Henry Mittwer (1918-2012)

Julius Herman Mittwer at Moody Bible Institute Above Enrollment record card showing 1st presence from 8 Oct 1895 to 7 Oct 1897 and 2nd presence from 2 Feb 1898 to 29 Mar 1898 Right Missionary Record Card showing work in Japan from May crira 1912 presumed "Retired from field before 1972 Images copped from Ancestry.com originally shared by Gretchen Mittwer Click on images to enlarge
Richard Julius Herman Mittwer In Japan from 1898-1926 Consular registration, passport applications and passports, and passenger manifest Right 8 January 1908 registration as U.S. citizen at U.S. consulate in Yokohama showing statement of 1st arrival in Japan on 9 December 1898 Image of document downloaded from Ancestry.com See R.J.H. Mittwer's marriage with Yamazaki Kō for associated documents proving Richard's marriage to Kō under Japanese law on 24 October 1907 in Tokyo Click on image to enlarge
R.J.J. Mittwer's 20 September 1918 military service registeration card completed at the American Consulate General in Yokohama, Japan Copped and cropped from Ancestry.com Click on image to enlarge
"Emergency Passport Application" to American Embassy in Tokio dated 21 June 1922 and supporting letter dated 19 June 1922 for passport issued on 22 June 1922 permitting travel to Japan, Hong Kong, Philippine Islands, Indo China, Straits Settlements, and Burma Passport application copped and cropped from Ancestry.com Supporting letter and passport images copped and resized from images posted on Ancestry.com by Gretchen Mittwer Click on images to enlarge
"Emergency Passport Application" to American Consulate General in Calcutta dated 19 September 1923, supported by passport issued in Tokio on 22 June 1922, and requesting permission to travel to Japan, China, Hong Kong, Philippine Islands, French Indo China, Straits Settlements, India, and Dutch East Indies Passport application copped and cropped from Ancestry.com Click on images to enlarge
U.S. citizen passenger manifest showing R.J.H. Mittwer and Frederick arriving in San Francisco on 19 February 1926 aboard S.S. Korea Maru having sailed from Yokohama on on 4 February (15 day voyage) Copped and cropped from Ancestry.com Click on image to enlarge

Richard Julius Herman Mittwer's story

Richard Julius Herman Mittwer (リチャード・ジュリアス・ハーマン・ミトワ) later in his life generally went by R.J.H. Mittwer or Richard Mittwer. He was born on 25 July 1876 according to several documents. He stated on a 1908 consular registration record that he had first come to Japan on 9 December 1898. Why he came is not known, but documents showing him as a student at Moody Bible Institute suggest he came as a missionary.

In a 1983 memoir, Richard's 3rd son, Henry Mittwer, wrote that his father, after first coming to Japan, possibly as a sailor with the U.S. Navy, returned to the United States, studied Japanese, then came back to Japan on a 2-year contract as an interpreter at the U.S. legation in Tokyo, then opened an English school. The 1908 consular registration shows that he was was married to Kō Yamazaki, had a son named John, was operating an English school in Kyōbashi ward, now part of Chūō ward in Tokyo.

Richard returned to the United States in 1926 with his 2nd son, Frederick, leaving John and Henry, and daughter he had with another woman. See Richard Mittwer's story (below) for details.

R.J.H. Mittwer returned to the United States on 4 February 1926, bringing with him 2nd son Frederick 16, leaving in Japan Kō 50, 1st son John 18, and 3rd son Henry 7. He also left a mistress, Harue Ikeda, and a daughter, Mitsue Ikeda, who was then 6 years old.

The 1930 U.S. census and other records show R.J.H. Mittwer residing in the heart of Little Tokyo in Los Angeles with mostly Japanese immigrants, and occupied as an interpreter and notary. Immigration and Naturalization Service case information records suggest that Richard was involved in helping Japanese, including illegal aliens, with language and other problems. Toward this end, he seems to have cooperated with the Japanese consulate in the city in its efforts to assist Japanese nationals who faced legal status problems or deportation.

Richard J.H. Mittwer died in Los Angeles on 23 October 1946. His incinerated remains were first deposited in a crypt at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California. A photograph of a single niche at Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles shows a plaque with both his and Ko's names and their birth and death years (see next). Parts of his ashes (bunkotsu 分骨) were brought to Japan by Henry Mittwer, who kept them on the altar at his Tenryūji residence. They are now interred in the mass tomb at the temple (Gretchen Mittwer, email, 2023-11-29).

The story of Richard Julius Herman Mitter (1876-1946), who I will call RJH, as he was commonly called in newspaper articles, varies according to when his 3rd son, Henry Mittwer (1918-2012), told it. Henry first substantially told his father's story in his 1983 autobiography in Japanese, titled Sokoku to bokoku no hazama de ["In the gap between my fatherland and motherland"] (see below), He told it less substantially, but in more accurately, in an untitled 19-page memoir he wrote in English around 2010, a couple of years before be died in 2012 at age 93.

Used copies of Henry's 1983 book are now difficult to find. The 19-page memoir survives only as a faded double-spaced printout of a manuscript typed by Henry's daughter Gretchen Mittwer (Gretchen Mittwer, email, 3 December 2023). The memoir is constructed from a few primary documents, but mostly memory and imagination, and information culled from the Internet. The most recent source was a San Francisco Chronicle article dated 17 March 2010 observing the 150th anniversary of the arrival in San Francisco of Japan's 1st diplomatic legation to the United States on 17 March 1860.

1983 autobiography v. 2010 memoir

Mittwer's 19-page memoir, written toward the end of his life, reveals that the stories he wrote in his autobiography, about his father's first two landings in Japan, are imaginary -- that, in fact, he had no idea why or how his father first came to Japan, or what he did in Japan. His understanding of what his father did after leaving Japan and returning is also based entirely on fragments of memory of things he heard from his mother and John mittwer, the oldest of his two elder brothers. He never asked, or heard, how his parents had met.

Henry repeats, in his autobiography, how little he recalls seeing his father, who often traveled abroad on business, then left Japan with Henry's 2nd oldest brother Fred Mittwer (in February 1926 when Henry, born in December 1918, was barely 7 years old. He would not see his father again until he went to America in September 1940, when 21, and found his father to be a lonely old man who wasn't doing very well -- in Henry's esteem. 15 months later, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and in March 1942, when Henry volunteered to evacuate to Manzanar Assember Center to help with its construction, Richard saw him off, hoping to change his mind, and when he didn't, slipped Henry a $10 bill. Henry would be confined in 4 War relocation Authority (WRA) internment camps, and was being held at an INS internment camp when Richard died in October 1946.

While maternal bonds are commonly closer than paternal bonds, Henry's bonds with his father were weak and strained. Later in life he seems to have had the usual regrets that he didn't make a effort to get to know his father in the little time they were together in Los Angeles before the war. That he missed most his mother, who he longed to see after coming to America, but never saw again except in an urn, is conveyed in the subtitle of his 1983 autobiography -- Waga omokage bojō ["My (maternal) memories and longings"].

Henry describes his understanding of his why and how his father came to Japan like this (Mittwer c2010, page 7/19, [bracketed] remarks mine).

Now, what Julius did with himself during the ten intervening year [sic] between his education at St. John's University [1887-1888, when 11 years old] and his arrival in Japan remains a mystery. How was it that Julius, coming from the midwest town of Minneapolis where seas and oceans must have seemed like mirages and one could never taste their saltiness, sailed across the Pacific from the U.S. to faraway Japan that first time? I can visualize the following scenario to fill in this blank space of Julius' private history. Julius was full of curiosity as a youth, and liked to read. There were people such as Lafcadio Hearn in Japan who were sending interesting accounts of Japan one after another to be published in the U.S. The adventuresome Julius, attracted by the thought sailing across the Pacific to the faraway mysterious Orient, volunteered into the navy, his mind set from the beginning on landing in Japan.

Mittwer summarizes his information on his father's arrivals in Japan as follows (Mittwer c2010, page 7/19).

An old record of my father's registration with the U.S. consulate in Yokohama gives his date of arrival in Japan as December 9th, 1898, (U.S. president at the time, President McKinley). This seems to prove that my father, Julius, at the age of twenty-two, first set foot on the Land of the Rising Sun an that day. There is another later document record of registration with the U.S. consulate in Yokohama that says "date of arrival" February 17, 1900. In other words, he went to Japan twice in a row and the interval was only one year two months and eight days.

The first date of arrival is confirmed by a consular registration form filed on 6 January 1908, which states as follows (underscored text typed in blank on printed form).

Date of arrival in Japan: Dec.9,1898.

I cannot confirm the second date, alleged to be on another consular registration form. However, an "Emergency Passport Application" filed at the Yokohama consulate on 21 July 1922, for a passport issued the following day, states as follows (underscored text typed in blanks on printed form).

I last left the United States on January 24, 1901 arriving at Yokoham a, Japan, on February 14, 1901, where I am now residing for the purpose of business, on behalf of United Artists Corporation of the Far East; that I have resided outside the United States at the following place for the following periods: Japan, Korea, from February 1901 to date; and that I desire to remain a citizen of the United States and intend to return thereto permanently to reside and perform the duties of citizenship within one {months years} or when buisiness permits . . . .

If Henry Mittwer's allegation of a "February 17, 1900" date of arrival is accurate, then RJH Mittwer arrived in 9 December 1898, 17 February 1900, and 14 February 1901. His 1901 arrival began with a 24 January 1901 departure from America. Presumably his 1898 arrival also began with a departure from America. Did his 1900 arrival also begin with a departure from America?

Apparently, since his arrival on 14 February 1901, and until his passport application on 21 June 1922, RJH states that he had resided only in Japan and Korea. Depending on what he meant by these names, he might have lived in the Empire of Korea (1897-1910) some time before 1910, when Korea was annexed and became a part of Japan called Chōsen -- from the name of the Yi dynasty state that existed from 1392 to 1897 when it became Korea.

The times elapsed between the three arrival dates are as follows.

Arrival            Arrival             Arrival
9 Nov 1898         17 Feb 1900         14 Feb 1901
  |   |_______________|   |_______________|   |
  |           |                   |           |
  |    1 yr 2 mos 8 dys        11 mos 28 dys  |
  |___________________________________________|
                         |
                 2 yrs 2 mos 5 dys

All of the above elapsed times would be shorter by the time required to return to American and then return to Japan, plus the time he would spend in America doing whatever he did there before returning to Japan. The 24 January - 14 February voyage back to Japan from America in 1901 took 21 days. If Henry's 1900 arrival is an error for the 1901 arrival -- i.e., if RJH arrived in Japan in 1898, then returned to America and returned to Japan in 1901 -- then RJH first stay in Japan would have been at most about 2 years.

Regarding his father's 1st stay, Henry Mittwer writes this (Mittwer c2010, page 8/19).

I have nothing to give a clue as to what he did between his first landing in Japan and his second, and how it came about that, according to mother, he was an attaché for the U.S. Embassy in Yokohama but kept that position for only two years. My brother John, who lived in Yokohama nearly all his life, confirmed this story to me, and added that our father had completed a two year contract as attaché. I can only wonder why he did not extend the contract and continue working for the Embassy, to have an eminent career as a diplomat.

It is not clear, from this narrative, that RJH's stint as an "attaché was during his 1st stay from 1898 or after he returned in 1900 (or 1901). In his 1983 autobiography, Henry states that his father returned to America after first coming as a Navy seaman, then learned Japanese, returned as an embassy interpreter, and lived in the foreign settlement in Tsukiji in Tokyo.

More probably scenario

Based only the documents I have seen -- the Moody Bible Institute enrollment card (1895-1897, 1898) and missionary fieldwork card (1912), the 1908 consular registration, and the 1922 passport application, I would guess that -- if Richard first came to Japan in 1898, probably in some missionary capacity, and learned enough Japanaese then to return in 1901, apparently to as an interpretor, then ventured into English teaching, then began clerking for United Artists, became an international agent for United Artists in 1922, and returning to America in 1926.

Yamazaki Kō's story

0. Yamazaki Kō (山崎こう b1877) [born Meiji 10-01-12 = 1877-01-12] was the 2nd daughter of Yamazaki Seigorō [Masagorō] (山崎政五郎 b1849) [born Kan'ei 02-10-21 = 1849-12-05] and Kuni (くに b1848) [born Kanei 01-11-15 = 1848-12-10], according to her household register. The register shows that she had given birth to a daughter in 1900, some 7 years before she married Richard Mittwer and bore the first of 3 sons with him. See Yamazaki Kō's story (below) for details.
1. The first address on the register The second address is "Gunma prefecture, Kita-kanra district, OŌaza Ichinomiya neighborhood, block 216" (Gunma-ken Kita-kanra-gun Ichinomiya-machi Ōaza Ichinomiya-cō 216-banchi 群馬県北甘楽郡一宮町大字一宮町弐百拾六番地) was born in the village of Nogami (Nogami-mura 野上村) in Kita-Kanra county (Kita-kanra-gun 北甘楽郡) in Gunma prefecture (Gunma-ken 群馬県). She was trained from an early age to play shamizen and dance, and became a popular Nihonbashi geisha. But Henry Mittwer did not know her geisha name. And he never asked his parents how they met. He did, however, have documentation of a marriage notification recorded by Nihonbashi-ku (now the northern part of Chūō-ku) on 24 October 1907 -- which was 10 years after his father came to Japan. (Mittwer 1983, pages 32-34).
   1. Nogami-mura (野上村) was one of 21 villages (mura 村) that constituted the Nanokaichi domain (Nanokaichi-han 七日市藩) in Kōzuke province (Kōzuke no kuni 上野国). Through a series of village and town mergers, Nogami-mura became part of the Nanokaichi neighborhood of present-day Tomioka city (Tomioka-shi 富岡市) in Gunma prefecture, a bit off the beaten path a 40-minute drive today southwest of Maebashi, Gunma's capital city. The area is known as the site of the Tomioka Silk Mill, the largest in Japan, and one of the largest in the world, at the time it was built in 1872. Several buildings are now designated important cultural properties or national treasures, and the group of such buildings, including the mill, are now registered as World Heritage sites.
   2. Yamazaki Kō passed away in Tokyo on 12 April 1955. Japan Airlines passenger manifests show her 2nd son Richard departing from San Francisco for Tokyo on 22 February 1955 and returning on 11 May 1955. Her primary grave was located at Kannonji (観音寺), a Shingon (真言) temple, in the Yanaka (谷中) area of Taitō ward in Tokyo, near Nippori station. However, the Yamazaki family later relocated its Kannonji grave to another temple.
   3. Ko Mittwer is also memorialized at Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles, with Richard Mittwer, in a niche with a plaque reading "MITTWER / RICHARD J. H. / 1876-1946 / KO / 1878-1955". Presumably the niche contains part of Richard's ashes. Whether it contains any of Kō's ashes is not clear (Frederick very likely brought some of his mother's ashes back with him to Los Angeles). Immediately to the left of the single niche for Richard and Ko is a double niche for Frederick Mittwer and his wife Mary Oyama, though her nameplate is not on the niche shown in the photograph (see below). The Mittwer family niches at Everygreen were arranged for by Fred's and Mary's daughter Vicki sometime after Fred died in 1981 and before Mary died in 1994 (Gretchen, email, 29 November 2023).

Henry Mittwer, when writing about his mother, knew less about her than he wished, as he never saw her again after he left Japan in 1940, when 21 years old. What child leaving home at that age, expecting to be back, asks their mother questions that come to mind only after she is gone and painfully missed?

Yamazaki Kō

19 February 1789   Yamazaki Sanemon (Yamazaki Sanwemon 山崎三ヱ門), the oldest known progenitor of Yamazaki Kō's Yamazaki ancestors, died　on "Kansei 7-uten-nen 3-gatsu 24-nichi sotsu (寛政七卯天年三月二十四日卒) according to Henry Mittwer's autobiography (Mittwer 1983, page 30). This lunar calendar date corresponds to 12 May 1795 on the Gregorian calendar. A geneology Henry Mittwer "consolidated" in 1993 shows "Yamazaki San'emon / [died] 1789-3-2l" (Zen to hone.

The above date of death is the last phrase of an inscription on a morturay tablet (ihai 位牌) in the possession of the Yamazaki family that reads as follows (Ibid., my structural translation and notes).

織田家臣、上毛野上村落野上ニ住ス、清松院心雲良善居士、山崎三ヱ門、寛政七卯天年三月二十四日卒

Oda-ka-shin, Jōmō Nogami-muraraku Nogami ni jū-su, Seishō-in shin'un ryōzen koji. Yamazaki Sanwemon, Kansei shichi-uten-nen san-gatsu ni-jū-yon-nichi sotsu

Oda house retainer, residing in Nogami in Nogami village in Jōmō (Kamitsuke), a heart-clouded good-virutous resident-disciple at Seishō-in, Yamazaki Sanwemon, on the 24th day of the 3rd month of the 7th u-ten year of Kansei, dies

Yamazaki San'emon, a retainer of the Oda family, living in Nogami in Nogami village in Kamitsuke (Jōmō), a layman at Seishoin, a good man with a heart not yet ready to devote to monkhood, died on the 24th day of the 3rd month of the 7th year of Kansei [12 May 1795], a year of the rabbit.

kashin 家臣   Yamazaki was a "house-allegiant" or vassal, who served the Oda house, the head of which was possibly in a line descended from Oda Nobunaga (織田信長 1534-1582), a warlord whose retainers, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (豊臣秀吉 1537-1598) and Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川家康 1543-1616), succeed Oda and each other as unifiers of Japan's numerous local provinces and domains in the late 16th century. Tokugawa defeated Hideyoshi's son Hideyori in 1600 at the Battle of Sekigahara. By 1603, when Hideyoshi received the title of shōgun from the emperor, and established the shogunal government at his castle in Edo, most local lords had accepted his authority. The Tokugawa house dynastically governed Japan until 1867, when a civil war compelled the 15th shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu (徳川慶喜 1837-1913), to return his title to the emperor, which restored the reins of government to the emperor Mutsuhito -- then a teenager surrounded by supervisors, advisers, and facilitators -- known today by the reign name Meiji. which began from 23 October 1868.

koji 居士   Yamazaki is described as a layman who resides at a temple, as opposed to an itinerant ascetic who seeks to free from the attachments of a settled life. As such, he had not taken vows to be a monk, for his heart was still wandering, hesitant, not yet clear. But he is a good man.

sotsu 卒   Yamazaki's death is written with a character that essentially means "end" as in "sotsugyō" (卒業) -- the end of some sort of work -- graduate. The graph is also used to mean a common lower ranking samurai or foot soldier. Here, however, it is used as a metaphor for the end of life or death of someone of a lower status -- but not the lowest or most common status. "Hō" (崩 kuzureru) was used for emperors and empresses, "kō" (薨 mimakaru) for the nobility, and "shi" (死 shinu) for common people. Today the most common terms are "nakunaru" (亡くなる) and "shinu" (死ぬ), and more formally "seikyo suru" (逝去する), or just "sei"(逝) also read "yuku" (逝く, 行く) meaning "go", or "kyo" (去) or "saru" (去る) meaning "depart". All these terms compare with the metaphors for death in other languages, since most religions view death as a journey to another world.

u-ten 卯天   This is not conventional sexigesimal lunar calendar notation. The sexigesimal or "stem-branch" (kanshi 干支 eto) year for "Kansei shichi-nen" (寛政七年) is "konoto-u" (乙卯). The first or "heavenly stem" (tenkan 天干) component -- 乙 (konoto) -- is the "yin" (in 陰) state of "wood". The second or "earthly branch" (chishi 地支) component -- 卯　(u) -- signifies that it was a "year of the rabbit" (u-doshi 卯年).

The "u" (卯 "rabbit") of "u-ten" thus signifies that "Kansei 7-nen" is a "year of the rabbit". The significance of "ten" (天 "heaven") is not clear to me, but perhaps it is intended to represent everything associate with "heaven" without respect to a specific heavenly stem.

