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.”

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. 

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.”

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 

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. 

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

In the last 200 years, Asian Americans have thrived in this magnificent and diverse city in academic, art, engineering, and scientific advances and in city landmarks. This list covers only a small sample of their contributions. 

1. Samuel C. C. Ting, born in 1936 in Ann Arbor, received his Ph.D. in physics in 1962 at the University of Michigan. He received the Nobel Prize in 1976, which he shared with Burton Richter, for the discovery of the J/ψ meson nuclear particle.

2. James P. Wong, born in Buffalo, NY, and a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Architecture, designed Lamp Post Plaza on E Stadium Blvd (where Trader Joe’s is located) in 1962. It was Ann Arbor’s second unenclosed shopping mall, after Arborland Center. James P. Wong designed many of Ann Arbor’s landmark buildings, including the St. Francis of Assisi Church in 1969, Westminster Presbyterian Church in 1969, and the Glazier Way United Methodist Church (currently called the Green Wood United Methodist Church) in 1975.

3. In 1969, Joseph T. A. Lee, Canadian Chinese American professor of architecture at the University of Michigan, joined attorney Arthur Carpenter and ten other Ann Arborites to form Arbor-A to revitalize the area around the Farmers Market. Professor Lee was the chief architect and planner, responsible for designing the Farmers Market and turning the vacant warehouse buildings of the Washtenaw Farm Bureau into a well-known Ann Arbor landmark, the Kerrytown Market and Shops.

4. In 1978, Cynthia Yao, who hailed from Kingston, Jamaica, initiated the idea of a hands-on museum and became the first Executive Director of the Ann Arbor Hands-on Museum in 1982. She was one of the Inductees of the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame in 2005.

5. In 1990, Lucy Alexis Liu, graduated from the University of Michigan, and is now an award winning film and television actress, director, as well as an artist.

6. In 1992, S. M. Wu Manufacturing Research Center at the University of Michigan was named in honor of Professor Shien-Ming Wu, Anderson Professor of Manufacturing Technology. The Center works with dozens of automotive and industrial manufacturers.

7. In 1993, Michigan Chinese American News (密西根新聞), a Chinese language weekly newspaper in Michigan, began publication in Ann Arbor.

8. In 1993, Dr. Theresa Chang formed Citizens for Quality Care Co. headquartered in Ann for long term care and assisted living services. 

9. In 1993, Wei and Lisa Bee founded the first Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea coffeehouse in Ann Arbor. More than 30 years later, Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea has around 40 locations across 12 states. 

10. In 1994, the Chinese American Society of Ann Arbor (CASAA) was founded.

11. In 1995, Jimmy Hsiao, a University of Michigan graduate in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering, founded Logic Solutions to provide a comprehensive range of technology solutions and services to businesses across the U.S. The company now has offices in Ann Arbor, Irvine, Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Taipei. 

12. In 2002, Michigan Taiwanese American Organization (MITAI) was founded to promote cultural exchange between residents of Michigan and those of Taiwan.

13. In 2006, Dr. Cheng-Yang Chang, a resident of Ann Arbor, donated $1 million in honor of his wife Shirley to be recognized in the naming of The Shirley Chang Gallery of Chinese Art in the new addition of UMMA (The University of Michigan Museum of Art). Dr. Chang also gifted more than 30 traditional Chinese paintings by his father, noted artist Ku-Nien Chang.

14. In 2010, the Nam Center for Korean Studies at U-M, the first named Korean studies center in the U.S., was established in honor of Elder Sang-Yong Nam and Mrs. Moon-Sook Nam. Elder Nam, a U-M graduate in 1966, was the founder and CEO of Nam Building Management Co. 

15. Since 2013, Grace Meng, a U-M graduate, has been the Congresswoman from New York, being the first Asian American elected to Congress from New York.

16. In 2022, the Ann Arbor District Library began receiving annual gifts of 16 award-winning art prints for the Lunar New Year from the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, through the introduction of MITAI. These gifts have helped diversify the art appreciation of library patrons.

17. In 2022, Dr. Santa Ono began his five-year term as the 15th president of the University of Michigan and its first Asian American president.

18. In 2022, Dr. Jiu-Hwa Lo Upshur, a retired Eastern Michigan University professor and resident of Ann Arbor, and her family members, Jiu-Fong Lo Chang and Kuei-sheng Chang, gifted the Lo Chia-Lun Calligraphy Collection of 72 important works of art from six centuries of Chinese history to UMMA. It was the single most valuable gift of art in the University of Michigan’s history.

19. In 2024, it was announced that the Song Foundation and Linh and Dug Song donated a total of $300,000 to renovate the only museum dedicated to Washtenaw County’s Black history. Dug Song is the co-founder and general manager of Duo Security, a cybersecurity provider. In 2018, Duo was acquired by Cisco for $2.35 billion, making it the largest exit ever for a Michigan-based software company. Linh Song is the second female Asian American City Council member of Ann Arbor.

20. Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is journalist, poet, and scholar based in Ann Arbor and Hawaii, focusing on issues of race, justice, culture, and Asian America. She was a 2019 Knight Arts Challenge winner receiving $25,000 for her project "Beyond Vincent Chin: Legacies in Action and Art," which addresses a key case in Asian American history and its impacts since his murder in 1982. She is a PBS NewsHour reporter on Michigan.