But for my sixth birthday (in 1937) dad said, you can do anything you want for your birthday. So -- and then he looked at me and said, Ted, you'd be interested in this -- I invited three friends over to the farm. He named the three, all Japanese names. (He still remembers their names, he is still as sharp as a tack.) We fooled around on the farm all day. 

 

That's his memory of his best birthday as a kid, the day he got to play all day with his three Japanese-American pals.

 

Imagine: when he's 10, four and a half years later, his three pals are all sent off to be interned, as enemy aliens.

 

Today, Kingsburg is for the most part remembered as a Swedish town. So you see cute stuff like this downtown. Which, as a Swede, I love, but I am haunted by the ethnic cleansing that produced this singular memory of the town.

My mom and her Japanese-American classmates in Kingsburg, California

 

 

Clay School (1935-36) grades 6-8, Kingsburg, California. My mom, Bertha Swanson, is the blondish one, a sixth grader. From left to right: Tom Matsumura, Kim Yoshida, mom, Shizuko Matsuoko, Dobi (Robert) Yano, Kazuto Yoshida.

Kingsburg, a half hour south of Fresno, was settled mostly by Swedes, but by the twenties and the thirties it was basically a Swedish-Japanese town. Clay School was a bit out town, served grades K-8, and its clientele were mostly kids of farmers (like my grandfather) or farmworkers. (Note that two of the boys here are not wearing shoes.)

The school building was moved recently to the Kingsburg Historical Park, and I visited it a couple weeks ago with my cousin Dave and brother Ray. I have my mother's 1942 high school yearbook, the year she graduated, and I see that, of those pictured here, Kimiko Yoshida, Shizuko Matsuoko and Dobi/Robert Yano graduated with my mom. Shizuko ('Shiz') and Dobi ('Bob') signed her yearbook. Meaning that, after Pearl Harbor, they continued in school with my mom through graduation. That summer, 1942, they were all sent to internment camps.

I'll have more to say in a future post about Bob Yano, but I know he was interned at Gila River, Arizona, and not long after going there signed up to serve in the US Army. 'Shiz' was interned at Poston (Arizona), possibly the Yoshidas as well. I can't find a record for Tom Matsamura, probably because he is listed in the records under his Japanese first name.

After summer 1942, Kingsburg was no longer a Swedish-Japanese town. Very few Japanese returned there after the war. Today it is simply remembered, and commemorated, as a Swedish-American town.

Kufiyas at University of California Protests

Kufiyas were much in evidence at the University of California protests that erupted last week, against plans by the Regents to raise tuition by 32%. (Despite the protests, the Regents did the dirty deed.)

Here's a photo from the LA Times of students at UCLA on November 18, heckling two UC regents as police escort them from Covel Commons.

Al Seib / Los Angeles Times / November 19

And another one, of students at UCLA, demonstrating near Campbell Hall on 18 November, from the LA Times.

Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times / November 19

At Covel Commons, UCLA, linking arms to create a barricade between police and protesters. At least one student got tasered in this action.

AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes

Kufiyas were also in evidence in protests at UC Berkeley. At least one kufiya wearer was among those who occupied Wheeler Hall for 12 hours. Here the occupiers are catching food thrown to them, while they were barricaded on the second floor. (From the SF Chronicle.)

Michael Macor / The Chronicle

And courtesy twitpic, another shot of a kufiya-wearer in Wheeler.

Please note the diversity of the students. Note too that kufiyas have not been reduced simply to empty signifiers of hipsterdom. Don't believe the hype.

Since there will no doubt be need for additional actions like this, I hope at least some students from UC--and at other campuses where trustees are attempting to take the axe to education--will consider purchasing real Palestinian kufiyas from the last remaining factory in Palestine. Available from The Kufiyeh Project. I just got one in the mail--$12 + $6 shipping. But consider buying a kufiya-patterned tie as well for $25, with no extra shipping. Then you'll have a kufiya scarf to wear to all the protests, and a kufiya tie for professional drag.

P.S. Thanks to FB pals Jenny, Ken and Cathy for leading me to most of these items.

California Über Alles

In San Diego County: “There were Mercedeses and Jaguars pulling out, people evacuating, and the migrants were still working,” said Enrique Morones, who takes food and blankets to the immigrants’ camps. “It’s outrageous.”

Some of the illegal workers who sought help from the authorities were arrested and deported. Opponents of illegal immigration, including civilian border watch groups, seized on news that immigrants had been detained at the Qualcomm Stadium evacuation center as evidence of trouble that illegal immigrants cause.

The Border Patrol also arrested scores of illegal immigrants made visible by the fires. Agent Fisher of the Border Patrol said 100 had been arrested since the fires started Sunday...

The American Civil Liberties Union said it had received reports that people had been denied help at shelters because they lacked proper identification. Officials have been checking identification to prevent people not affected by the fires from taking advantage of the free food, clothes and other services...

“San Diego likes its illegal migrants as invisible as possible,” Mr. Cornelius [Political Science professor at UC-San Diego] said. “So whenever something happens that calls attention to their presence, it is fodder for the local anti-immigration forces.”

from today's New York Times.