The 10 heavenly stems (kan 干) consist of the 2 yin-yang (in-yō 陰陽) states of the 5 elements -- wood 甲乙, fire 丙丁, earth 戊己, metal 庚辛, and water 壬癸 -- expressed in these compounds in yang-yin order, e.g. "wood yang" (甲) and "wood yin" (乙). These graphs are used as ordinal pronouns for parties to contracts or other matters, or in reference to objects. Hence 甲, 乙, 内, 丁 et cetera -- read kō, otsu, nai, tei -- signify A, B, C, D and so forth.

The 12 earthly branches (shi 支) are more familier in that they represent the 12 animals of the zodiac -- Rat 子鼠, Ox 丑牛, Tiger 寅虎, Rabbit 卯兔, Dragon 辰龍, Snake 巳蛇, Horse 午馬, Sheep 未羊, Monkey 申猴, Rooster 酉鶏, Dog 戌狗, and Boar 亥猪. In these compounds, the 1st graph is used in sexagesimal notation -- e.g., "Year of the Rabbit" (u-doshi 卯年). Whereas the the 2nd graph is used to refer to the actual animal -- e.g., "chase rabbits" (usagi o ou 兎を追う). The 22 stem-branch graphs combine in 5 * 12 = 60 ways to make 5 cycles of the 12-year zodiac within the 60-year or sexagesimal cycle.

The simplest notation would be just "Kansei shichi-nen" (寛政七年) meaning "the 7th year of Kansei". If including the sexagesimal year that correspondends to Kansei 7, the notation becomes "Kansei shichi [kinoto-u] nen" (寛政七 [乙／卯] 年) meaning "the 7th [ wood-young brother (wood-yin) / hare (rabbit)] year of Kansei".

Kansei 7-3-24 (寛政七年三月二十四日) on Japan's lunar calendar converts to 1795-05-12 on the Gregorian calendar or 1795-05-12 on the Julian calendar.

The Gregorian calendar was introduced in Europe in 1592. The Julian calendar began to be used in 46 BC. While the Gregorian calendar has come to be used throughout the world for secular purposes, some orthodox churches still use the Julian system for reckoning the dates of religious festivals.

China's lunar calendar came to be commonly used in Japan by the 7th century. Japan officially adopted the Gregorian calendar from January 1873. In other words, all Japanese reign-year dates up to Meiji 5-12-2 (31 December 1872) are lunar calendar dates that require conversion to solar calendar dates. What would have been "Meiji 5-12-3" on the lunar calendar becaome "Meiji 6-1-1" on the solar calendar.

Nonetheless, the lunar calendar contines to dictates some religious and other observations. When the solar calendar was adopted from "Meiji 5-12-3 → Meiji 6-1-1 = 1873-1-1", a number of celebratory or memorial events on the lunar calendar were mapped onto the solar calendar using the same numerical month-day dates, thus entirely losing their lunar moon-phase significance. Some of the more obvious examples include the observation of Tanabata (7-7) on 7 July and O-bon on either 13-17 July (7-13/17) in places that celebrate "Old O-bon", and 13-17 August (8-13/17) in most places today. Mass media celebrates Uchiiri (12-14/15) on the night of 14/15 December when Asano's Ak&3333; rōshi avengers took Kira's head at his snowy residence under the cloak of a full moon. Genroku 15-12-14 lunar is 30 January 1703 solar -- a full month-and-a-half later, in the dead of winter.

In the following list of the main Yamazaki line, dates on popular genealogy websites are shown first. Lunar calendar dates found in primary records, including family registers, are shown in [brackets]. Correct solar calendar conversions are shown in red and the received false solar dates are overstruck.

Generation
    Relationship             Birth        Death        Notes
           Name
           Spouse
 0  4xGGF  San'emon Yamazaki    ?          2 Mar 1789  山崎三ヱ門
                                          20 Mar 1793
                                      Kansei 07-03-24  Mittwer 1983, page 30
                                        = 12 May 1795

 1  3xGGF  Yoshijiro   "        ?            ?
    3xGGM  Machi

 2  2xGGF  Goroshichi  "        ?         13 Oct 1855
    2xGGM  ?ra                  ?          8 Aug 1872

 3  1xGGF  Heihachi    "     12 Aug 1823  21 Oct 1888  平八 Gunma, Gunma
    1xGGM  Hana              12 Aug 1824   6 Jul 1895　はな
                         Bunsei 07-08-12　　　　　　　　 Koseki
                           =  4 Sep 1824

 4     GF  Seigoro     "     21 Oct 1849   8 May 1919  政五郎 Gunma, Hongo
           Masagoro        Kaei 02-10-21               Koseki
                           =  4 Dec 1849
       GM  Kuni Ando         13 Nov 1848   2 Nov 1922  くに
                           Kaei 01-11-13               Koseki
                           =  8 Dec 1848

 5  0   M  Ko Yamazaki        2 Oct 1877         1955  こう Koseki Tokyo, Yokohama

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 5  0   M  Ko Yamazaki        2 Oct 1877         1955  こう Koseki Tokyo, Yokohama
    0   F  RJH Mittwer       25 Jul 1876  23 Oct 1946  Minneapolis, Los Angeles
 6  1   S  John Mittwer       3 Nov 1907 	 4 Apr 1999  Nihobashi-ku (Tokyo), Tokyo
    1   S  Frederick Mittwer 23 Aug 1909   2 Jun 1981  Shiba-ku (Tokyo), Tokyo
    1   S  ★ Henry Mittwer   9 Dec 1918   1 Jun 2012  Negishi (Yokohama), Kyoto
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 6  1   F  ★ Henry Mittwer   9 Dec 1918   1 Jun 2012  Negishi (Yokohama), Kyoto
    1   M  Sachiko Egami      4 Jun 1920  29 Jun 2017  Omuta (Fukuoka), Kyoto
 7  2   S  Eric Kazuo        18 Oct 1943  13 Mar 2021  Topaz (Utah), California
 7  2   D  Gretchen Kyoko     5 Jul 1945               Tule Lake
 7  2   D  Joyce Shizuka      9 Feb 1956               Altadena
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 7  2      7th generation descendants of Yamazaki San'emon
           2nd grandchildren of Yamazaki Ko and Richard Mittwer
 8  3      8th generation, 3rd great-grandchildren
 9  4      9th generation, 4th great-great grandchildren

Ikeda Harue's story

When unfurling his family tree in Zen to hone, Henry Mittwer drew attention to his mother Ko Yamazaki, and below her Harue, another woman diagramed as having had connections with father Ricahrd, then to Harue's right Mitsue, her daughter with Richard, hence John's, Frederick's, and Henry's half sister.

Someone present at the filming remarked that it is unusual to include a lover (aijin 愛人) in a family tree. Henry demurs. She exists, he says, and adds -- "Shikata ga nai" -- there was no other way -- what was I to do? -- that's the way life is.

Self-congratulatory family histories omit details that members prefer to keep to themselves in the name of privacy or shame. They pump up military service and other achievements that draw praise. Some family genealogists are desperate to discover links to historical celebrities, outcasts, and victims. What better way to elevate one's no-body status than by learning that one's paternal great grandmother and Davy Crockett were 3rd cousins twice removed? And what could be more exciting than DNA test results suggesting a drop of Cherokee blood in one's veins -- if one had no awareness of Indian ancestry?

But a lot of people will think twice about publicly sharing stories of suicides in the family, disclosing that a parent, sibling, or child had been convicted of statutory rape or child abuse. Pre- and extramarital affairs, children born out of wedlock, and adoptions into or out a family are also likely to go unmentioned in family histories.

Yet people are curious, snoop around, and find evidence of something kept under wraps and forgotten. And DNA testing has shocked some family historians with

Henry Mittwer's story

0. Henry Mittwer Japanized his name in katakana reading "Henrii Mitowa" (ヘンリー・ミトワ). The final accountability roster for Tule Lake War Relocation Center, where he was interned from February 1945 to March 1946, gives his names as "Mittwer Saburo Henry". "Saburo" signified that he was a 3rd son. He wrote that, in 1944, after renouncing his U.S. citizenship and expressing his desire to return to Japan, he used his mother's family name "Yamazaki" (Mittwer 1983, page 96). He apparently went by "Saburo Yamazaki" to underscored that he was Japanese -- although he wrote that, having lost his U.S. nationality, he had become stateless (Ibid.). His daughter, Gretchen, reports that "I was quite surprised when I first saw his name given with that Japanese given name in it, since it is just a name he adopted for himself during a short period in his wartime-period life in the US" (email, 15 January 2024). See Henry Mittwer's story (below) for details.
   1. Richard Mittwer reported Henry's birth and recognized Henry as his son to American consulate in Yokohama. Henry thus acquired U.S. nationality through right-of-blood provisions in the U.S. Naturalization Act, which apply to children born overseas to Americans who have resided in the United States long enough to enable the transmission of U.S. nationality to their children. Because Henry's father was a U.S. citizen, and not just a U.S. national, Henry's U.S. nationality came with citizenship.
   2. In 1944, while interned in the United States during the Pacific War, Henry renounced his U.S. citizenship. But in 1946, while still interned and facing deportment, he petitioned for reinstatement to U.S. citizenship, and his petition was granted in 1952 (see Henry Mittwer's nationality (below).
1. Henry obtained a U.S. passport from the Yokohama consulate on 6 July 1937, and he used this passport when entering the United States for the first time on 23 September 1940, at the Port of Seattle, aboard the MS [Motor Ship] Hikawa Maru, which had sailed from Yokohama on 11 September 1940. The passenger manifest, for U.S. citizens, states "father from Chicago, mother born in Japan of Jap race" in the handwriting of a U.S. immigration officer.
2. Whether Henry also became a Japanese subject and national at the time of his birth not clear from public information including Henry's own testimony. See Henry Mittwer's nationality (below) for issues regarding his legal status.
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Japanese broadcasts at Topaz

18-22 February 1945   Henry, Sachiko, and Eric were transferred to Tule Lake Relocation Center in California, from Topaz Relocation Center in Arizona.

Mittwer's oldest daughter, Gretchen Kyoko Mittwer, attributes the family's transfer to Tule Lake as follows (Ancestry.com, Gretchen Kyoko Mittwer Family Tree, viewed 21 October 2023, [bracketed] comments mine).

Caught for having built a home-made short-wave radio, which he used to pick up transmissions from Tokyo that he broadcast via loudspeakers all over his area of the Topaz camp, he [Henry Mittwer] was sent to Tule Lake together with his pregnant wife Sachiko and son Eric.

This account is the barebones gist of the elaborate and humorous story Henry relates in his autobiography, which structurally translates as follows (Mittwer 1983, pages 100-101).

    . . . Enjoyment and hope welled up in camp life, where there was no purpose in life. Nonetheless, it was a boring existence. And what struck my eyes, after wondering what would be interesting, was the small home [AM] radio [in our family partition of the barrack].
    I immediately got hold of some solder and a soldering iron through a Sears, Roebuck mail order, and rewound the coil [of the home radio] for shortwave use. Failure is the origin of success, and in the course of modifying [the coil], one morning, when slowly turning the dial, sucessfully overcoming the noise from among the words of a foreign country, doesn't Japanese clearly jump out! -- Great! Great! -- and from then every morning I listened in (eavesdropped) on broadcasts from Japan.
    However, walls have ears, and the secret was leaked, before 3 days had passed, by the husband [of the family] in the neighboring room [separated by] a single sheet of a thin board. From the following day, our room, the children sleeping, overflowed with guests glued to the radio. Thinking of that now, had I requesed an admission fee, it would have come to a not of pocket money.
    The people who gathered could no longer enter the room. So that those who overflowed outside could also hear, I attached some speaker above the eaves.
    It's 8 in the morning. And crossing all the way over the great sky of the Pacific Ocean, the undulating acoustics peculiar to shortwave broadcasts, gallantly cracked the speakers with "Mamoru mo semeru mo kurogane no" (守るも攻めるも黒鐵の). The reverberation was as though a Japanese parachute force had dropped on the vast plain of Topaz, and in front of 34-11-B, like bees looking for sugar, [there] quickly [swarmed] a mountain of people quietly listening.

Coils   The reception frequency of a radio is governed by the frequency of an LCR (inductor, capacitor, resistor) resonant circuit or resonator. The resonant frequency can be controlled by changing any of the L (reluctance), C (capacitance), or R (resistance) variables. In most contemporary home radios, the "dial" was a mechanical variable capacitor, and the inductor was a fixed coil. Henry changed the properties of the coil, which changed the inductance, which shifted the range or band of receivable frequencies from AM to shortwave. It was the sort of hack anyone who had built and seriously played around with basic radio circuits could have devised.

Of interest here is that the unit used to measure inductance, a property of electromagnetism, is the "henry" -- named after Joseph Henry (1797-1878), an American scientist best known for his pioneering work in the field of electromagnetism, which hinges on understanding inductance and its counterpart reluctance. In effect, then, Henry Mittwer hacked his home radio by changing the "henries" (or "henrys") of its coil -- an electromagnetic component.

"Mamoru mo semeru mo kurogane no"   Henry is citing the first line of the first couplet of the lyrics of "Gunkan kōshinkyoku" (軍艦行進曲) ["Warship march"], one of the best-known patriotic songs in Japan then and today. The couplet reads as follows (my structural translation).

守るも攻めるも黒鐵の 浮かべる城ぞ頼みなる

Mamoru mo semeru mo kurogane no
ukaberu shiro zo tayomi naru

Defense and attack alike depend on
[our] floating castles of black steel

The song was composed by Setoguchi Tōkichi (瀬戸口藤吉 1868-1941) in 1897, 2 years after Japan's victory of China in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895). After the turn of the century, the song become the Imperial Japanese Navy's official marching song, and in 1907, 2 years after Japan defeated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), the Imperial Japanese Navy Band played the song when touring Europe. Outlawed during the Allied Occupation of Japan following the Pacific War (1941-1945), the song was revived by the post-occupation reincarnation of the navy, and it continues to be popular among war song buffs, not all of them neo-nationalists.

34-11-B is a typical internment camp address meaning "Block 34, Barracks 11, Unit B". The Central Utah Relocation Center at Topaz in Utah had 34 residential blocks, each with 12 barracks. THe barracks were shells -- a roof and floor, and outside walls. They could be partioned any number of ways to accommodate different purposes. Those used to house families were divided into a few spaces with thin non-structural walls, and each unit had a door and a couple of windows. Each bock had community toilets and showers, and a mess hall for eating.

Other accounts say that Henry Mittwer's eventual transfer to Tule Lake was due to his response to the infamous "Statement of U.S. Citizenship of Japanese American Ancestry", distributed by the War Relocation Authority on 8 February 1943, which contained two poorly conceived questions contrived to separate the "loyal" from the "disloyal" among both Japanese and American internees. Question 27 asked "Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty wherever ordered?" and Question 28 asked "Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization?"

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Henry's daughter Gretchen describes her the language profficiens of Ko and Richard, and their sons, likie this (email, 2023/12/19).

It seems that Ko knew very little kanji. I have no idea what kind of school she ever attended, but probably she got very little school education. All three of her sons did receive their schooling at St. Joseph College, Japanese was their spoken language in daily life, and I believe that they spoke it better than they were ever able to speak English. I know that my father often made grammatical mistakes in his spoken and written English. In that he hadn't gotten much if any formal education in reading or writing Japanese, he was self-taught in those, later on in his life. Another thing about my father's formal education, of course, was that he dropped out of school at age 16, to start working and help his mother make ends meet. My father had very little memory of spending time with his father at home or anywhere. I would imagine that RJH and Ko conversed in Japanese, since I'm pretty sure Ko knew very little English.

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Henry Mittwer (Henri Mitowa ヘンリ・ミトワ 1919-2012) is commonly called a "zensō" (禅僧) or "Zen monk". He is also remembered as a "zento" (禅人 zenjin) and "chajin" (茶人 sajin, chabito) -- a "zen person" and "tea person" -- whose carnated soul traveled through life along the "paths" or "ways" of Zen and Tea -- "zendō" (禅道) and "sadō" (茶道).

Others have called him a "fūryūjin" (風流人) and a "sennin" (仙人)

One imagines a robed, head-shaved man reposed in meditation, or strolling through the shady grounds of a mossy temple. Some pictures show Henry Mittwer doing such things, while others show him making tea, arranging flowers, or shaping a lump of clay on a potters wheel.

Zen to hone (禅と骨), a film about Henry Mittwer's life and death, released in 2016, 4 years after his death, shows him agreeing with his children's assessment of him as a dictator. It also shows him reminiscing about his life as he rumages through a room full of junk he amassed as a sentient being who also enjoyed the noisy, materialistic human world. In one scene, pulls a large, tape-mended folder from a white canvas bag, flips through sheet after sheet of washed-ink sketches of nudes on newsprint, and exlaims that he did them because he's a "nandemoya" (何でもや) -- someone (ya) who does anything and everything (nan demo).

If he didn't exactly do everything, Henry Mittwer did more than most people do in their lives, whether out of necessity to survive, or purely out of interest. And he generally seems to done things his way -- a fairly disciplined person with an enormous curiosity, and a playful sense of humor that allowed him to endure the inexplicable chaos of existence, in which all things that sprout are doomed to whither.

Henry Mittwer was born and raised in Japan in 1919 to a Japanese mother and an American father -- she a geisha who opened her own enterainment establishment, and became a mistress and then the proper wife of a foreigner -- he a Moody Bible Institute non-graduate, who may have first come to Japan as a missionary, then came again as an embassy interpreter, photographer, English teacher, and commercial business agent, before returning to America as an interpreter, notary public, and facilitator for Japanese immigrants in Los Angeles, and president of the Pacific Mineral Society of Los Angeles.

Henry first went to the United States when 21, in 1940, barely a year before the start of the Pacific War. He spent the war years and then some, first as a volunteer evacuee at Manzanar when it was an assembly center for "All Persons of Japanese Ancestry", run by the U.S. Army -- then in Manzanar, Gila river, Topaz, and Tule Lake internment camps, under the administration of the War Relocation Authority.

Henry was tranferred to Tule Lake because he changed his loyalty question answers from yes to no, then sought "repatriation" to Japan to see his mother and brother, which he understood would cause him to forfeit his his U.S. citizenship.

When Tule lake closed in early 1946, Mittwer was sent to Crystal City, a camp for enemy aliens operated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, via San Francisco, where he expected to appear before a federal court judge, but was told by his attorney that he had not yet been able to schedule an appearance.

Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor caught more than American armed forces with their pants down. Everyone's life would somehow change, on all sides of the Pacific and beyond.

The volunteerism and cooperation Henry displayed at the start of the U.S. government's evacuation and internment of "all people of Japanese ancestry" appears to have been motivated by his regard for the United States as, if not his country in a patriotic sense, then as the country where he anticipated settling when the war was over. During his internment, he married a Japanese woman he had met before the start of the war, who had come to the United States when she was only 6 months old, and they had a son.

Even when the United States had internees compete a questionaire to determine who could leave the the camps or enlist, Henry was sufficiently in favor the United States that he answered "Yes, Yes" to questions asking if he would serve anywhere in the armed forces of the United States, and swear his allegiance to America while foresaking any loyalties he might have also felt toward Japan.

Henry, though, changed his replies to the loyalty questions to "No, No" -- ostensibly because, having thought through the implications of the questions, he decided he had no reason to want to bear arms against his own mother, or against his brother and friends in Japan. He expressed his desire to return to Japan and see them -- and understood that, by "repatriating" to Japan, he would "forfeit" his American citizenship.

He does not appear to have harbored any loyalties toward Japan as an imperial state at war -- at least not to the extent that he hoped Japan would win the war. And he does not seem to have held the U.S. government in contempt for how it was treating him and others with Japanese blood who happened to be residing along the west coast -- at least not to the extent that he would jeopardize his right to be in America for the sake of justice. My impression is that he experienced an attack of homesickeness -- a nostalia that resolved into a strong yearning to return to a place where he thought he would feel comfortable.

During Henry's internment, his nationality status -- American, Japanese, or both -- became equivocal. He contributed to the equivocality of by expressing his own uncertainty about whether he possessed Japanese as well as U.S. nationality. A few months before Japan's surrender, his U.S. citizenship appears to have been suspended.

