Last year, the Portland Japanese American Citizens League donated documents to Portland State containing information on Japanese American civil rights dating from 1941 to the 1980s. After a long process involving proper storage and cataloging, the Millar Library recently announced that the documents are now available to PSU students, faculty and staff.
Last year, the Portland Japanese American Citizens League donated documents to Portland State containing information on Japanese American civil rights dating from 1941 to the 1980s. After a long process involving proper storage and cataloging, the Millar Library recently announced that the documents are now available to PSU students, faculty and staff.
“The Portland State Library is so pleased and honored to be selected by the Portland JACL to be the repository for their collection,” said Head of Special Collections and University Archivist Cristine Paschild. “Already, we’ve seen a lot of interest from our students in using the documents in their research. It’s a wonderful collaboration for us.”
The Portland chapter is part of the larger national JACL organization. According to its website, its mission is “to secure and uphold the human and civil rights of Americans of Japanese ancestry and others to promote and preserve the cultural heritage and values of Japanese Americans.” Founded in 1928, the national organization is the oldest Japanese American group to champion human rights.
The Portland chapter, founded in 1930, is involved in multiple civil rights issues within the Portland area, such as the city’s withdrawal from the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and works closely with other civil rights groups, including documenting more than 80 years of involvement in Oregon. Also attending events such as the Mochitsuki Festival in January, the Portland chapter has become a large part of the local Japanese American community.
Students may also get involved with JACL through Unite People, a youth group that meets the third Friday of each month at the Epworth United Methodist Church. Regardless of race or ethnicity, anyone interested in promoting universal civil and human rights is encouraged to join.
The Portland JACL has been documenting events since the establishment of the Portland Japanese American community and its forced relocation during WWII. Viewing the struggles and achievements of Japanese Americans during the resettlement period, the organization became dedicated to preserving the rights of American citizens as well as honoring those who had experienced such injustice in the past. It holds annual events like the Day of Remembrance around Feb. 19 in recognition of the 1942 signing of Executive Order 9066, which authorized the forced relocation of all people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast.
“We receive many inquiries from the community, individuals, media and students about the experience of Japanese Americans in Oregon,” Portland JACL Co-President Jean Yamamoto said. “Some questions are about the forced relocation during World War II to internment camp, Nisei veterans and their heroic service during WWII, redress or about cultural events that we sponsor,” she said.
In 2010, PSU graduate student Robert Hedgewood had been looking for documents on civil rights and redress efforts dating between 1945 and 1955 and contacted JACL. “All our records were kept in a rented storage unit, and Robert spent considerable time looking through the boxes,” Yamamoto said. “He suggested that we connect with PSU to see if they might be interested in the collection. Last year we deeded the collection to the library.”
Special Collections is a department of the Millar Library that oversees rare books and manuscripts and historical records from the university and community archives. These collections are available to students by appointment. The JACL-donated collection includes correspondence to legislative groups regarding the Alien Land Law Act and the Civil Rights Act, documents on supported services that assisted Japanese Americans returning to the region after WWII, programs of cultural events and youth clubs after internment, and business and membership directories that map out the changes of the community over an 80-year span.
“The relevance of the collection is not just in one or two documents but in the processes and interactions that the documents represent in their relationship to each other,” Paschild said. “You can see the steps and negotiations that needed to take place to make change happen…There is a receipt for a flag set from Meier and Frank, a department store in Portland, that is dated December 8, 1941, the day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. This one item says so much about the despair and fear the community felt as they tried to emphasize to their neighbors that they too were, first and foremost, Americans,” Paschild added.
To view the Special Collections, contact the department for an appointment by calling (503) 725-9883, or via email at [email protected]. The archives can be searched online and appointments can also be made at library.pdx.edu/specialcollections.html. For more information on the Unite People group, email [email protected] or check out the JACL’s website at www.pdxjacl.org.