After the war, he decided he wanted to remain in America with his family, which by then included 2 children, So he petitioned to recover U.S. citizenship. n the eyes of the U.S. government, All internment rosters show him as an alien (A) or

This page, while touching on his life in general, will focus on the legal and bureaucratic aspects of Henry Mittwer's life -- how he was classified and treated in accordance with Japanese and U.S. laws and policies -- and how he navigated the social and political conditions that at times constrained his choices in life.

Sachiko (Egami) Mittwer's story

Issei or nisei?

While Henry is often called a nisei -- he was not born outside Japan to Japanese immigrant parents. Nor does he appear to have been an issei -- he did not emigrate from Japan as a Japanese national. Accordingly, neither term really applies to him. He was merely an American born and raised overseas to an American father and a mother who, until marrying his father, had been Japanese. While he was significantly educated and socialized in English in Japan, unlike most issei -- when migrating to America, never mind his proficiency in English, he would have felt it an alien place, like most issei. And unlike most nisei, who would find Japan an alien place, he would feel feel at home in the language, society, and culture of the country.

Sachiko, on the other hand, was an issei like her parents, as she had been only 8 months old when she arrived with them in America on 4 February 1921. But she was more like a nisei in terms of her linguistic, social, and cultural upbringing in America from the time she was still in diapers, probably not yet walking or talking.

Henry, returning to Japan in 1961, two decades and a year after he left, would have noted the considerable prewar-postwar changes. He was probably a bit self-conscious and hesitant at first -- but like a trout released from a hook and thrown back into the water, his reflexes would quickly have helped him swim in the Japanese stream. Whereas Sachiko, when later she joined him, would have needed more time to acclimate to everything -- no matter her exposure to "things Japanese" growing up with her family in America, or possibly during visits to Japan when a girl.

Forthcoming.

Yukiko Helene Kobayashi's story

0. Yukiko Helene Kobayashi was born on 2 November 1914 in California to Japan-born parents Kise Igarashi (1890-1928) and and Kojiro Kobayashi (1881-1939). The Kobayashis married in Seattle in Washington on 27 Octobere 1913. He was 33, she 23, and she signed her named 五十嵐キセ (Igarashi Kise), unlike her husband, who signed K. Kobayashi. It appears that she was fresh off the boat. Most likely she was already married to him under Japanese law, and was permitted to step through the immigration gate on condition that she immediately marrying him under Washington law.
   1. The 1920 census for San Juan Precinct in San Benito County, California, shows Kobayashi Kojiro (39) and Kise (29). He had immigrated in 1903 and she in 1913. They have 2 daughters, Yukiko (5) and Masai [sic = Masae] (1).
      1. San Juan Precinct (1920 census) and San Juan Township (1930 census) refer to one of four administrative districts of Benito County, which is south of San Jose and Santa Clara, southeast of Santa Cruz, and east of Monterey. The district centers on the mission town San Juan Bautista.
   2. The 1930 census for San Juan Township in California shows California-born "Yukiko" (15) as the daughter of Japan-born "Kobayashi, K." (49) [bc1881]. K. Kobayashi's wife is Japan-born Yoshi (37) [bc1893]. He has a son Sachio (8), and a step-son "Kemiko, Hirayweo" (3) [sic = Hirayama, ???, later George]. K. Kobayashi was 32 (c1913) and Yoshi was 22 (c1915) at the time they first married. Kojiro's daughter and son are his children by his 1st wife, Kise (Chise), who was born in 1889 and died in 1928 according to their headstone, which shows that Masae was born in 1919 and died in 1927, and that Kojiro was born in 1880 and died in 1939. Kojiro's step-son is Yoshi's son with her 1st husband, Tetsugoro Hirayama, who was born in 1881 and died in 1926 according to his headstone, shared with Yoshi (1892-1981) and their son George (1826-1957). Ergo, Kojiro and Yoshi, both widowed with children, he in 1928 and she in 1926, married about a year before the census.
   3. 1931-1932 marriage   The "Intention to Marry" column in the 10 December 1931 edition of Los Angeles Times lists "BANTISTA-KOBAYASHI. Ambrocio Bantista, 22; Helene Kobayashi, 21." The "Marriage Intentions" column of the 21 January 1932 edition of San Cruz News lists "Ambrocio Bautista, 24 native of Philippine Islands, San Juan Bautista; Yukiko Kobayashi, 17, San Juan Bautista."
      1. "Juanito Ambrocio Bautista" (1908-1998) was born in Badoc in the province of Ilocos Norte the Philippine Islands on 19 December 1908, according to his DSS [Department of Selective Service] Form 1 registration card. He died in Santa Clara County on 28 April 1988. Bautista served in the U.S. Army from 1 July 1942 to 20 Janyary 1946, and is buried as a "WWII Veteran" in Saint Mary Cemetery in Gilroy in Santa Clara County. He shares a headstone with his 2nd wife, Louise L. (LaFromboise) Bautista (1929-2015), a "Chippewa Cree". They were married in 1946, and the first of their several children, Betty Lu Bautista (1946-1947), is also buried in Saint Mary Cemetery.
   4. 1933   Helene gives birth to son, John Richard Bautista (1933-2003).
   5. 1937   A Los Angeles directory shows "Bautista John (Helene" h710 W 1st".
      1. The address was on the 7th block on 1st Street west of the LA Civic Center on the corner of 1st and Main Street -- the center of LA's street address coordinate system. In other words, it was 8 blocks west of Little Tokyo, which begins from the 2nd block of 1st Street east of Main and centers on 1st and San Pedro.
   6. The 1940 census for Los Angeles shows "Mittwer Richard J." (53) [sic = 63 (bc1877)], married when 28 [c1905], as one of many lodgers at 305 East Second Street. His occupation is interpretor and nob tary at a legal office.
      1. The address is that of the New York Hotel at the start of the 3rd block of 2nd Street east of Main, on the corner of San Pedro and Main, hence one block south of 1st and San Pedro, the heart of Little Tokyo. The 1930 census shows him living at the same address.
   7. The 1940 census for Los Angeles shows "Kobayashi Helene" (23) as one of many lodgers at 331-1/2 East First Street. She is divorced, had complete 8 years of school, and was working as a waitress at a cafe. The census states that she was living in Los Angeles as of 1 April 1935, but not at the same place.
      1. The address is on the 3rd block of 1st street east of San Pedro off the intesection of 1st and Pedro, the heart of Little Tokyo. In other words, Helene is residing about a block and half from Richard Mittwer.
      in Little Tokyo.
   8. The 1940 census for Los Angeles shows "Bautista Johnny" (7) as a lodger with an Italiam-born couple and their 4 Missouri- and California-born teen-age children, and 2 other lodgers, "Torres Valentino" (3) and "Torres Diane" (2). The 3 lodgers may be foster children. All members of the houshold except the Torres siblings are said to have been residing at the same address as of 1 April 1935. Whether this "Johnny Bautista" is Helene and John Bautista's son is not clear.
   9. The 1940 census for Sunyvale, California, shows Yoshi Hirayama (48), widowed, employed as a farm worker, with her son George (13).
   Yukio's sister, Masae Kobayashi (1919-1927), is buried with her parents in San Juan Bautista Cemetery. George Sachio Kobayashi (1921-1994) cremains are at Camellia Memorial Lawn Cemetery in Sacramento. George is buried with his Hirayama parents.and she was 22 (c1915) at the time they married their 1st spouses. . The household , too, had California-born mother mothers,
   10. Katsuko Darlene Kobayashi was born on 22 November 1942 at Manzanar War Relocation Center. The final accountability roster for Manzanar show shows her "Katsuko Marlene Kobayashi" above her twin sister, Etsuko Arlene Kobayashi, which may signify that Darlene was the older twin. The roster shows them first as "Kobayashi" with their mother, "Kobayashi, Helene Yukiko", who apparently had been divorced from her first husband,;who presumably had custody of their son. The roster entry for the children with only their mother remarks that she had married "Murakami, Roy Kazuo", and refers to his listing on the same roster, where all the particulars for the girls and their mother -- as Murakamis -- are shown.
       1. However, it appears that the girls never became Murakami's daughters. A California birth index shows Darlene's name as only "Katsuko Kobayashi" and gives her mother's maiden name as Kobayashi. Whether her name was originally Marlene and later Darlene is not clear from the limited records.
          Darlene Kobayashi graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles. On 20 December 1960, when 18, she married Raymond T. Asanuma, and on 2 July 1966 she gave birth to their daughter, Sherri Yukiko Asamura, whose middle name was Darlene's mother. took her middle name from Darlene's her grandmother. Sherri graduated from Walnut High School in Walnut, California, and married Warren Steven Leong in Las Vegas on 9 October 2003 (recorded 10 Octiober).

Mittwer family chronology

Migration, marriage, internment, nationality, and survival

The following chronology integrates the timelines of the Mittwer-Yamazaki family of Richard Julius Herman Mittwer and Ko Yamazaki and their 3 sons, with the timeline of their 3rd son, Henry Mittwer, the main subject of this story. The chronology includes vital events like birth, death, and marriage, and the most significant movements and changes in the lives of the principal members of these two families, with comments.

My focus is on Henry Mittwer's legal status and the Pacific War internments of Mittwer family members on both sides of the Pacific -- hence the concentration of events in the 1940s, centering on Henry's renunciation and recovery of U.S. citizenship between 1944 and 1952.

Henry's mother, Yamazaki Kō, was a 5th generation descenant of Yamazaki San'emon, and I begin the chronology with his death in 1795, then jump to the arrival of Commadore Perry's black ships off Shimoda in 1853. The rest of the chronology is sprinked with other such political and legal benchmarks during the 170 years that have elapsed from Perry's arrival to the time of this writing in 2023.

Sources include Henry Mittwer's 1983 autobiography, a 19-page memoir consisting of Henry's notes typed up by his daughter Gretchen Mittwer no earlier than 2010, the documentary film Zen to hone first screened in 2016, Ancestry.com records, Newspapers.com clippings, other books and articles as noted on this webpage, and considerable email exchanges with Gretchen Mittwer from 2023.

12 May 1795   Yamazaki San'emon (Yamazaki San'wemon 山崎三ヱ門), the oldest known progenitor of Yamazaki Kō's Yamazaki ancestors, died　on "Kansei 7-uten-nen 3-gatsu 24-nichi sotsu (寛政七卯天年三月二十四日卒) according to Henry Mittwer's autobiography (Mittwer 1983, page 30). This lunar calendar date corresponds to 12 May 1795 on the Gregorian calendar. A geneology Henry Mittwer "consolidated" in 1993 shows "Yamazaki San'emon / [died] 1789-3-2l" (Zen to hone), and other death dates are reported.

See Ko's story (above) for a provisional list of San'emon's direct male-line descendants down to Ko's father Yamazaki Seigorō (山崎政五郎 1849-1919) and her mother Kuni (くに b1948).

1858   Japan and America sign Treaty of Amity and Commerce, which came into force 1859. The treaty stipulated that, in addition to Shimoda and Hakodate, 4 more ports would be opened -- Kanagawa (Yokohama) and Nagasaki in 1859, and Nee-e-gata (Niigata) in 1860, and Hyōgo (Kōbe) in 1863 -- and provided that the port at Shimoda "shall be closed as a place of residence and trade for American citizens" 6-months after opening the port of Kanagawa (Article III).

25 July 1876   "Richard Julius Herman Mittwer" is born in Minneapolis according to State of Minnesota birth certificate, to John Mittwer, a Hardware Merchant, and Fredricka Weiss, both born in "East Prussia, Germany".

John Mittwer (1844-1887) and Frederika (Weiss) Mittwer (1850-1935) share a monument at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis in Minnesota. Also sharing the monument are sons corresponding to R.J.H. Mittwer's younger brothers -- Arthur E. Mittwer (1885-1943) and Edwin A. Mittwer (1887-1922) -- who unlike R.J.H. Mittwer remained close to their natal home.

12 January 1877  Yamazaki Kō born "Second daughter of Masagoro Yamasaki [sic = Yamazaki], Plebian [heimin 平民 "commoner"], Head of Family, No. 216, Oaza [Ōaza] Ichinomiya, Township of Ichinomiya, Kita Kanraku Gori [Gōri (Gun)], Gunma Ken". Her mother's name was "Kuni".

1887-1888   Julius Mittwer -- as Richard Julius Herman Mittwer appears to have been called at the time -- studied at St. John's University in Minnesota, according a 19-page typescript memoir written by Henry Mittwer during 1st decade of the 2000s when he was around 80 years old (Gretchen Mittwer, pdf file, 2023-12-03, page 6/19). Henry says his father was on the honor roll and his courses included piano. Assuming that 1887-1888 was a fall to spring academic year, Juluis was 11 years old at the time. Presumably the university had a grade school affiliated with the college.

St. John's University was founded in 1857 by Benedictine monks from Saint John's Abbey. Today it is an undergraduate college, and includes Saint John's School of Theology and Seminary, a graduate school that offers master of arts and master of divinity degrees as well as preparation for priesthood. SJU, a men's college, is closely associated with College of Saint Benedict (CSB), a women's catholic college that originated with Saint Benedict's Monastery in 1889.

May 1892   A "Catalog of Carleton College for the Academic Year of 1891-92", issued in May 1892, published by the college in Northfiled, Minnesota, lists "Julius Mitwer" [sic], of Minneapolis, under "Special Students" (page 51) in the "Academy Classes" section after the "Collegiate" section, which listed candidates for graduate and undergraduate degrees.

13 September 1893   A "list" or "register" (Verzeichniss) of passengers wishing to emigrate, sailing from Liverpool to America aboard the steamship (Dampf-Schiffe) Esperanza, operating under an English flag, departing on 13 September 1893, destination of emigration Montreal, shows "Julius" 16, traveling with his mother Frederike [Fredericka, Frederika] 43, and his brothers Arthur 8 and Alvin 6. Presumably they are returning after a visit with relatives in the German Empire.

At this time, the S.S. Esperanza was plying between Liverpool and New York via Montreal.

Sino-Japanese War

25 July 1894 - 17 April 1895   A war between the Empire of Japan, and Ching (Qing) Dynasty China, breaks out in Chōsen (Yi Dynasty Chosŏn), when Japan takes military action against China's military initiatives on the peninsula, which Japan regarded as a violation of the 1885 Treaty of Tientsin between Japan and China concerning the independence of Chōsen. The war -- fought mainly on the peninsula, but also in the Yellow Sea, and along the Yalu River -- spilled across the Yalu into southern Manchuria, where Japan captured the Liaotung (Liaodong) peninsula and Port Arthur, and was pressing toward northern China when China sought an end to the war. During peace negotiations, which began on 20 March 1895, Japan invaded and occupied the Pescadores (Penghu islands) in the Taiwan straits, which blocked China's attempts to reinforce Taiwan. This set the stage for China's cession of Taiwan and the Pescadores to Japan, among other terms of settlement in the 1895 Shimonoseki Treaty, partly drafted by the United States, and signed on 17 April 1895.

8 October 1895 - 8 May 1897   According to a scan of a record card for "Mittwer, Julius Herman" for "the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, he entered the school on "Oct. 8, 1895 (typed) R. 2/2/98 (hand)" and left on "May 8, 1897 (typed) L. 3/19/98 (hand)" -- i.e., he twic enrolled -- for the purpose of doing ministerial work, having converted to the denomination of Presbyterian in February 1895. His previous education was "Public School; Bus. College, 6 mos." Missionary work done at the time he enrolled was "None to speak of".

The "R" and "L" appear to mean that he was first enrolled for 17 months from 8 October 1895 to 8 May 1897, and "reentered" and "left" again for 6 weeks from 2 February to 19 March 1898.

1896 [before 25 July]   According to his son Henry Mittwer's 1983 autobiography, Richard, at age 19, "becomes military personnel of U.S. Navy" (Bei-Kaigun no heiin ni nari 米海軍の兵員になり) -- and fate would have it that "the black ship that carried him drops anchor at Shimoda of [in] Izu in Meiji 19 [1896]." Henry continues the story like this (Mittwer 1983, page 28).

[I] heard in [my] mother's telling (haha-dzutae 母づたえ) [of my father's story] that [my] father, overflowing with curiosity, immediately set out to see and hear (observe) the unimaginable Oriental country (fushigi-na Tōyō no kuni 不思議な東洋の国) with which he was first contacting (experiencing for the first time), and went (off) on the narrow road(s) of the mountains and rivers (countryside) of (along) the Izu peninsula on a palanquin (kago 駕籠). . . . And [he went] over the mountain(s) of Hakone of (on) the Tōkaidō main line, [and] from Kōzu (国府津), straight for Tokyo on a Nelson 2B6200 model steam locomotive."

Henry Mittwer imagines that his father, while in school, might have read something Koizumi Yakumo (Lafcadio Hearn) had sent to a newspaper in America, which had spurred him to join the navy and come to Japan as a seaman (suihei 水兵). He wonders, though, if his father wasn't disappointed by what he found in Japan in 1896, shortly after its heady victory in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), especially in Tokyo, which even Yakumo had avoided.

Shimoda, a port town on the southeast side of the tip of the Izu peninsula, was a mandatory stop for vessels plying north along the Pacific coast for Edo. Vessels were inspected and cleared for permission to proceed further north. The port was the marine equivalent of the Hakone checkpoint on the Tōkaidō circuit road (see next).

Hakone (箱根) was one of over 50 post towns (juku 宿) on the Tōkaidō (eastern sea road), the overland connection along the eastern seaboard between Kyōto and Edo. On the Edo side of the post town was Hakone Sekisho (箱根関所), a check point (seki 関) at which all travelers were subject to inspection before being allowed to continue toward Edo. The checkpoint was on the southern shore of lake Ashinoko (芦ノ湖), in the middle of the neck of the Izu peninsula between Mishima and Numazu westward toward Kyōto, and Atami and Odawara eastward toward Edo. The region around Tōkyō is today still known as "Kantō" (関東), when means "east of the checkpoint" at Hakone. Ashinoko is associated with the Hakone mountains, a complex of volcanic domes and caldera that comprise the neck of the Izu peninsula between Numazu and Odawara. Traveling north up the peninsula from Shimoda would involve a route along the coast on the east side of the peninsula. One would pass through the coastal town (machi 町) of Atami (熱海) or "warm sea", formerly a post town, known for its hotsprings, on the slopes of a volcanic caldera that extends under the sea of Sagami bay. The trip would not have involved passing through, much less over, the major mountains associated with the Hakone area on the Toōkaidō mainline. Today one could get a Tokyo-bound train from Atami. Then one would have had to get a train from Kōzu station (Kōdzu-eki 国府津駅), which opened in 1887.

Nielson 2B 6200 was a narrow gauge steam locmotive, with a 4-4-0 wheel-configuration and 2 boilers (2B), produced by Neilson & Co. at Hyde Park Locomotive Works in England, for importation to Japan by the Ministry of Railways, in 1897 and 1900, varieties of which operated from as early as 1898 (or 1900) until as late as 1964. The original class designations were AN or D9, but these were renamed 6200 from 1909.

2 February 1898 - 19 March 1898   Julius Herman Mittwer apparently returns to Moody Bible College for 6 weeks, about 9 months before he arrives in Japan (below), according to a scan of a college enrollment record (see above).

Annexation of Hawaii

(1893) (1897) 7 July 1898   President William McKinley approves a resolution to accept as fait accompli the Treaty of Annexation signed by the Republic of Hawaii and the United States on 16 June 1897, which the senate of the Republic of Hawaii ratified on 9 September 1897. Conflicts in both Hawaii and Congress arose that prevented the effectuation of the treaty, but the start of the Spanish-American War impressed on Congress the need to accept the annexation and proceed to nationalize the islands as a territory of the United States, in order to secure its position in the Pacific -- now that the Spanish-American War involved military action in The Philippines, and in view of Japan's expanding Pacific naval and mercantile interests. Japan's designs on the Sandwich Islands, which included migration and naval activity, had inspired America's annexation initiatives in Hawaii in 1893, and America had pressured Japan to curtail the migration of Japanese to the islands out of fear of Japanese domination.

Spanish-American War

21 April - 13 August 1898   The United States, following an explosion aboard and sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor on 15 February 1898, declared war on Spain. Spain surrended, and in the Treaty of Paris signed on 10 December 1898, Spain ceded its claims of sovereignty over Pueto Rico, Guam, and The Philippines to the United States.

9 December 1898   Richard Mittwer arrives in Japan, according an 6 January 1908 registration as a U.S. citizen at the American Consulate in Yokohama (see below).

A Moody Bible Institute "Missionary Record Card" for "M.B.I. Students on the Foreign Field" shows that "Mittwer, R. (Richard) Julius Herman", Denomination "Presbyterian", Country "Japan", Graduated "1898 ng", Board "May 1912", and states "Retired from field (typed) before 1972 (hand)".

The Moodly Bible Institute card for "Mittwer, Julius Herman" for "the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, he entered the school on "Oct. 8, 1895 (typed) R. 2/2/98 (hand)" and left on "May 8, 1897 (typed) L. 3/19/98 (hand)" -- i.e., he twic enrolled -- for the purpose of doing ministerial work, having converted to the denomination of Presbyterian in February 1895. His previous education was "Public School; Bus. College, 6 mos." Missionary work done at the time he enrolled was "None to speak of". The "R" and "L" appear to mean that he was first enrolled for 17 months from 8 October 1895 to 8 May 1897, and "reentered" and "left" again for 6 weeks from 2 February to 19 March 1898.

In his autobiography, Henry says his father arrived on 9 December 1897 (Mittwer 1883, page 29). But his 19-page memoir cites the 9 December 1898 date on the consular registration document (Mittwer c2010, page 7/19).

In his autobiography, Henry describes the 1898 landing as Richard's second trip to Japan. In the memoir, it appears to be his first arrival as per the 1908 consular registration document.

Henry describes his father's alleged "return" to Japan in 1898 like this (Mittwer 1883, page 29, my structural translation).

Nevertheless, the young sailor (seinen suihei 青年水兵) -- having finished his shore leave (Jōriku taika o oe 上陸休暇をおえ) and returned to his country [America] -- having been smitten by something about this country [Japan], learned smatterings of Japanese apparently by himself, and arrived at the port of Yokohama on 9 December 1897.

This time, according to Henry, his father obtained the title of interpreter with the United States Embassy, and began his life in Japan as a resident of the foreign settlement in Tsukiji in Tokyo. And after completing a 2-year contract with the embassy, he opened "Success English School" in Shintomi-chō 6-chome in Kyōbashi ward (now Chūō ward), with himself the only teacher.

14 February 1901   Richard Mittwer arrived at Yokohama Japan, having left the United States on 24 January 1901, according to the "I last left the United States" statement on a 21 June 1922 "Emergency Passport Application" for a passport issued the following day (see below).

The 1901 voyage took 21 days. Allow this much time for travel back to the United States after his 1898 trip to Japan, and another 3 weeks for him to visit his family and arrange for the 1901 return to Japan, his 1898 visit could have been for no longer than 2 years.

24 October 1907   "Richard Mittwer" married "Ko [Yamazaki]" in the "District [ku 区 "ward"] of Nihonbashi, City of Tokio", according to the "Office of the Registar" of Nihonbashi-ku in Tokyo, as stated on a "Certified Copy of the Registration of an American Citizen at the American Consulate-General, Yokohama, Japan" dated 6 January 1908 and approved by the "Bureau of Citizenship, Dept. of State" on 8 May 1908. The certificate is for the birth in Tokyo of "John Mittwer" on 3 November 1907. At the time, the family was residing in Nihonbashi-ku, Tokyo, and Richard was a "Teacher" at "Success English School" in Kyobashi-ku, Tokyo.

Nihonbashi-ku (日本橋区) and Kyōbashi-ku (京橋区) were merged as present-day Chūō-ku (中央区) in 1947.

3 November 1907   John Mittwer is born in Tokyo, according to RJH Mittwer's 8 January 1908 registration as a U.S. citizen at Yakohama consulate (next). Elswhere his place of birth is given as Kuramasa-chō (榑正町) in Nihonbashi-ku (日本橋区), now part of Chū-ku (中央区), in Tokyo.

6 January 1908   "Richard Julius Herman Mittwer" registers as a U.S. citizen at the American Consulate in Yokohama. At the time, he stated that he had come to Japan on 9 December 1898, was married to Ko Yamazaki, and had a son named John Mittwer, born in Tokyo on 3 November 1907.

21 January 1908   The consul general of the American Consulate in Yokohama sends a despatch (No. 417) concerning Richard Mittwer to the Secretary of State in Washington, D.C., according to a later despatch (No. 456) dated 18 March 1908. According to the later despatch, this despatch did not include a copy of Mittwer's 6 January 1908 registration because, though Mittwer had stated on the registration that had married Ko Yamazaki on 24 October 1907, and that a son, John Mittwer, was born on 3 November 1907, the consulate had no record of the marriage.

18 March 1908   In response to a request from the American Consulate in Yokohama, Richard Mittwer provides a certificate of his marriage to Yamazaki on 24 October 1907. A clerk and translator of the consulate general translates the documents into English, and the translator and the vice and deputy consul general certify that the translation is correct. The consul general then sends a despatch (No. 456) to the Secretary of State in Washington, D.C., with 2 enclosures -- apparently (1) a copy of Mittner's 6 January 1918 consular registration as an American citizen, and (2) the translation of the certificate of marriage, and on the back of the translation a certification of its accuracy.

The despatch explains that, though Mittwer had stated he was married to Yamazaki, the consulate had no record of the marriage, hence asked Mittwer to provide evidence of the marriage, which he did, hence the enclosed documents. The transmission also cites instructions from Washington dated 18 December 1907, concerning how consuls were supposed to deal with marriages under Japanese law, and a depatch dated 5 February 1908 (No 424), conerning a communication the consul general at Yokohama had made with the American Ambassador at Tokyo, also on the subject of the valdity of marriages under Japanese law. See Richard Mittwer's marriage (below) for images of the documents and other details.

23 August 1909   Frederick Mittwer is born Shiba ward (Shiba-ku 芝区), now part of Minato ward (Minato-ku 港区), in Tokyo.

21 January 1910   A consular registration document for Julius Mittwer shows him residing at "336 Sanko-cho, Shirogane, Shiba-ku,Tokyo" -- according a 19-page typescript memoir by Henry Mittwer (pdf file, page 8/19, Gretchen, 2023-12-03).

February 1913   Mittwer family moves from Tokyo to Yokohama (Mittwer 1983, page 35).

9 September 1918   Henry Mittwer (ミトワ・ヘンリ・サブロ 1918-2012) is born in the Negishi neighborhood of Yokohama, the 3rd and last son and child of Richard Mittwer and Kō Yamazaki.

20 September 1918   "Richard Julius Herman Mittwer", 42, files a Form 1 [military service] registration card at the American Consulate in Yokohama. He gives his occupation as "Clerk" for "Universal Film Mfs Co." in Tokyo. He is married, has 2 children, and gives his prior military service as "Private" in the "National Gd" for 1-1/2 years in Minnesota.

8 May 1919   Birth of Mituse, daughter of Richard Mittwer and his lover Harue (above). Mitsue would marry a man named Yamauchi and have a daughter named Harumi, who had a child.

4 June 1920   Egami Sachiko is born in Fukuoka, Japan (according to her 1961 naturalization petition), the 1st of 4 children of Kumao Egami (1894-1983) and Hatsuye Shibata (1902-1961).

Sachiko's parents married on 15 April 1920 in Fukuoka, left Japan for the United States in late January 1921, and were admitted to the United States on 11 February 1921 when Sachiko was 8 months old. On 31 August 1942, the entire Egami family, including Sachiko's 3 younger America-born siblings, then residing in Pasedena in California, was interned at Gila River Relocation Center in Arizona from Tulare Assembly Center. Her parents were divorced on 29 April 1947 in Reno, Nevada.

Sachiko married Henry Mittwer on 29 December 1942 while the two were interned at Gila River Relocation Center during the Pacific War, though the two had met before the war. In his 1983 autobiography, Henry Mittwer states that she was born in "Ōmuta in Kyūshū" (九州の大牟田) (Mittwer 1983, page 78).

Ōmuta is the southernmost city in Fukuoka prefecture in Kūshū. At the time the Egamis were living there, it was the industrial port for Miike coal mine, one of Japanese largest coal mines. During the Pacific War, Ōmuta was the home of Fukuoka 17, a camp for Allied POWs, who were forced to work in the Miike mine. The mine closed in 1997.

11 Feb 1921   The Egami family arrives at the port of San Pedro in Los Angeles aboard the SS Tenyo Maru, which had sailed from Yokohama. Kumao Egami begins working as the pastor of Moneta Japanese Mission, a Baptist church in Moneta, California. By 1926, the family is residing in Pasedena, where Kumao started working as a self-employed gardener.

22 June 1922   "Richard Julius Herman Mittwer" issued a passport after submitting an "Emergency Passport Application" to the American Consulate General in Yokohama the previous day. On this form, he states that he wants the passport to visit "Japan, China, Hong Kong, Philippine Islands, Indo China, Straits Settlement, Burma" for the purpose of "Commercial business on behalf of United Artists Corporation of the Far East". He had last left the United States on 24 January 1901 and arrived at Japan on 14 February 1901.

The passport application is accompanied by a letter dated 19 June 1921, attesting to the need for an emergency passport permitted travel to the stated places, over the signature of "George Mooser / Managing Directory / United Artists Comporation (of the Far East)" on "Sale and Frazer Ltd." letterhead.

The letterhead shows Sale and Frazer Ltd., a large insurance and import agency, with offices in "Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Yokohama, Moji, Nagoya, Hakodate, Keijo (Seoul), Mukden, and Taihoku (Taipeh)" (parentetic names as received) -- in other works, throughout the sovereign domain of Imperial Japan (including the prefectural Interior, Chōsen, and Taiwan), and Manchuria (not yet Manchoukuo).

18 September 1922   "Richard Julius Herman Mittwer" issued a passport permitting him to travel in "Japan, China, Hongkong, Philippine Islands, French-Indo-China, Straits Settlements, India, Dutch East Indies" for the purpose of "Commercial business".

1922   The nursery song "Akai kutsu" (赤い靴) becomes popular. The song would inspire all manner of children's picture and story books, and the memorial statute unveiled on November 1979 in Yamashita Park on the waterfront of Yokohama Bay. It would also move Henry Mittwer to write and produce ZZZ.

The lyrics to "Akai kutus" were written by the poet Noguchi Ujō (野口雨情 1882-1945) and the score was composed by Motoori Yagayo (本居長世 1885-1945). The song is about Sano Kimi (佐野きみ 1902-1911), whose mother Iwasaki Kayo (岩崎かよ) had married had married Suzuki Shirō (鈴木志郎), a socialist farmer in Hokkaidō Kano, out of poverty, adopted Kimi out to Charles Wesley Huett (1864-1935) and his wife, an American missionary couple in Sapporo. The Huetts moved to Tokyo, then returned to America, but were unable to take Kimi. who had contracted tuberculosis. Kimi was placed in a Christian orphanage in Azabu in Tokyo, where she died when 9 years old. Kayo, thinking Kimi had gone to America, was unaware that Kimi had died in Japan. Noguchi, while working at a newspaper in Sapporo, heard the story from Kayo and Suzuki, who was then working at the newspaper. Or so one version of the story goes.

1923-1924 earthquakes

1925-1926 St. Joseph College

Ko Yamazaki with Henry (middle), and John and Frederick (right) 「横浜の写真誌：関東大震災」、横浜：有隣堂、1971 Yokohama no shashinshi: Tōkyō daishinsai, Yokohama: Yūrindō, 1971 This image copped from Zen_to_hone (2016), 2019 DVD, 0:10:30

Henry Mittwer, Class of 1935, with schoolmates at St. Joseph College, 1926 Image copped from SJIS Alumni Association / U.S.A. Chapter

1 September 1923   Mittwer family survives the Great Kanto Earthquake that struck the greater Tokyo area and Yokohama on shortly before noon on the morning of Saturday, 1 September 1923. A photograph shows Henry (5), his mother Ko, and his brothers Fred (15) and John (16) with others after the earthquake. John is armed with a bamboo spear, and Fred with a rifle, presumably to defend themselves against Koreans rumored to be taking advantage of Japanese during the confusion (Zen to hone.

Henry wrote that, after the 1923 earthquake, the family camped by their damaged home for a while then moved into a large house in "Ohimachi (大井町)" [Ōimachi] for several months (Mittwer 2010, page 10).

17 January 1924   Another powerful earthquake does considerable damage in Yokohama. Richard Mittwer, in Shanghai, wired his family and had them evacuate to Shanghai (Mittwer 2010, page 10/19).

Henry also writes in his 19-page memoir that, while in Shanghai, John developed lung problems from the sooty industrial atmosphere there, so his mother took him to a sanatorium in Nagasaki, bringing Henry with her. She and Henry returned to Shanghai, and 4 months later John also returned (Mittwer 2010, page 10).

Henry also writes that the family stayed in Shanghai for about 2-1/2 years, then returned to Japan, found a home in Yamate Nakamura-cho on the Bluff, about a 20-minute walk from "Saint Joseph's [sic = Joseph] College", where Henry and his brothers began going to school (Mittwer c2010, pages 10-11/19).

The above accounts are partly supported by documents associated with Richard Mittwer's records created by the American consulate in Shanghai, which apparently Henry had at his disposal when writing his book. However, in the film Zen to hone, Henry is said to have begun attending St. Joseph College in 1925 (see below) -- which suggests that he was in Shanghai only about 1-1/2 years. Moreover, a passenger manifest shows his father and Fred leaving Yokohama for the United States on 4 February 1926 -- while the family would have been in Shanghai had it stayed there for 2-1/2 years.

1 February 1924   Richard Mittwer arrives in Shanghai from Peking, according to information recorded on a document among papers concerning Mittwer, compiled at the American Consulate in Shanghai. The record includes the following texts (remarks in [brackets] mine).

March 1924   Richard Mittwer issued emergency passport by American Consulate in Shanghai, according to record of his registration at the American Consulate in Yokohama dated on or about 7 August 1924, when he applied for registration for his entire family in Shanghai.a

Immigration Act of 1924

26 May 1924   "Immigration Act of 1924" -- formally "An Act to limit the immigration of aliens into the United States, and for other purposes" -- is approved by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress on 26 May 1924 (H. R. 7995, Public, No. 139). Also called "Johnson-Reed Act". Introduced in the House of Representatives as H.R. 7995. Passed the House on 12 April 1924. Agreed to by the House and the Senate on 15 May 1924 and signed by President Calvin Coolidge on 24 May 1924, effctive 26 May 1924. However, Immigration Act of 1921 expires on 30 June 1924, and provisions in 1924 act relevant to visas issued 1921 and 1924 acts effective from 1 July 1924.

1 July 1924   Date from which provisions relevant to the issuance of visas based on new quota system under Immigration Act of 1924 apply. Visas issued under 1924 act may be issued prior to 1 July 1924, but will not be valid before this date. 1924 Act will not effect immigrants who arrive before 1 July 1924 with visas issued under Immigration Act of 1921 -- formally "An Act to limit the immigration of aliens into the United States" -- approved 19 May 1921. 1921 act will expire on 30 June 1924, except provisions regarding violations and penalties.

1925   Henry Mittwer begins school at St. Joseph College when 6 years old (Zen to hone.

St. Joseph College (SJC) -- "St. Joe" for short -- is commonly misstyled "St. Joseph's College". The college was a Catholic Marianist kindergarten, grade school, and high school in Yamate-chō in Naka-ku on the Bluff in Yokohama. After the Pacific War, the school renamed St. Joseph International School (SJIS). Established in 1901, it was closed in June 2000.

In his 19-page memoir, Henry calls St. Joseph College "St. Joseph's College" and variously describes it as "a parochial Jesuit school for boys" where "All the teachers were Catholic priests" -- were in fact it's ordained faculty, as Catholic fathers, were Marianist "brothers" and not priests.

The primary school at SJC was entirely destroyed, and the middle [high] school building was badly damaged and needed extensive repairs. Classes were held elsewhere for a couple of years, then returned to Yokohama in 1925 when "Classes open with 110 students housed in repaired buildings and two hastily built barracks" -- according to an SJC/SJIS timeline on SJIS Alumni Association / U.S.A. Chapter (www.sjcusachapter.com) website.

Henry, born on 9 December 1918, turned 6 in 1924. If the family evacuated to Shanghai in early 1924, and stayed 1-1/2 years -- instead of 2-1/2 years, which appears to have been a mistake (see above) -- the family would have returned in 1925, when Henry was 6 -- in time to matriculate at the rebuilt campus.

20 June 1925   A letter bearing this date -- from R.J.H. Mittwer to the American Consulate General in Shanghai, sent from in Weltevreden, Java, in the Duch East Indies, where Mittwer was then working -- includes the following two graphs (remarks in [brackets] mine).

    The last week in May [1925] received a letter from Shanghai informing me that my eldest son [John: was sick and that the doctor told my wife [Ko Yamazaki] to take him to some mountainous place in Japan, so that he might recuperate.

    This week [June 1925] received a letter from her informing me that she had taken him to some place in Nagasaki and that she had great difficulty ibecause she had no passport and asked that I arrange for registration at the Consulate in Shanghai so that if necessary she may apply for a passport to go to Nagasaki again if necessary.

Weltevreden was the southern administrative center of Batavia (Java). It is now part of Central Jakarta in Indonesia.

Ko Yamazaki had returned to Shanghai, leaving John in Nagasaki, as of returned That John was sick in Nagasaki was

Of interest here is that Mittwer, after the salutation "Gentlemen:-", declares and underscores the subject of the letters, namely, "Re Registration of American Citizen." (stop in original). Apparently Mittwer was seeking to register his wife as an American citizen for the purpose of her securing a U.S. passport.

Records concerning Richard Mittwer's notification in 1908 to the American Consulate in Yokohama, of his marriage to Ko Yamazaki in 1907, make it clear that Ko was not eligible for U.S. citizenship through her marriage to Mittwer, for the reason (not stated in the consular record) that, because of her race, she was ineligible for naturalization, hence also not eligible to acquire U.S. citizenship through marriage to a U.S. citizen.

7 August 1925   2nd page of a letter to the American Consulate General in Shanghai, in which Mittwer applies for registration of his entire family in Shanghai, headed and underscored "Re Registration as American Citizens, Mr. R.J.H. Mittwer and family at the American Consulate General, Shanghai, China." (stop in original). The family members are listed as follows.

R.J.H. Mittwer, (temporarily in Java)

Mrs. K. Mittwer, (wife) in Shanghai.

John Mittwer, eldest won sick in Nagasaki, details from wife as to exact residence.

Frederick Mittwer, second son in Shanghai at above address.

Henry Mittwer, third son at above residence in Shanghai.

Richard noted that the ages, and dates and places of birth, were not noted on certified copy of registration. He also noted "Henry born in Yokohama." Why he commented on only Henry here is not clear. The comment refers to one of the documents he submitted to support his request for registration -- "Certified copy of Registration at the American Consulate in Yokohama, together with original letter accompanying the Registration Certificate."

1 February 1926   Date on photograph located at "Nakamura Chio [Nakamura-chō 中村町) in Yokohama. Ko's return address on letter to Richard in Los Angeles shows "1400 Nakamura Machi / Yokohama" (Zen to hone).

4 February 1926   "Mittwer Richard Julius Herman" (49 yrs 7 mos) and "Mittwer Frederick" (17 yrs 6 mos) arrive at San Francisco aboard the SS Korea Maru, which had embarked from Yokohama on 4 February 1926. They are bound for 4620 South Upton Ave., Minneapolis, Minnesota, according to a "List of United Citizens (For the Immigration Officer)" passenger manifest.

11 June 1929   INS case file record card shows this information regarding Richard Mittwer (Subject Index to Correspondence and Case Files of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1903-1959, Ancestry.com).

MITTWER,R.J.H:req.infm.rel.status of
--- who served World War.

Which seems to mean

Require (Request?) information related [to] status of" R.J.H Mittwer
--- who served in World War I.

Apparently Richard Mittwer, who had returned to America 3 years and 4 months prior to this INS memo, was by this time engaged in activities that attracted INS attention. There being as yet no second world war, the war fought globally in the 1910s was simply the "World War" if not the "Great War".

Henry's first job

Circa 1930   Henry, according to his memoirs, got his first job, became a man, and had his first crush on a girl when he was 16. The job was as a waiter at a grll on the 4th floor of the 5-story Olympic Shokudō building at the foot of the bridge crossing that crossed the Ōokakawa river (canal) at Isezakichō dori.

The building appears to have been on the Bashamichi or Kannai side of the bridge, toward the waterfront, where the exterritorial foreign settlement had been from the late 1850s to the end of extraterritoriality in 1899. The Kannai neighborhood included major government buildings and was the buisiness center of old Yokohama. In the past, there had been a kanmon (関門) or check gate at the bridge, to control traffic between the extraterritorial foreign settlement on the waterfront side, and the Naichi or Interior of Japan on the Isezakichō side of the canal, which was fully with Japan's jurisdiction.

Henry says he was 16 by year count, which means he was in his 16th year of life, probably still 15 year old. He wore black trousers and a white coat, had a proper 7/3 part to his hair, and ties his long neck off with black bowtie, and served customers with a white napkin over his left arm (Mittwer 1983, pages 54-55). Many foreigners from the trading streets in Yamashitachō near the waterfront came to the restaurant, and so English was indispensible. And for this his monthly pay was whopping 30 yen, which relieved his mother's worries about money.

The head of grill, the cook, and the cocktail maker took pleasure in introducing Henry, a minor, into the adult world of driking and dancing at Chinatown and other waterfront establishments and dance halls. Around this time, he fell in love with his first Madonna, a girl named Sakurai Yoriko (櫻井頼子), who was also 16. She lived in a much nicer home near him, while attending Ferris College, an all-girls school on the same hill as the all-boys St. Joseph College, where he been he quit to work at the grill. His crush over her went nowhere, except that, when visiting her home, he became entranced by the quality of the sounds that came from a 6-tube heterodyne radio her father, a ship's captain who navigated the world, had brought back from America. (Ibid., pages 57-58)

A regular customer at the grill introduced him to a mall company in Tokyo that made communications equipment. His monthly salary jumped to 50 yen, out of which he paid 8-yen and 50-sen a month for a 3-mat room at a boarding house. This was his first time to live apart from his mother, and at times, he says, the feeling of liberation was empty. After work he drank at beer halls with co-workers. At the end of the year, the company president threw a party for employees, including Henry, at a banquet house in Tsunashima, a pleasure quarter. He was familiar with the shamisen music, as he'd heard his mother play, but he'd never been entertained that way. He became enebriated, was led off to a room by one of the women, and he woke up in the morning to find himself on a futon, his skin smelling of the camphor oil the woman had used in her Japanese style coiffeur. He could not recall ever seeing his mother wear her hair that way, but he knew of her past, and she had taken him to Shimbashi when visiting old friends. (Ibid., pages 59-60)

1930 census for Assembly District 60 of Los Angeles, which corresponds to Little Tokyo, shows "Mittwer, Richard J.", 53, "W" by "Color or race", married for 28 years, residing as a "Lodger" at 305 East Second Street with many Japanese and Americans classifed "Jp" by "Color or race". He was classifed "Interpreter, Notary" by "Occupation", and "Legal Affairs" by "Industry".

The census shows Richard Mittwer living in the midst of predominantly Japanese immigrants, and apparently self-employed as an interpreter and notary public. Presumably he is offering his services to immigrants who require assistance with English and need to sign documents that require legal witnessing.

There are ample examples of issei (immigrants), who became become proficient in English and knowledgeable about bureaucratic and legal procedures, and made a living helping immigrants who lacked such linguistic skills and knowledge. But there were also non-Japanese who mediated on behalf of such immigrants, including those who faced immigration problems.

1930 census for Pasedena in California shows "Egami Kumao", 36, his wife "Hatsuye", 28, with 3 children -- Sachiko, 9-?/12, Novuko [sic = Nobuko], 8, and Naiko [sic = Aiko], 1-?/12. All are "Jp" by "Race or color", and Kumao, Hatsuye, and Sachiko are "Al" (aliens) who, according to the census, immigrated in 1916. Kumao is a gardener for private houses.

1 August 1931   "Mittwer Frederick" (21) arrives in Los Angeles aboard the S.S. Tatsuta Maru, which had sailed from Yokohama on 16 July 1931. "Father U.S. Cit." is written in hand above his typed date and place of birth on "List of United Citizens (For the Immigration Officer)" passenger manifest. He is bound for "305 East 2nd st., Los Angeles, Calif.", his father's residence in Little Tokyo.

21 October 1931   An Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) case file record card reads as follows ([bracketed] information mine).

R. J. H. MITTWER fwds [forwards] circular printed in Japanese issued by the Yamato office [Japanese government] re legal. [regarding legality] of residence of Japanese who were smuggled into the country prior to July 1, 1924 & offering to aid such Japanese[.]

1 July 1924 was the day from which provisions in the Immigration Law of 1924 concerning visas and admission to the United States, under the 1924 law and the 1921 law it replaced, came into force. Japanese consulates in the United States were in the position of having to deal with cases of Japanese in America who for whatever reason ran afoul of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which was in the position of enforcing the federal laws, including the apprehension and deportation of Japanese who had entered the United States illegally, or entered legally but stayed illegally.

15 December 1931   An Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) case file record card reads as follows.

Japan invades and occupies parts of China

1937-1945   Japan used the Marco Polo Bridge incident in Pei'ping (Beiping) [formerly Peking (Beijing)] on 7 July 1937, among other incidents, as a pretext for invading and occupying parts of the Republic of China (ROC), for the purpose of imposing a domestically more stable political order on the country, through a pro-Japan government. By 1938, Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), then the premier of ROC and the commander of its nationalist army, had retreated from (fled) the capital in Nanking, up the Yangtze river, ahead of advancing Japanese troops. Japanese forces captured and fortified Wuhan, while Chiang continued up the Yangtze and further inland to Chungking (Chongqing). From there, supported mainly be air and overland supply routes from the south, Chiang attempted to control parts of China not under Japanese or communist Chinese control, and lead what was left of the nationalist army and scattered anti-Japanese resistance groups from an ROC government in exile. By 1940, Japan had helped establish a new nationalist government in Nanking under the reins of Wang Jing-wei (1883-1944), a rival of Chiang Kai-shek within the nationalist government. Wang had gone to Chungking with Chiang then returned to Nanking, where he cooperated with Japan in order to avoid what he viewed as an unwinable war, and to rebuild China into a more powerful and unified country. In 1943, Wang's China joined the Southeast Asian countries that Japan had invaded and liberated in 1941 and 1942 and turned into pro-Japan republics, and Manchoukuo, which Japan had helped establish in Manchuria in 1932, in declaring war on the United States. Wang died in Nagoya in Japan in 1944, where he was receiving medical treatment. Upon Japan's surrender in 1945, Chiang Kai-shek, as one of the major Allied Powers in the war against Japan, returned to Nanking, and resumed governing ROC there, until he, his government, and fragments of his nationality army were driven into exhile on Taiwan by communist forces led by Mao Tse-tung (Mao Zedong 1893-1976), who founded the People's Republic of China (POC) in Peking (Beijing) [renamed from Pei'ping (Beiping)] in 1949, thus creating the standoff that continues today -- essentially an unfinished civil war -- between ROC in Taiwan and ROC on the continent.

Comfort women

Circa 1938-1940   The Mittwer family in Japan -- Ko Yamazaki and her oldest and youngest sons John, who was handicapped with a bad leg, and Henry -- struggled to survive after Richard left with Frederick in 1926. Richards business ventures failed, and the collapse of the world's econominy in 1929 made life more difficult for everyone. Money from Richard stopped coming, and the family had trouble making ends meet. Henry Mittwer writes this in his brief memoir (Mittwer 2010, pages 13-14).

As the living in Japan got tougher with the Japanese invasion of China [in 1937], for a while mother gathered young girls to serve as so-called comfort women for the Japanese soldiers on the front line. At first I didn't know why my mother brought those young girls home.

1938   Frederick Mittwer marries Mary Oyama.

1940 census for Los Angeles City shows "Mittwer, Frederick", 30, with his wife "Mary", 32, and their son "Richard", 1, residing in a rental home at 3229 East Second Street. Frederick had finished 4 years of high school and Mary had completed 3 years of college. They had lived at the same address in 1935. Frederick is an "Insurance Agent" at an "Insurance Agency". All members of the family are "JP" by "Race or color". Frederick, born in Japan, is "AL" (alien) in the "Citizenship of the foreign born" box. Mary, though born in Califonira, is also "AL" in this box. The box is not marked for California-born Richard, as he is a U.S. citizen.

"Alien" would make sense if, in fact, Frederick had been an alien.
Mary, born in California, would have been a U.S. citizen until she married Frederick. After American women gained the right to vote, they were able to keep their U.S. nationality when marring a foreigner -- unless the foreigner was ineligible for citizenship -- i.e., racially "Oriental" -- in which case they stood to lose their U.S. nationality and possibly become stateless.

The nationality status of Frederick's mother, Yamazaki Kō, is not clear. It appears that she and Richard were married in a religious ceremony, which in itself does not constitute a marriage under Japaneses law, and does not itself constitute a consular marriage under U.S. law. Richard eventually notified the American consulate in Yokohama of the marriage, and apparently the consultate recognized that he and Kō were married. Presumably she remained Japanese. In which case, if Frederick's father had not acknowledged his paternity for U.S. citizenship purposes, Frederick would have registered in his mother's family register and thus been Japanese. Failing to acquire either U.S. or Japanese nationality, he would have been a stateless alien in the eyes of the laws of both Japan and the United States.

But Fred and Mary were U.S. citizens.
Mary's parents are living next door at 3227 East Second Street. Her mother and father, born in Japan, are aliens. Her brothers, born in California, are citizens. The census takers probably assumed, without confirming their suspicions, that because Fred was born in Japan he was an alien, and that Mary had become an alien through the marriage. Note that all other records, including a Heart Mountain Internment Center roster, show both Fred and Mary as U.S. citizens.

1940 census for Los Angeles City shows "Mittwer, Herman J.", 64, still lodging at 305 East Second Street, and working as a "notary public & interpreter".

Henry Mittwer, in his 1983 autobiography, gave his father's address at the time he (Henry) went to America in September 1940 (see below) as the "New York Hotel at 305 West 2nd Street" (西二番街三〇五のニューヨーク・ホテル). The address is correctly East 2nd Street in his 19-page memoir.

1940 census for Pasedena in California shows the household of Egami Kumao, 45, with is wife Hatsuye, 37, and 4 children -- Sachiko 19. Nobuko 18, Aiko 11, and Yoshio 9. All are "Jp" by "Race or color". Kumao, Hatsuye, and Sachiko are Japan-born aliens (Al). Kumao, Hatsuye, and Nobuko have completed 4 years of high school, and Sachiko has completed 1 year of college. Kumao is a gardner for a private family, Hatsuye is a music teacher in private practice, and Sachiko -- who would meet Henry in 1941 and marry him in 1942 -- is a maid in a private home.

Henry Mittwer goes to America

Henry Mittwer's U.S. passport issued in Yokohama on 6 July 1937 Copped from Zen_to_hone (2016), 2019 DVD, 0:29:41

23 September 1940   Henry Mittwer arrives at the Port of Seattle aboard the MS [Motor Ship] Hikawa Maru (氷川丸), which had sailed from Yokohama on 11 September 1940. The "List of United States Citizens (For the Immigration Authorities)" states, in typescript, that Henry was born in "Yokohama, Japan. Dec. 9, 1918", and in handwriting above typescript, it adds "father from Chicago, mother born in Japan of Jap race". His passport was described in writing as "95 Yokohama 7/6/37", which indicates that he had obtained it fully 3 years and 3 months before his departure from Japan.

That Henry Mittwer was issued a passport in 1937 by a consulate in Japan, where he was born in 1918 and had lived his entire life until then, is evidence that the consulate had records showing that he had become a U.S. citizen through right-of-blood, as the foreign-born son of an American citizen who had duly acknowleged his paternity at a consulate for the purpose of securing a consular certificate of birth attesting that Henry was a U.S. citizen.

Henry went to America having promised his mother he would stay no more than a year. Seeing him off, standing beside his mother and waving her hand, was the "Madonna" (マドンナ "my lady") he had decided to marry when he returned from the trip -- referring a Sakurai Yoriko (櫻井頼子), a student at Ferris Girls School, an all-girls school near the all-boys St. Joseph College, where he went to school (Mittwer 1983, pages 58, 65). That would be the last time Henry would see his mother. And in America he would find two other Madonnas, the first of whom would bear twin daughters, the second of whom married him and bore a son and two daughters.

16 October 1940   "Fred Mittwer" files a D.S.S. (Department of Selective Service) Form 1 registsration card at Local Board 200 in Los Angeles. The card states that he was born in Tokyo and his "Country of Citizenship" is "U.S.A." His wife is "Mrs. Mary Taiko Mittwer". They are residing at "3229 East 2nd St." in Los Angeles, and he his "Employer's Name" is "Calif. Mutual Life Insurance Co." in Oakland. He is "Oriental" by "Race", Height 1 ft 11 in, Weight 160 lbs, Eyes "Hazel Brown", Hair "Black", Complexion "Light brown".

16 October 1940   "Henry Mittwer" files a D.S.S. (Department of Selective Service) Form 1 registration card in Los Angeles. The card states that he was born in Yokohama, Japan, and is a U.S. citizen. He appears to be living with his father, "Mr. Richard Julius Herman Mittwer", at 305 E. 2nd St. -- i.e., in Little Tokyo -- in Los Angeles. He is "Oriental" by "Race", Height 5 ft 10 inches, Weight 124 lbs, Eyes "Brown", Hair "Black", Complexion "Light". The card notes that he "Entered U.S. via Vancouver, B.C., Sept. 22, 1940, U.S. Immig. Stamp Sept. 23, 1940 / Passport No. 95". Another note, in a different hand and color of ink, notes "Passport issued July, 1937 by Consulate at Yokohama, Japan."

Henry files D.S.S. Form 1 within a month after his arrival in the United States, on the same day Frederick files the form before the same Selective Service Board in Los Angeles. Perhaps the brothers went to the board together.

Japan attacks Pearl Harbor

Circa 1941   Henry Mittwer meets Sachiko Egami at a party he'd been invited to the younger brother of his older brother Fredreick Mittwer's wife Mary Oyama. The party was at a large home in Beverly Hills with grand piano that looked like a toy in the living room. During the party, someone asked a girl named "Sachi" to play the piano, and Henry was mesmerized by her fingers flying around the black and white keyboard, but couldn't work up his usual nerve to approach her. As the party ended, an older-sister-like acquaintance he sort of liked, passed him a piece of paper on which was written the pianist's name and phone number, and winked. (Mittwer 1983, pages 76-78).

7 December 1941   Shortly before 8:00 on the morning of Sunday, 7 December 1941 Hawaii time -- 3:00 on the morning of Monday, 8 December 1941 Tokyo time -- Japan springs an attack on Pearl Harbor, which takes local U.S. Navy and Army forces off guard. By 4:00 on the afternoon of the following day, Washingon, D.C. time, President Franklin Roosevelt signed a declaration of war against Japan.

Executive Order 9066

19 February 1942   Executive Order 9066 signed by Franklin Roosevelt as President of the United States and as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy on 19 February 19, 1942. The order authorized and directed that, in part, "the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders whom he may from time to time designate, whenever he or any designated Commander deems such action necessary or desirable, to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any person to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion."

John Mittwer interned in Japan as enemy alien

16 March 1942   John Mittwer is listed among American civilians in Japan, who were detained and interned by Japan, according to the War Department, based on reports from the International Red Cross. Mittwer was named on a list of "civilians interned in Japan . . . presumably having been seized there when the war started". Headlines varied from "List Of Americans Seized And Interned" (The Mongomery Advertiser) to "American Prisoner List" (Los Angeles Times). Some headlines speak of "Civilians Held", other of "American Captives".

According to Zen to hone, John was interned at Kita-Ashigara-mura (北足柄村) in Kanagawa prefecture, referring to "Uchiyama yokuryūjo" (内山抑留所) ["Uchiyama detention camp"], more formally known as "Kanagawa dai-ichi yokuryūjo" (神奈川第一抑留所) ["Kanagawa no. 1 detention camp"]. , an ōaza within the village, which was then part of the district of Ashigara-kami-gun (足柄上郡). The area is north of Odawara and Hakone, in the Tanzawa mountains of Kanagawa prefecture, where Kanazawa prefecture shares borders with Shizuoka and Yamanashi prefectures. In 1955, Ōaza Uchiyama (大字内山) became part of the town of Minami-ashigara-machi (南足柄町), which became a city (shi 市) in 1972.

John appears to have been first interned at "Yokohama Civil Internment Camp No. 1" sometime before 14 March 1942, which appears to have been the date of a list of enemy civilian internees reported in American newspapers on 16 March. The camp was established shortly after the Pacific War began in December 1941. John was apparenty transferred to "Kanagawa Prefectural Civil Internment Camp No. 1" after it opened on 25 June 1943 and the Yokohama camp closed. The prefectural camp was at Uchiyama (内山), an Ōaza in the village of Kita-Ashigara-mura (北足柄村) in Ashigara-mura) ng bord, and remained in operation until the end of hostilities in August 1945.

According to www.mansell.com, the Kanagawa camp interned 44 "Catholic priests, Japan-resident men" of whom 6 died at the camp. The nationality breakdown was 20 British, 13 Canadians, 6 Americans, 3 greeks, and 2 others. The website is the public face of the Center for Research Allied POWs Under the Japanese (日本軍政下の連合軍捕虜研究センター) ["Allied POWs under Japanese military administration research center"], founded by its namesake, Roger Mansell (1935-2010), who devoted 20 years of his life to collecting vast amounts of archival materials and compiling databases on military POWs and civilian internees and camps both in Japan and in territories occupied by Japan during the Pacific War. Mansell is the author of Captured: The Forgotten Men of Guam, Edited by Linda Goetz Holmes, and posthumously published by US Naval Institute Press in a hardcover edition on 15 November 2012.

See Internment in Japan (below) for details about this camp and other civilian enemy alien camps in Japan.

Manzanar Assembly (Reception) Center

23 March 1942   Early in the morning of this day (this writer's 1st birthday), Henry Mittwer assembled at the older Santa Fe freight yard near Los Angeles station with other men who had volunteered for a detail (senbatsu-tai 選抜隊 "picked squad") to help build the relocation center at Manzanar. His father came to see him off, and tried to get him to change his mind, but failing to do so, slipped him a 10 dollar bill. (Mittwer 1983, pages 82-83).

By the end of the month (some sources say 27 March), voluntary evacuation ended, and evacuation become compulsory. Apparently, fewer people than hoped were voluntarily evacuating to an assembly or reception center, and the Army issued orders for compulsory evacuation.

Mittwer wrote in his memoirs that, when his work as an odd job [construction] laborer came to an end, he applied for work at the hospital. The hospital was at the end of an ascent in the internment camp, and of the same barracks-style construction, but seemed to have facilities to accommodate a number of people. He didn't have even a fragment of preliminary knowledge of medicine, but the hospital too was resorting to stopgap measures. "While receiving guidance from genuine doctors and nurses, adapting to circumstances, I was turned into a [male] nurse in the pediatric section of the contangeous disease ward." He coddled crying children afflicted with mumps, measles, and rubella, fed them soup, took anal temperatures, applied flowers of zinc ointment to rashes, and otherwise pulled his share of nursing duties in a 3-shift rotation -- for 16 dollars a month plus 3 dollars and 75 cents as a clothing allowance. And hospital food was a step up from camp messhall offerings. (Mittwer 1983, pages 85-86).

TAYAMA UENO SLOCOM KURIHAMA Tayama, born in Hawaii in 1905, was a U.S. national and citizen, but under Japan's 1899 Nationality Law was also a Japanese subject and national. Japan's law was revised in 1916 to permit dual nationals to renounce their Japanese nationality, and another revision in 1924 made ended birth-right nationality of children born in place-of-birth states to Japanese parents without registration. Tayama is said to have renounced his Japanese status in 1925. And while he himself had become fluent in Japanese through schooling in Japanese, he chose not to send his daughter to Japanese language schools. He was the spokesman for the Anti-Axis Committee, which he and other nisei had formed a few days after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. having renounced his dual citizenship in 1925 5 December Fred Masaru Tayama (1905-1966), a JACL leader who represented the strongly pro-American, cooperate-with-the-internment faction, was beaten in his room in a barracks in Block 28 by group of 6 masked men. Hayama was taken to the hospital for treatment of a scalp wound and other injuries. He named Harry Ueno as one of the attackers, and Ueno was apprehended but taken to the Inyo county jail in Independence rather than detained at the jail at Manzanar. Ueno, the head of the Mess Hall Union, blamed JACL leaders, including Tokutaro Slocum (1895-1974 Tokutaro Nishimura), a staunchly patriotic issei World War I veteran who headed the Anti-Axis Committee, of spying for the FBI and camp authorities. Ueno had also accused camp administrators of breaking promises and selling rationed sugar on the black market. At mass meetings and rallies the following day, Ueno's supporters called for a general strike in the camp if he was not released. Joe Kurihara (1895-1965 Joseph Yoshisuke Kurihara), also a World War I veteran,

Standoffs between pro-Japan and pro-America factions at Manzanar was a harbringer of the sort of troubles that would later plague Tule Lake, and ranks with Tule Lake as the site of the most instances of friction between pro-Japan and pro-America factions. Tule LakeHenry writes that, working at the hospital, he never showed his face at community gatherings, and so didn't know the facts. But from what he heard, even parents and children, brothers, and husbands and wives were divided between America and Japan factions, and there was a lot of suspicion between internees -- rumors of lateral flow of sugar and meat, weretrueA "nikkeijin" (日系人) doctor in the hospital who treated him kindly advised him as follows (Ibid, pages 87-88).

"What reason is a person with the face of a west-ocean-er (westerner) [caucasian] (seiyōjin no kao 西洋人の顔) like you, and fluent in Japanese, in an accommodion-place (assembly/internment camp) [like this]? [Your presence here] [will be] easily misderstood, so be careful."

23 April 1942   The Arizona Daily, a Tuscon paper, carries a brief reporting Henry Mittwer's musical activities at Owens Valley Assembly Center, soon to be Manzanar Relocation Center. See Orchestra conductor below for an image of the article and other details.

26 April 1942   Kumao Egami files a D.S.S. (Department of Selective Service) Form 1 registration card in Pasedena, giving his employer's name as "K. Egami Gardening". He states his place of birth as Fukuoka, Japan, and he is an "Oriental" by "Race".

12 May 1942   The Egami family evacuates from their home in Pasedena to Tulare Assembly Center, near the town of Tulare between Fresno and Bakersfield in California, in compliance with military orders issued by U.S. Army Lieutenant General J. L. (John Lesesne) DeWitt (1880-1962), the Commander of the Western Defense Command, under the authority invested in him by the Secretary of War pursuant to Executive Order 9066.

Manzanar Relocation Center

1 June 1942   Henry Mittwer begins his internment at Manzanar Relocation Center, having voluntarily evacuated from Los Angeles to Owens Valley to help build the relocation center's predecessor, Manzanar Assembly (Reception) Center.

31 August 1942   The family of the Baptist minister Kumao Egami (1894-1983), his wife Hatsuye (Shibata) Egami (1902-1961), and their 4 children, including Sachiko, begin their internment at Gila River Relocation Center near Rivers in Arizona, where they were sent from Tulare Assembly Center.

4 September 1942   The family of Fred Mittwer, including his wife "Mary Teiko" and their sons "Richard Katsuro" and "Edward", begin their internment at Heart River Relocation Center in Wyoming. They were sent to the internment camp from the Santa Anita Assembly Center, where they had been forced to evacuate their homes. The assembly center opened on 27 March 1942 at the Santa Anita Race Track at Arcadia in Los Angeles County. Mary and the boys were released from the internment camp in Wyoming on 19 February 1943 to join Mary's family in Denver, Colorado (Ind-Jn Fam) [Indefinite leave to join or accompany family], and Fred followed them to Denver on 22 July 1944 to work (Ind-Empl) [Indefinite leave for employment], according to the final accountability roster for Heart Mountain.

22 November 1942   Yumiko Helene Kobayashi gives birth to Tatsuko Marlene [Darlene] Kobayashi and Etsuko Arlene Kobayashi at Manzanar War Relocation Center.

Gila River Relocation Center

18-19 December 1942   Henry Mittwer transferred to Gila River Relocation Center in Arizona from Manzanar.

29 December 1942   Henry Mittwer (24) and Sachiko Egami (22), both of Rivers in Pinal County, Arizona, are issued a license to marry by the clerk of the Superior Court of Pinal County on 28 December 1942. They were married at Rivers the following day, and the license, signed by the presiding minister and witnesses, was filed for court recording on 5 January 1943.

Pinal county was the home of the Gila River War Relocation Center, which was built within the Gila River Indian Reservation, which was associated with the town of Rivers, hence their being "of Rivers" on county records. Henry and Sachiko were married by Japan-born Rev. Kengo Tajima, B.D.M.S.T. Rev. Tajima also returned and filed the witnessed license for recording. I would guess that Tajima married Henry and Sachiko within the confines of the camp. They may have been allowed to go to the county office themselves to obtain the license, which in principle could be signed by whoever performed the wedding, whether at a church or private home.

Mittwer writes in his autobiography that he and Sachiko were permitted a 2-day honeymoon in Phoenix (Mittwer 1983, page 94).

Kengo Tajima (1884-1977), born in Gunma prefecture, was evacuated with his Akita-born wife Tori (1886-1952) from Pasadena to Tulare Receiving (Assembly) Center, interned at Gila River from 1 September 1942. He was permitted to leave indefinitely for employment (Ind-Empl) to Camp Savage in Minnesota on 4 May 1943. On the same day, she was permitted to indefinitely leave Gila River for Chicago pursuant to a community invitation (Ind-Invit).

Why Tajima's employment at Camp Savage? The camp had become the home for the U.S. Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS). The school began operating at the Presidio in San Francisco in November 1942, for the purpose of teaching Japanese. Some 45 of the initial 60 students graduated in May 1942. Because of the General DeWitt's orders to evacuate people of "Japanese ancestry" from the west coast military zone, MISLS was moved to Camp Savage in June 1942, and remained there until August 1944, when the school moved to Fort Snelling, also in Minnesota.

This writer majored in Japanese at the University of California from 1967-1969 (BA), 1972-1973 (MA), and 1974-1975/1982 (PhD). All but one of my several language professors, and an anthropology professor, had been instructors or students at a wartime Japanese language school.Frank Motofuji (1919-2006), my modern Japanese literature teacher, and a member of my oral examination and disseration committees, born and raised in Hawaii, was first a student and then an instructor at MISLS at Camp Savage.

Statement of United States Citizen of Japanese Ancestry

8 February 1943   The War Relocation Authority distributes a questionnaire called "Statement of United States Citizen of Japanese American Ancestry" (Selective Service Form 304A). The object of the form was to register all male internees, determine the degree of their loyalty to the United States, and encourage the able-bodied and loyal to enlist in the armed forces. The form was also called an "Application for Leave of Clearance" -- "clearance" meaning "security clearance" -- "leave" meaning release from the camp to a locality outside the restricted westcoast military zone if found to pose no security risk.

Questions 27 and 28 on the form were contrived to separate the "loyal" from the "disloyal" among both Japanese and American internees.

27. Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty wherever ordered?
    1. This question could have been asked anyone, of any nationality in the world, or from any planet in the solar system or any galaxy in the universe.
28. Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization?
    1. This question lumped together several questions that failed to discriminate between (1) Japanese nationals and subjects, who could reasonably be expected to feel some degree of loyalty toward both Japan (as nationals) and the emperor (as subjects), (2) American citizens and nationals, whose loyalty to the United States should never have been doubted, regardless of whether they might have a Japanese parent or parents, and (3) dual nationals of Japan and the United States, who could reasonably be assumed to have conflicting loyalties.
    2. Japanese, legally barred from naturalization on account of their putative race, had no legal obligation to be loyal to the United States. And non-dual national Americans of "Japanese ancestry" -- possessing only U.S. nationality -- had no legal right to claim loyalty to either Japan (as its national), much less to the emperor (as his subject).

Among some 21,000 American internees of Japanese ancestry who were eligible for military service, about 4,600 (22 percent) replied "No" to both questions or did not respond. Most of these men were transferred to Tule Lake, which became a center for internees regarded as threats to security.

Henry Mittwer registered for Selective Service less than a month after his arrival in 1940, over a year before the start of the Pacific War. He initially answered "Yes-Yes" to questions 27 and 28 on the leave questionnaire. He later changed his answers to "No-No", expressed his wish to be sent back to Japan to see his mother, and when asked if he understood that "repatriation" would result in his loss of U.S. citizen, he replied in the affirmative. However, he later claimed that he "relinquished" (放棄した) his U.S. nationality under duress. Renunciation (ridatsu 離脱) of U.S. nationality, generally not permitted of a U.S. citizen in the United States, nor of a non-dual-national U.S. citizenship overseas, was facilitated under the Renunciation Act of 1944 (see below).

Central Utah (Topaz) Relocation Center

20 March 1943   Hatsuye Egami is transferred to Central Utah Relocation Center in Topaz (T-Cent) from Gila River. The final accountability roster for Central Utah (Topaz) refers "EGAMI, Hatsuye" to "MITTWER, Henry", where she is shown with Henry, Sachiko, and Eric. Hatsuye was released indefinitely pursuant to a community invitation (Ind-Invit) for Cincinnati, Ohio, Henry and his family are tranferred to Tule Lake on 18 February 1945 (see below).

Hatsuye Egami graduated from a woman's Christian mission school in Himeji in Hyōgo prefecture, She taught music after emigrating to California with her husband Kumao Egami and the 1st of their 4 children, Sachiko Egami, in 1921. She was working at the bilingual Rafu Shimpo newspaper in Los Angeles at the time the Pacific War began. She became well-known as a writer and columnist for internment camp newspapers and other publications. Part of the diary she kept of her evacuation experiences was translated, and the translation was edited by Claire Gorfinkel and published in 1995 under the title The Evacuation Diary of Hatsuye Egami (Pasedena: International Productions, 103 pages). A long article Densho article on Hatsuye Egami is very informative but does not seem to have benefited from Ancestry.com documents (as of this writing).

19 February 1943   Mary Teiko (Oyama) Mittwer and her sons, Edward and Katsuro, are released to reside in Denver, where some of Mary's relatives lived. Six months later, her parents, interned at Jerome, were released to live in Denver. Frederick Mittwer was released on 22 July the following year to work in Denver.

"My older brother [Frederick] also entered an enternment with his family, but he -- who was good at dealing with things (yōryō no ii kare wa 要領のいい彼は) -- [was there only] about half a year, worked for a while at a coal mine in Colorado, and quickly returned to his home in Los Angeles" (Mittwer 1983, page 127). Internment records, however, show that while Mary and the boys were interned for 5-1/2 months. Frederick was held for 22-1/2 months.

10 July 1943   Hatsuye Egami released from Topaz Relocation Center for settlement in Cincinnati, Ohio.

7 July 1943   Sachiko Mittwer transferred to Topaz Internment Center from Gila River.

9 September 1943   Sachiko's father Kumao Egami and her sister Nancy Nobuko Egami (1922-2018) were released from Gila River Relocation Center for settlement in Chicago.

11 October 1943   Henry Mittwer transferred to Topaz Internment Center from Gila River.

18 October 1943   Eric Kazu Mittwer was born in Topaz, Utah, according to Sachiko's 1961 Petition for Naturalizaiton. Topaz was the location of the Topaz Relocation Center where the first Sachiko and then Henry had been transferred from Gila River.

Renunciation Act

1 July 1944   President Roosevelt signs into law "A bill to provide for the loss of United States nationality under certain circumstances". Officially but ambiguously called the "Act of July 1, 1944", the law is better known as the "Renunciation Act of 1944". And some people have dubbed it the "Denationalization Act of 1944".

Until this act, U.S. citizens or nationals were not allowed to renounce their U.S. nationality while in the United States. The act enabled renunciation in the United States under conditions stipluated in the following paragraph, which was added to a list of actions in the Nationality Act of 1940 Section 401 (8 U.S.C. Section 801) that would result in loss of nationality by a U.S. citizen or national (underscoring mine).

making in the United States a formal written renunciation of nationality in such form as may be prescribed by, and before such officer as may be designated by, the Attorney General, whenever the United States shall be in a state of war and the Attorney General shall approve such renunciation as not contrary to the interests of national defense.

Evacuation order rescinded

17 December 1944   Major General H. (Henry) Conger Platt (1882-1966), the 5th of 7 Western Defense Command (WDC) chiefs, announced that he had revoked (rescinded) the evacuation orders issued on 24 March 1942 by its 1st chief, Lieutenant General John L. (Lesesne) DeWitt (1880-1962), under the authority of Executive Order 9066. Effective from 2 January 1945, all "persons of Japanese ancestry" then interned at a war relocation center under the War Relocation Authority (WRA), who WRA regarded as loyal to the United States, whether an American or an alien, would be free to leave the center and return to their pre-evacuation home or resettle anywhere else, within or outside the restricted westcoast military zones. The few thousand who had been deemed disloyal, or whose loyality status was under review, would continue to be detained -- practically all at Tule Lake Segregation Center.

18 December 1944   On this day, while reporting the rescission of the evacuation orders and responses from all quarters, also reported that the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, had ruled in favor of the United States in Korematsu v. United States, thus upholding the evacuation orders as justified by military necessity. The case involved Fred Toyosaburo Koremitsu (1919-2005), who had intentionally violated the evacuation orders, contending they violated his constitutional rights as a U.S. citizen. In 1883, the United States District Court for the Northern District vacated the 1944 decision, when Koremitsu presented evidence that the government had withheld an Office of Naval Intelligence report that very few persons of Japanese ancestry constituted a military threat, which undermined the Army's (General DeWitt's) contention that the evaculation was a military necessity.

18 December 1944   Also on this day, the Supreme Court, in Endo v. United States. issued a unanimous ex parte decision, which held that the U.S. government could not detain a U.S. citizen who was recognized as loyal to the United States. The case was raised by Mitsuye Endo (1920-2006), later Mitsuye Tsusumi, immediately after her internment in July 1942. She had demanded a Mitsuye Endo () <

2 January 1945   Effective from this date, as widely reported in newspapers from 18 December 1944, evacuation orders issued on 24 March 1942 by the Western Defense Command, under the authority of Executive Order 9066, were rescinded by WDC chief Major General Henry C. Platt. In principle, all persons who were at the time interned as "persons of Japanese ancestry" -- who were regarded as loyal to the United States, whether they were U.S. citizens or aliens -- were free to leave their internment center. While WRA recommend resettlement outside restricted military zones, it was bound by the recension order to honor the wishes of internees who wished to return to their pre-evacuation homes or elsewhere in the restricted area.

Tule Lake Relocation Center

18-22 February 1945   Henry, Sachiko, and Eric were transferred to Tule Lake Relocation Center in California, from Topaz Relocation Center in Arizona.

Henry appears to have been sent to Tule Lake, by then a segregation camp, because he had renounced his U.S. citizenship and expressed his desire to return to Japan. He had also got into trouble for recoiling a home radio to receive shortwave broadcasts from Japan and shared the broadcasts with others through speaker mounted on the eaves of his barrack. See Japanese broadcasts at Topaz (above) for details.

5 July 1945   Gretchen Kyoko Mittwer is born in Newell, California, according to her mother's 1961 Petition for Naturalization. Tule Lake Relocation Center was near the town, which served as the camp's municipal address. A month later, Hiroshima was bombed (6 August Tokyo time), then Nagasaki (9 August Tokyo time), and on 14 August (15 August Tokyo time) Japan unconditionally surrendered under the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. Pro-Japan internees at Tule Lake couldn't believe (and some did not believe) that Japan had been defeated (Mittwer 1983, pages 110).

30 October 1945   Sachiko and Eric are released with a grant from their internment at Tule Lake Relocation Center, for travel to to Chicago, Illinois, according to the final accountability report for the Tule Lake camp. Presumably, Sachiko and Eric joined Sachiko's father, who had been released from Gila River for Chicago on 9 September 1943.

The report shows that Henry and Gretchen remained at tule Lake until 20 March 1946.

Why Gretchen, only 3-1/2 months at the time, was left with her father, rather than taken by her mother to Chicago, is not clear. Most likely this was done to allow Sachiko to settle in with Eric, who was 2 years old, hence weaned, walking, and starting to talk. Henry probably expected that, the war being over, he would be soon be allowed to follow, never mind his renunciation of U.S. citizenship and request to be sent back to Japan.

Seeks restoration of U.S. nationality

13 November 1945   Wayne M. Collins filed four mass class renunciation cases in the U.S. District Court of San Francisco -- two equity suits (Abo v. Clark, No. 25294 and Furuya v. Clark, No. 25295), and two habeas corpus proceedings (Abo v. Williams, No. 25296 and Furuya v. Williams, No. 25297) (Donald Collins 1985, page 125).

The suits were filed 2 days before the departure of U.S. Army transports on which some of Wayne Collins's citizenship-renunciant clients were scheduled to be deported to Japan for "repatriation" purposes. See Henry Mittwer's nationality (below) for a look at Native American Aliens, the most complete report as of this writing (2023) about renunciation cases, by Donald E. Collins (b1934), an historian..

28 February 1946   Henry Mittwer is among 3 Tule Lake internees who were seeking restoration of the U.S. citizenship they claimed they had renounced "under duress from native Japanese" and not truly of their own free will, as reported in newspapers as early as 28 February 1946. The first hearing in a federal court was scheduled for 18 March 1946.

According to one newspaper report, "[Henry] Mittwer's wife and 2-year-old son have been relocated [from Tule Lake] and now are in Chicago, while he remains at the [Tule Lake] camp with an 8-month-old daughter" (Thursday, 28 February 1946, The Sacramento Union, page 6, [bracketed] remarks mine). For images of newspaper reports of Henry's nationality difficulties, see Henry Mittwer's nationlaity (below).

Note that Mittwer's wife and son were not "relocated", but were terminally released from their internment with grants (Term-W-G) from Tule Lake for Chicago on 10 October 1945, after the end of the Pacific War. They went to Chicago, where Sachiko's parents had resettled during the war.

Sachiko's father, Kumao Egami, was released from Gila River on indefinite leave to join someone in his family (Ind-JnFam) on 20 June 1944. Her mother, Hatsuye Kumao, was transfered to the Central Utah Internment Center (T-Cent) in Topaz, Utah, on 30 March 1945.

20 March 1946 (morning)   Tule Lake Reception Center is closed. Henry and Gretchen are among the last to leave. Gretchen's internment at Tule Lake is terminated with a grant (Term-W-G) to Chicago, Illinois. But Henry's Tule Lake internment is terminated with a regular transfer (Term-T) to Crystal City Internment Camp in Texas, according to the final accountability report for Tule Lake Relocation Center.

In his 1983 autobiography, Henry relates how, on the morning of 20 March 1946, he hauled all that remained of the family furniture that constituted his assets, with tags for Chicago, to the management office. Then, with some diapers and powdered milk, he consigned his 8-1/2-month-old daughter to the arms of a person he had never seen or known. While writing the book, he could not recall the benefactor's name through the wall in his memory (Mittwer 1983, page 115).

20 March 1946 - 13 April 1946

Detention in San Francisco

20 March 1946 (evening)   According to his autobiography, Henry Mittwer, after seeing his daughter off in the morning, was sent to San Francisco to consult with his attorney Wayne M. Collins and appear the Judge Louis E. Goodman in the federal district court (Mittwer 1983, pages 115-117).

Henry wrote that he had always wanted to see San Francisco, but what awaited him was a cell in an Imigration and Naturalization Service facility. Stepping inside, he felt like he had fallen to the bottom of a well. The window, too, was barred -- yet after the years of camp life, he was liberated by the view of the harbor and city lights below. The food, too, was better than the stew at Tule Lake. He felt somewhat like a convict awaiting an execution order, and thought of his mother beyond the vast Pacific (Mittwer 1983, page 116).

Henry had only wait for word from Collins as to when Goodman would hear his case, which Collins hoped the judge would permit to be added to the mass-action suits that Collins had already filed with the federal court. He knew that 2 others -- "Nogawa Yoshio" (ノガワ・ヨシオ) and "Teshiba Yukie" (テシバ・ユキエ) -- were waiting to appear in court with him, but he had never met them, and had no idea who they were. He was surrounded by Mexicans who had snuck into the country and would leave the facility in a couple days. In the meantime, Henry thought about his mother, to whom he had sent many letters from the camps. He broke down in tears when seeing the penciled katakana of an uncensored letter from her that had finally caught up him (Mittwer 1983, page 116).

6 months had passed since Henry had sent Sachiko contemplating divorce (Mittwer 1983, page 116). When sending Sachiko and Eric off to Chicago, he had seriously thought that, for sake of her future, she'd be better off if they were to severe ties (Mittwer 1983, page 112). Embracing the view of the figure of freedom through the 12th-floor window, he wrote Sachiko a letter, mentioning that, at the time their daughter Gretchen was born, his brother's wife's younger sister and her husband had approached saying that, under the difficult circumstances that Henry and Sachiko were facing, they wanted to adopt their son Eric. The husband was a doctor in Cincinnati, Henry figured he'd raise Eric well. In the letter, he also expressed his wish that Sachiko initiate proceedings to divorce him (Mittwer 1983, pages 116-117).

A few days later, one of Collins's aides came to inform Mittwer that his court appearance had been delayed. For the time being, he would be sent to Crystal City Internment Camp.

Henry Mittwer's attorney, Wayne Mortimer Collins (1899-1974), who had filed numerous citizenship restoration suits at the Federal District Court in the city, had scheduled a hearing on the petitions of Mittwer and two other citizenship renunciants before Federal Judge Louis Earl Goodman (1892-1961), .

< class="center70">Louis E. Goodman (his middle initial is erroneously "B." in the above newspaper reports) was a judge at the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. He served on the court from 24 December 1942 until his death in 1961. From the first renunciation cases that were heard before his bench in 1945, to his death, he was sympathetic with argument that American citizens of Japanese ancestry were gravely wronged by their evacuation and internment, and that most if not all renunciants deserved to be restored to U.S. citizenship.

obtain a stay on his deportation while the court deliberated on the suit to restoring him to U.S. citizenship, care of little family furniture

In any event, Henry Mittwer was transferred to an internment facility for enemy aliens in Crystal City.

26 March 1946   The United States Attorney General orders Henry Mittwer's expulsion from the country. Expulsion proceedings had begun while he was at Tule Lake. His transfer to Crystal City was predicated on expectations that he would deported. See 14 November 1946 (below).

13 April 1946 - 18 October 1946

Crystal City Internment Camp

13 April 1946   Henry Mittwer arrives at Crystal City Alien Enemy Detention Facility, or Crystal City Internment Camp, in Crystal City, Texas.

Crystal City Alien Enemy Detention Facility was operated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service under the Department of Justice -- unlike the war relocation camps, which were operated by the War Relocation Authority (WPA) established on 18 March 1942 by Executive Order 9102. The Crystal City facility was also known as a family internment camp because it was built for enemy-alien families. It was originally a Farm Security Administration facility for housing migrant farm workers. The first enemy-alien families to arrive at the repurposed camp were Germans. Of the 2,908 individuals held at the camp as of August 1944, some 2,104 (72.4 percent) were Japanese, and 804 (27.6 percent) were Germans. About half of the Japanese internees had been sent to the United States from Latin American countries for confinement. A few Italians were also held at the camp.

In his 1983 memoirs, Henry relates that he was escorted from San Francisco to Crystal City in handcuffs, by train, through some beautiful country. The INS camp turned out to be a fairly small facility which had, unlike the black [tarpapered] barracks at the WRA camps, single-family units with verandas and green trees -- a veritable oasis, replete with a pool-cum-reservoir and tennis courts, and food befitting humans under the Texas sun (Mittwer 1983, pages 117-118).

Henry's record showed that he had some hospital experience at Manzanar, so he was assigned to work with the Crystal City camp doctor, who until then had managed with just 2 registered nurses. The doctor put Henry in charge of clinical testing and radiology, and taught him everything he needed to know -- from drawing blood, counting white cells with a microscope, urinalysis, and culturing TB bacteria, to radiology techniques. The doctor also gave Henry access to his medical books, and at times Henry assisted him in the surgery and delivery rooms (Mittwer 1983, page 118).

13 April 1946 - 18 October 1946 Dates of Henry Mittwer's detention at INS Crystal City Internment Camp on 30 November 1987 NARA report Image copped from Ancestry.com as posted by Gretchen Mittwer Click on image to enlarge The NARA report was made in reply to a query Henry Mittwer made from his residence at Saga Tenryuji in Kyoto regarding his Crystal City internment. The dates for his period of internment are probably the date he physically arrived at Crystal City to begin his internment, and the date he left for Seabrook Farms, The reply is made on a standard form designed specifically for reporting verifications of INS wartime internments. The reply shows his name, INI case file number, and date of birth (12/9/18). Note that "you and your family were interned" is boiler plate. If only he had been interned at Crystal City, then the "and your family" should have been crossed out -- i.e., "you and your farmily were interned". Note also the provisions at the bottom of the form for a camp release date or repatriation date.

Crystal City Internment Center

13 April 1946 - 18 October 1946   Henry Mittwer "Immigration and Naturalization Service / Crystal City, TX, Internment Camp" according to National Archives report to Henry Mittwer, Ukyo-ku, Saga Tenryu Ji, Kyoto 616 Japan, dated 30 November 1987 (Ancestry.com, Gretchen Kyoko Mittwer Family Tree, scan of document viewed 21 October 2023).

Late July 1946   Sachiko and the children, Eric and Gretchen, who had been in Chicago, move to the Crystal City camp to live with Henry (Mittwer 1983, page 121).

Henry wrote Sachiko had been packaging biscuits at a Nabisco factory, and was living in a slum where fat rats ate and killed babies (Ibid., 120).

5 October 1946   Henry Mittwer, while still at Crystal City, is formally released from Department of Justice proceedings to expel him from the United States, according to a notification dated 14 November 1946 (see below).

11 October 1946   Henry Mittwer receives a letter from his attorney Wayne Collins in San Francisco, informing him that a certain frozen foods company in the east was recruiting, and was willing to employ renunciants. Collins suggested that Mittwer apply for parole in order to leave Crystal City and work (Mittwer 1983, page 121).

Seabrook Farms

18 October 1946   Henry Mittwer is released from Crystal City Internment Center, on probation, to work at Seabrook Farms, New Jersey, and the family moves there with him.

By the start of the Pacific War, and America's linking of arms with the Allied Powers in the war in Europe against Germany and Italy, Seabrook Farms -- a mechanized farm established in 1911 -- had become a major producer and packager of frozen vegetables. The company expanded during World War II as a supplier of food to U.S. military forces. Even before the war, however, the company had problems mustering the labor needed to harvest and package its produce, as the war went on, the farm and factory labor market worsened. The solution was to recruit Japanese American labor from the WRA war internment camps -- beginning from January 1944. About 3,000 Japanese Americans had been released from camps for work at Seabrook Farms by the time Henry Mittwer was sent there.

Their accommodations at Seabrook Farms, unlike the single-unit home they had lived in at the INA Crystal City camp, were barracks like those they had lived in the WRA camps. There was an oil stove, and they immediately lit it up (Mittwer 1983, page 122).

Henry and Sachiko first worked on a conveyor belt with spinach that had just been brought in from the fields, where it had been harvested by machine. Their job was to cull out dry leaves, weeds, the carcasses of snakes and field mice, and even dog manure from the spinach, after which the spinach was washed. Seeing that, he no longer felt like eating frozen or canned foods. A month later, he was moved to the [buildings, plant] maintenance department, Sachiko became a time clocker in charge of time card records. Henry worked in the machine section, in overalls, with 7 tools slung from his belt. He oiled equipment, replaced conveyor belts, and also did electric and gas wending. If it had to do with machines, he was your man (kikai no koto nara nan-demo gozare 機械の事ならなんでもござれ). (Mitter 1983, page 122-123)

Henry Mittwer and his family were still living at Seabrook Farms at the time of the 1950 census (see below).

23 October 1946   Henry's father, Richard Mittwer dies. Henry had not seen his father since his father saw him off to Manzanar.

Henry was interned at Crystal Lake at the time. He heard of his father's death in a letter from a friend who had seen a report in a newspapers. He heard nothing from his brother Frederick until writing him to confirm the report (Mittwer 1983, page 127. He speaks of his relationship with Frederick as cold, separated as they were by age, and had been geographically. He described his sibling relationship with Frederick as being in name only, like his relationship with his father. (Mittwer 1983, page 127)

14 November 1946   Henry Mittwer receives a simple 8-line letter dated 14 November 1946, from the Philadelphia Immigration Bureau's (Immigration and Naturalization Service's) Detention, Expulsion, and Parole Department (my translation of フィラデルフィア移民局の留置、追放、仮釈放係), stating as follows (Mittwer 1983, page 123, my structural translation

千九百四十六年三月二十六日に米国検事総長の指令によって、国内追放を命じられていたあなたは、その後の考慮で十月五日をもって敵国外人訴訟手続きから釈放する

You, who pursuant to an order of the United States Attorney General on 26 March 1946, had been ordered expelled [from] within the country, in consideration after that (with further consideration), on 5 October [1946], are released from enemy alien litigation procedures (enemy alien proceedings)

1950 census, enumerated in April, for Seabrook Farms in Cumberland County in New Jersey, shows the household of "Mittwer, Henry" (31), with his wife "Sachiko" (29), and their children "Eric" (6) and "Gretchen" (4). All are "Jap" by "Race". Henry and Sachiko were born in Japan. Henry is "Yes" but Sachiko is "No" in the "If foreign born . . . Is he naturalized?" box. Henry is a "Welder" by occupation in the "Frozen Food" industry.

1950 census for Pasedena in California shows Sachiko's father, "Egami, Kumao", 57, as head of household, with 2 children -- "Louisa" 21 and George 19. All are "Jap" by "Race". Kumao is divorced and working as a gardener for private homes. Louisa is a typist-clerk in civil service.

1950 census for Belvedere in Los Angeles County, California, shows head of household "Mittwer, Fred", 40, with his wife "Mary", 42, and 3 children -- Richard 11, Edward 9, and Vicki 5. Fred is a "dry goods salesman" at an "Import-export Co." He was born in Japan -- Mary, Richard, and Edward in California -- and Vicki in Illinois. All are "Jap" by "Race".

Vicki was born in Chicago, where the family briefly lived after residing in Denver, where Mary and boys were sent from Heart Mountain Internment Center in February 1943, and Fred was allowed to join them in July 1944.

Nationality restored

1952   Henry Mittwer's U.S. nationality is restored

29 May 1952   Henry Mittwer receives a letter from Wayne Collins, Lewis Goodman informing him that, on this date,

20 August 1952   Henry Mittwer's U.S. citizenship is restored, according to a report he receives from Wayne Collins, the attorney representing him and hundreds of other "renunciants" who had petitioned for citizenship restoration after having been deemed to have lost their U.S. nationality due to their responses to loyalty questions and subsequent actions and statements.

11 November 1954   Kumao Egami is naturalized at the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of California, in Los Angeles, after filing a Petition for Naturalization on 28 September 1954. The petition shows him residing in Pasedena, California, working as a gardener. He is divorced from "Hatsuye nee Shibata", and the father of Sachiko of Pasedena, Nancy Nobuko and Luisa Aiko of Chicago, and George Yoshio of Fairchild, Washington. Sachiko was born in Japan, Nancy in Moneta, California, and Luisa and George in Pasedena.

12 April 1955   Henry's mother Kō Yamazaki (Mittwer) dies in Tokyo (Zen to hone).

1955   Henry meets Nyogen Senzaki (Senzaki Nyogen 千崎如幻 1876-1958) and becomes a disciple.

Henry writes that, when visiting his brother Frederick, apparently shortly after returning to California in 1952, he found in Fred's garage a stash of old books he immediately recognized as being his fathers, on account of an umebachi (梅鉢) seal, his name, and the date in the front of each book. The collection included 2 volumes by Lafcadio Hearn, Japanese Girls and Women [Alice Mabel Bacon, 1891], The Mikado's Empire [William Elliot Griffis, 1877], and The Religion of the Samurai [Kaiten Nukariya, 1913 (Bushi no shūkyō 武士の宗教, by the Buddhist scholar Nukariya Kaiten (忽滑谷快天 1867-1934)], among others (Mittwer 1983, page 128).

Henry's daughter Gretchen describes the seal as a "nejiume" (ねじ梅), and reports that it continues to be used as the Mittwer family crest (email, 31 December 2023). The design resembles a 5-petal plum blossom. As a popular pattern for cookies and cut vegetables, it is also called "nejiriume" (twisted plum).

Henry wrote that Nukariya's book, which focuses on Zen as "the meat and bones of Kamakura samurai", shed new light on the religious world that he had come to reject from his Yokohama mission school [St. Joseph College] days. And he adds that The Religion of the Samurai "became the guidebook to the repair of my mental structure" (Watakushi no seishin kōzō o shūsei suru tebiki ni natta 私の精神構造を修正する手引になった) (Mittwer 1983, pages 129-130).

August 1960   Gretchen Mittwer, then 14, leaves California for Japan, where her father has enrolled her in Tsurumi Girls High School (Tsurumi Joshi Kōtō gakkōkō 鶴見女子高等学校) in Yokohama.

A photo ID card, issued on 1 April 1961, the start of the academic year, bears the name "Mitowa Kyōko" (三戸輪京子), age 15. Today she generally goes by "Gretchen Mittwer" (Guretchen Mitowa レッチェン・ミトワ).

1961   Henry Mittwer alone to Japan to become a disciple at Myōshinji (妙心寺), a Rinzai (Rinzai-sō 臨済宗) temple in Kyōto.

20 October 1961   Sachiko Mittwer naturalized at the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of California, in Los Angeles, the result of a Petition for Naturalization filed on 21 July 1961. According to the petition, she had lived continuously in the United States since 11 February 1921, but had last entered the United States for purposes of permanent residence on 22 September 1940. The petition is witnessed by Sachiko's brother George Y. Egami, a civil engineer, and her father Kumao Egami, a gardener.

4 November 1961   Draws self-portrait (Zen to hone).

1963   Henry Mittwer enrolls in Urasenke Sadō Kenshūjo (裏千家茶道研修所) to gegin his study of Urasenke tea ceremony. The school was established in 1962, was renamed Urasenke Gakuen (裏千家学園) in 1971, and in 1983 became vocational school called Urasenke Gakuen Sadō Senmon Gakkō (裏千家学園茶道専門学校). "Urasenke" refers to the best known of the three tea-ceremony "iemoto" (家元) branches of the family of Sen no Rikyū (千利休 1522-1591), who strongly influenced the development of "chanoyu" (茶の湯) tea ceremony. Rikyū committed seppuku on orders from the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi (豊臣秀吉 1537-1598), apparently on account of Hideyoshi's distrust of Rikyū, who had performed tea ceremonies for Hideyoshi and become a close confident.

16 March 1963   Henry admitted to Urasenke Sadō Kenkyujo (裏千家茶道研究所) in Kyōto (Zen to hone).

May 1963   Gretchen returns to Pasadena from Yokohama aboard the S.S. President Cleveland, after a 2-year 9-month stay in Japan.

1965   Eric Mittwer joins U.S. Navy (Zen to hone).

22 November - 28 December 1965   Sachiko Mittwer, with daughters Gretchen and Joyce, depart from Los Angeles and arrive in Yokohama aboard the S.S. Brazil Maru, to join Henry in Japan.

Gretchen, 20 years and 5 months old, had recently spent 2 years and 9 months in Japan, during which she was significantly exposed to daily life in Japan and colloquial Japanese. Joyce, 9 years and 10 months old, had never been to Japan and reportedly was not excited about leaving California. Eric, who also didn't want to go to Japan, was serving with the U.S. Navy in Korea, after which he elected to remain in America. Sachiko, who was 45 years and 6 months old, hadn't been back to Japan since leaving in 1921 when she was 8 months old.

Gretchen summarized her mother's and sister's, and her own language experiences in Japan like this (email, 2023/12/19).

In my mother's case, she, together with her siblings, grew up the way most Japanese-American nisei did, with parents speaking in Japanese and they responding basically in English with a little bit of Japanese thrown in (「ネ??」「そうそう！」and such). That's the way her English was throughout her life. Apparently, she didn't attend any kind of Japanese language classes as a child. . . .

When my mother and my little sister (9 yrs old) moved to Japan in order to be with Henry, and I chose to go with them, Henry made it a rule that we speak Japanese at the house, so that my mother and sister would catch on to the language ASAP. He immediately put my sister into the local elementary school. Apparently, she had many trying experiences at school, but by the time she was in high school, she had thoroughly gotten the knack of how to fit in. Forgetting English came along with that. My mother's Japanese was quite poor (she never managed to learn to read or write Japanese), and had very little sense of Japanese customs and traditions, and these sorts of things often caused my sister to lash out on my mother, sad to say."

I on the other hand, when I brought my children back to Kyoto when they were 9 and 10, after living in the US for 5 years, they had totally forgotten their Japanese and spoke, read, and wrote English as well as any of their friends at the school and in the neighborhood in Pasadena. Though my father immediately got them enrolled in the local elementary school in Kyoto, and also arranged for them to get extra-curricular Japanese reading and especially writing education, I insisted that we speak English at the house. And, to this day, over 40 years since then, we still always converse with each other in English.

I myself continue to be way more comfortable in English than Japanese, and I do not write Japanese. Didn't learn to read or write the language during my 2.5 years of high school in Japan [Tsurumi]; if fact, didn't learn anything at that school, but naturally did catch on to the spoken language -- Yokohama-ben (my Japanese has a touch of Kyoto-ben now).

1 April 1970   "Mitowa Seisen" (三戸輪精泉) appointed editor of "English Sadō journal" (Eibun sadō zasshi 英文茶道雑誌) by Konnichian (今日庵), the corporate name of the Urasenke Foundation. The journal would be called "Chanoyu Quarterly" (茶の湯ｋヲータリクォータリー).

Spring 1970   First issue of Chanoyu Quarterly published by the Urasenke Foundation in Kyoto, under Henry Mittwer's editorship, assisted by his daughter Gretchen Kyoko Mittwer. Gretchen became the editor from 1981 and saw the journal through to it's suspension with Issue 88 in 1999.

The journal was published during the 1964-2002 tenure of Sen Sōshitsu (千玄室 b1923) as the 15th successor to the Urasenke (裏千家) family of tea masters. Urasenke is one of three lines (iemoto 家元) stemming from Sen Rikyū (千里久 1522-1591), who is generally regarded as the main inspiration for most of today's "way of tea" (sadō 茶道) schools.

1973   Henry becomes a monk (sōryo 僧侶) at Tenryūji (天龍寺) in Kyōto (Zen to hone).

1974   Henry publishes The Art of Chabana. The book is on "Chabana for the Tea Ceremony" of the Urasenke school. It is reincarnated in 1992 under the title Zen Flowers, and was translated into German in 1998.

1979   Gendai Hyōronsha (現代評論社) publisshes Kikuchi Kan's Akai kutsu haite ita onna no ko (赤い靴はいてた女の子) ["The girl wearing (in) red shoes"] as non-fictional novel based on several years of research. His version of the story has gained the status orthodoxy.

Kikuchi's novelization of the story of Iwasaki Kimi (岩崎きみ 1902-1911 Sano Kimi 佐野きみ) came out the year after TV Asahi (Channel 10) telecast a documentary with the same title, based on his research, on 3 November 1978, which is Culture Day.

Also in 1979, "Akai kutsu o ai suru shimin no kai" (赤い靴を愛する市民の会) ["Association of citizens who love red shoes"] erected a bronze statue called "Akai kutsu haite ita onna no ko" (赤い靴はいてた女の子) in Yamashita Park (Yamashita kōn 山下公園) in Yokohama. The Japanese inscription on the statute is followed by the English title "THE GIRL WITH RED SHOES ON" -- concocted by someone who had no sense of English style. Like the bronze statue of Hachiko outside Shibuya station in Tokyo, "The girl in red shoes" is a magnet for I-was-there snapshots.

A bronze statue of a standing girl in red shoes, erected in San Diego, is inscribed "A GIRL IN RED SHOES / by / Munehiro Komeno / June 2, 2009" (Zen to hone).

25 November 1986   Henry's half sister Mitsue, Richard Mittwer's daughter with Harue, dies.

10 August 1988   President Ronald Reagan signs into law H.R. 442, which provided restitution to persons of Japanese ancestry who had been interned during the Pacific War. The bill, numbered in honor of the 442d Regimental Combat Team, became Public Law No. 100-383. Separate legislation called the "Civil Liberties Act of 1988" set the amount of the restitution payment to each eligible individual at $20,000 and provided funding. It also set set down rules and procedures for implementation and stipualted a number of conditions and limitations. Acceptance of the payment would satisfy all claims that might arise out of the acts which the payment redressed. Payments to deceased internees were distributed to a surviving spouse, children, or parents in this order. This funding and implementation law amended in 1992 to extend and clarify eligibility are provide more funds.

Implementation of the law took time. Lists of eligible recipients needed to be compiled. Eligibility and funding issues arose. Lists were compiled, candidates were sent forms and instructions, and those who responded with required documents were mailed checks, by the Office of Redress Administration, which was set up within the the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice for the sole purpose of implementing the law. The office was headquartered in Washington, D.C., but set up a branch in San Francisco, where the evacuation, relocation, and internment had been orchestrated.

The first payments, to the eldest, were made in 1990. Most payments, however, were made from 1991-1993. Henry and Sachiko Mittwer, and their older daughter Gretchen Mittwer, received their payments in Japan. Their son Eric, and surviving members of Fred Mittwer's family, received their payments in the United States.

The 82,219 people who received redress were "Individuals of Japanese Ancestry" including both "United States citizens and permanent resident aliens of Japanese ancestry during World War II" (H.R. 442). Though H.R. 442 and related legislation is commonly described as intended for "Japanese-Americans", it was clearly meant for persons of Japanese ancestry, including Japanese and Americans. In all legislation, and in carefully worded comments and remarks about the redress program, "Japanese Americans" means "Americans", not "Japanese", reflecting the fact that during their internments, "persons of Japanese ancestry" were differentiated as to whether they were citizens (Americans) or enemy aliens (Japanese).

Many of the recipients, who had been enemy aliens at the time of their internment, had naturalized after they became eligible for naturalization by the Immigration Act of 1952 -- before which they were racially ineligible for naturalization. Redress payments, however, were limited to those who were regarded as "permanent residents" at the time of their internment -- which excluded former enemy aliens were in the United States on non-immigrant (including non-quota immigrant) visas -- such as student, business, or other such limited visas.

1991   Henry sketches numerous nude studies in washed ink on newsprint. One of the drawings in a bulky folder of such drawings is dated 16 February 1991 (Zen to hone).

26 January 1991   Henry debuts as an actor in the film Dōten <Dohten> (動天) ["Moving heaven"], in the role of the priest who performs the graveside service at the burial of a British subject, Thomas Gordon, who in the story is killed on November 4th, 1859. The credits also bill him as an interpreter on the set for the foreign actors who appeared in the film.

Henry, having witnessed how films were made at Toei Kyoto Studio No. 11, set out to produce his own films in 35mm.

Dohten -- as the title of the film is alphabetized -- was directed by Masuda Toshi (舛田利雄 b1927) for Tōei Films. Tōei produced the film for Tomen Corporation (Toomen トーメン) to commemmorate the 70th anniversary of its founding in 1970 as Tōyō Menka (東洋綿花) or "Toyo Cotton ", renamed Tomen in 1990. Having thus witnessed how films were made, at Toei Kyoto Studio No. 11, Henry set his eye on making his own films -- in 35mm (Zen to hone).

Dohten is set in Yokohama shortly after 1858, when Japan and the United States concluded the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, which established a treaty port and an extraterritorial foreign settlement at Kanagawa (Yokohama). The hero is the semi-fabulous Nakaiya Jūbee (中居屋重兵衛 1820-1861), played by Kitaōji Kin'ya (北大路欣也 b1943), one of Japan's most dashing actors. Nakaiya Jūbee, the shop handle of Kuroiwa Sennosuke (黒岩撰之助), an ambitious merchant from the province of Kōuzuke (Kōzuke no kuni 上野国), known for its silk production (now Gunma prefecture), opens up a red-copper-roofed emporium that becomes Yokohama's biggest exporter of raw silk -- and a landmark depicted in some contemporary woodblock prints. His fraternization with foreigners gets Jūbee into trouble with rowdies who strongly oppose the admission of foreigners and their customs to Japan. Jūbe is no pushover, and in his struggle to survive, he becomes involved in a plot to assassinate a Tokugawa government official who is bent on forcing Jūbei and other such merchants to close their shops in violation of trade laws. The plot is successful, but Jū then finds himself the target of a vendetta. In the meantime, his wife surrenders to the temptations of beef and wine and other alien ways of life.

1993   Henry Mittwer "consolidates" a "Genealogy of the Mittwer Family with their relatives" (ミトワ家とその血縁の系譜) ["A geneaology of the Mitowa family and its blood relations (relatives)"] on a long accordian flowchart. The earliest known progenitor of his mother's Yamazaki line is "Yamazaki San'emon 1789·3·2" (Zen to hone).

1996   In a long newspaper article he signed as a Zen monk, Henry Mittwer traces his father's life, stressing his work distributing American films as the Far East agent for United Artists from 1922 until he left Japan in 1926. The penultimate graph discloses that several tens of volumes of his father's books, which he had left at the been at the family home in Yokahama, had "miraculously been spared the vortex (maelstrom) of the [Pacific] war", and Henry had donated them to the Yokohama municipal library. The article wraps with this graph, linking Henry's movie production aspirations to his father's legacy (Zen to hone), my structural translation).

父から譲り受けた血が騒ぎだしたのか、私は今、映画のプロデュースを手掛けている。言い知れぬ不思議な縁を感じずにはいられない。

Is the blood I inerited from my father stirring up [somthing in me]? -- I am now engaged in producing a movie. I cannot but not feel (I am compelled to feel) an inexplicable unimaginable (myserious) bond [with him].

15 July 1996   John Mittwer, 88, received the 16th "Akai kutsu child culture grand prize" (Akai kutsu jidō bunka taishō 赤い靴児童文化大賞) for his contributions to boy scouting in Japan, according to a newspaper report (Zen to hone). The prize was first awarded in 1980.

The award was conferred on the birthday of the alleged model of the "Red Shoes" girl -- Iwasaki Kimi (岩崎きみ 1902-1911 Sano Kimi 佐野きみ).

Henry and his supporters floated around a prospectus called "Movie Akai kutsu proposal" (Eiga "Akai kutsu" kikakakusho 映画「赤い靴」企画書), describing a 90-minute 35mm film to be produced by Henry Mittwer. He and his supporters sought sponsors for the film, which they projected would cost about 201 million yen including 5 percent tax. Failing to solicit the necessary funds, and advised that what he had in mind would cost a lot more, Henry came up with the idea to produce an animation. A revised prospectus was subtiled "Full length animation drama" (Chōhen animeeshon dorama 長編アニメーションドラマ). But the budget for a feature-length animation film was 296 million yen -- nearly 50 percent greater.

The prospectus showed the following key staff.

Director Yamamoto Shin'ya 山本普也
Executive producer Darryl Knickrehm ダリル ニックレム
Assistant producer Henry Mittwer ヘンリ ミトワ

2007   Knickrehm and Mittwer met at the 2007 Kansai International Film Festival (関西国際映画祭) at a screening of Regge Life's documentary film Doubles (Daburusu ダブルス) , in which Mittwer had appeared. After the screening, Mittwer fielded questions from the stage. He told the audience he felt like "a carp on a carving board" (manaita no koi no kibun まな板の鯉の気分) -- a common expression for feeling totally helpless, at the mercy of ones opponents -- a humorous gesture of humility, as Henry Mittwer was not one to swim with the stream if he wished to go another way.

Knickrehm, who was in the audience, asked henry, "Were you forced to go to the internment camp?" [in the United States during the Pacific War] -- and Henry said "No, no. I wasn't forced. Nobody was forced. Nobody was forced [repeats]. They were all, uh, volunteers, basically" (Zen to hone).

January 2009   Henry had to modify the scope and scale of his "Akai kutsu" film project several times to accommodate physical and financial realities. As of January 2009, the provisional title was "Niji tatsu tokoro" (虹立つところ) ["Where rainbows stand (form, appear)"] -- after have once being "Otedama" (おてだま) ["Bean bag"] and most recently "Mai reinboo" (マイ・レインボー) ["My rainbow"]. These were "original stories" set in wartime Yokohama, where Japanese, Americans, and "second-generation Japan-related (ancestry) youth with 2 ancestorlands" (futatsu no sosoku o motsu nikkei nisei ra ふたつの祖国をもつ日系二世の青年ら) struggled to survive.

To both publicize and raise funds for the film, Henry offered (o-yuzuri sōrō お譲り候) old furniture, ceramic works, and drawings he had cherished at a Kame no ichi (亀の市) flea market on the grounds of Matsuo Taisha (松尾大社) shrine in Kyōto. Matsunaga Kenji (松永賢治) -- the "project designer" at an earlier stage, but by then the movie's planner -- stood in for Henry at his niche in the flea market.

A placard publicizing Henry's offerings bills him as a "Nikkei nisei" (日系二世). The drawings are described as "croquis, pastel" (kurokki, pasuteru クロッキ、パステル), referring to quick sketches of a model holding a pose for just a few munites.

1 June 2012   Henry Mittwer passes away at his residence on the grounds of Tenryūji temple in Kyōto. His ashes are consecrated in the mass tomb on the grounds.

Legal matters

Writings about the experiences of Japanese immigrants in the United States, and of Americans of Japanese descent in America and Japan -- whether in English or Japanese -- are strewn with inadequate comprehension of differences in the workings of status and family laws in the two countries. Few Japanese and American writers sufficiently understand the relevant laws in their own country, much less of the other country. When reading about the laws of the two countries, they are likely to depend on secondary sources in their own language, in which the laws of the other country are poorly translated or paraphrased. And when writing in, say, English about Japan's Nationality Law, Civil Code, and Family Register Law, American and Japanese writers alike are prone to warp the metaphors of Japanese law into those more familiar to Americans, in the mistaken assumption that the familar American metaphors are correct even in the case of speakers of American English, rather than burden the reader with unfamiliar Japanese metaphors..precise Japanese mout precise Japanese metaphors in favor of the metaphors English metaphors English represented by poor translations or poorly paraphrased, and commentary , say, Americanized versions of Japanese laws that that fail to accurately translate the metaphors writers understand family registers in Japan and their relationship to nationality. Few Japanese writers understand the differences between "citizenship" and "nationality", or

The consular marriage of Richard Mittwer and Ko Yamazaki at the American Consulate in Yokohama on 23 January 1908 following the notification of their marriage under Japanese law on 24 October 1907 to the registrar of Nihonbashi in Tokio Right R.J.H. Mittwer's 6 January 1908 registration as an American citizen at the American consulate in Yokohama Below left English translation of particulars of marriage notification as reported by the District of Nihonbashi (Nihonbashi-ku) in the City of Tokio (Tokyo-shi) on 24 October 1907 Below right Certification by the clerk-translator of the U.S. Consulate-General of Yokohama, of the accuracy of the translation, dated 18 March 1908 Images of documents downloaded from Ancestry.com Click on images to enlarge
Yokohama consul general's despatch to State Department concerning the consulate's need to verify Mittwer's marriage The proof-of-marriage established RJH's recognition of John as his son, which enabled John to acquire U.S. citizen through right-of-blood. While the State Department takes the position that America is in no position to question the legality of marriages under Japanese law because it recognizes Japan is an equal sovereign state, the consul questions the parity of Japan's law to marriage law's in America, which require witnesses the bride and groom exchange vows -- unlike Japan, where the couple need not be participate in the formal procedure that causes them to be married. Images of documents downloaded from Ancestry.com Click on images to enlarge

R.J.H. Mittwer's marriage with Yamazaki Kō

Henry Mittwer, in his 1983 autobiography, characterized his mother's marriage to his father as follows (Mittwer 1983, page 11, my transcription and structural translation).

両親の結婚は正式に東京の米国大使館へ届出され、日本の戸籍にもそのように記されてありますが、大正十三年の米国議会による排日移民法案の可決によって、彼らの結婚はあいまいなものになってしまいました。それゆえ母は生涯未婚ということになっていました。しかし、二人の兄と私はアメリカの法律にもとづき、れもなく父の姓を継ぐ米国国民なのです。

As for the marriage of [my] parents, [it] was formally notified [reported] to the American Embassy in Tokyo, and [it] is recorded that way also in [my mother's] family register of Japan, but according to the passage of the Exclude-Japan-migrant-law bill of 1924 by the American Congress, their marriage became something ambiguous. For that reason my mother became a life-long-never-married [woman].

Henry Mittwer added that he and his 2 older brothers were "without confusion American nationals who took their father's surname" (magire mo naku chichi no sei o tsugu Beikoku kokumin 紛れもなく父の姓を継ぐ米国国民) (Mittwer 1883, page 11).

Numerous problems

Henry Mittwer's account of the marriage of his parents is full of problems. I get the impression that he hadn't seen any primary documents related to their marriage, and may not have understand marriage in Japanese family law, or U.S. family laws, which vary from state state. I would also guess that he didn't understand how the U.S. Department of State defined a legal marriage, in order to instruct its consulates in other countries in procedures for dealing with marriages involving Americans living abroad.

American consulates in Japan had to deal not only with marriages between two Americans or between an American and a Japanese, but with marriages between an American and a national of another country or even a stateless person. What constitutes a legal marriage? Which country's or territory's laws apply? What rolls, if any, should consulate officers, as U.S. government agents, play in the officiation and recording of marriages of Americans in other countries?

Consular registration

At the time, American citizens residing in foreign countrires were advised to register their presence in the country at a U.S. consulate in the country, to establish a record that they continued to consider themselves U.S. citizens, and intended to return to the United States or to resume the duties of citizenship. Proof of citizenzenship in the form of a passport or other suitable documents were required. Oaths of allegiance were administered. Certificates of registration were issued to citizens who did not have a passport.

Richard Mittwer's 6 January 1908 registration states that his identity as a U.S. citizen was confirmed by a previous registration, and by the administration of an oath of allegiance. He was issued a numbered certificate of registration, which would expire on 5 January 1909. Most likely he did not then have a passport, as passports were not as essential for border crossing as they are today. Even when needed to cross the borders of some countries, if one stayed in the country, they would expire, and not be reissued until leaving, which might be many years later. And they would be issued for travel to specific places, for specific purposes, for fairly limited periods of time.

Paternal recognition

The 1908 registration shows red check marks in front of Mittwer's statement that he had a wife, Ko Yamazaki (Mittwer), and a child, John Mittwer, born in Tokyo on 3 November 1907. John's birth of course could not have been noted at the time of the previous year's registration, and presumably his marriage to Ko was noted for the first time.

In any event, the consulate needed to confirm Richard Mittwer's marriage to Ko Yamazaki (Mittwer) in order to determine whether John Mittwer, born outside U.S. territory, was qualified for birthright U.S. citizenship through right-of-blood transmission through his father. Since John was represented as Richard's son with Ko, Richard's recognition of John as his son could be established by presenting evidence that he and Ko were married.

Whether John was born in or out of wedlock was not per se an issue. Paternal or maternal recognition establishes biological relationship. Legitimation through marriage establishes legal relationship. U.S. right-of-blood citizenship is based on genetic (paternal) or gestational (maternal) relationship. But a child born to a women a man claims to be his wife is taken to be his child, whether or not the child is actually his. If John had been born out of wedlock, then the consulate would have required a formal acknowledgement of paternity. Since John was putatively born to Ko Yamazaki (Mittwer), who Richard stated was his wife, the consulate required proof of the marriage as tantamount to proof of putative paternity.

Mittwer-Yamazaki marriage in consular documents

The images to the right show scans of documents in English, created by the clerk-translator of the American Consulate-General in Yokohama on 18 March 1908, showing that "Richard Mittwer" and "Ko [Yamazaki]" were duly married under Japanese law on 24 October 1907, as recorded by the "census registrar" of the "District of Nihonbashi" (Nihonbashi-ku 日本橋区 "Nihonbashi ward") in the "City of Tokio" (Tōkyō-shi 東京市). One document is a translation of the particulars that would have been included on the marriage notification Ko and Richard appear to have filed at the Nihonbashi ward office, in the witness of two commercial company employees residing in Shiba and Ushigome wards in Tokyo. Ko was probably legally residing in Nihonbashi ward at the time, hence the filing of the marriage notification at the Nihonbashi ward hall.

A "civil registrar" is a municipal clerk responsible for "civil registers" -- a term some writers have used to refer to "koseki" (戸籍), meaning "household (family) registers". Such registers are created, maintained, and otherwise entirely under the control and jurisdiction of village, town, city, and ward municipalities, in accordance with national laws. Registers in municipalities within Japan's sovereign dominion double as registers of Japanese nationality, hence Japanese nationality is acquired at time of birth or later in life by enrollment in a household register, and is lost by disenrollment.

Under Japanese law, a couple is legally married when the couple submits a witnessed notification of marriage to a municipal registrar, and the registar vets and accepts the notification. If both parties are Japanese, then the marriage is recorded in the family registers of both parties. Japanese law requires that married couples share the same register, so one spouse is obliged to migrate to the register of the other spouse.

If only one party is Japanese, then the marriage is recorded in the Japanese spouse's register. The name, place of birth, and nationality of the foreign spouse is recorded in the register. Under Japan's 1899 Nationality Law, in effect at the time Richard Mittwer married Ko Yamazaki, a foreign spouse might qualify for enrollement in the register, in which case the foreign spouse would aquire Japanese nationality and become Japanese. The 1950 Nationality Law did away with all forms of nationality derived through alliances of marriage or adoption, in lieu of naturalization.

If neither party is Japanese, the municipal office tallies the marriage, with marriages involving Japanese, in its vital statistics reports to the prefectural government, and in turn to the national government, which publishes tallies by the nationalities of the spouses in annual vital statistics reports. All births, adoptions, and deaths, and marriages and divorces, are tabulated by nationality. Marriage statistics are tabulated by the nationalities of the bride and groom.

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Nationality of alien spouse

At the time Richard and Ko married, pursuant to an 1873 proclamation on alliances of marriage or adoption between Japanese and foreigners, and the 1899 Nationality Law, a foreign bride could be enrolled in the Japanese groom's register, and a foreign groom could be enrolled as an adopted son or "entering husband" in the Japanese bride's register. Register enrollments of foreigners through marriage or adoption -- hence acquisition of Japanese nationality through marriage or adoption -- ceased with the 1950 Nationality Law.

Richard presented a copy of Ko's household register, which showed that she had married Richard under Japanese law on 24 October 1907 in the "district" (ku 区 "ward") of Nihonbashi in Tokyo. The register particulars concerning Ko's parentage and her marriage to Richard were translated by a clerk and translator of consulate-general, and the translator and the vice and deputy consul-general testified to the submission of a copy of the original certificate in Japanese with appropriate seals as required by Japanese law, and to the accuracy of the translation.

The marriage was first notified to a municipal registrar in Japan, and duly recorded -- under Japanese law, without any reference to any law in the United States. Mittwer was under no obligation to report the marriage to American authories, so long as he didn't intend to leave Japan with Ko, or they had no children that he wished to recognize for the purpose of acquiring U.S. citizenship. His only reason for reporting the marriage and the birth of a child was to secure U.S. citizenshp for the child.

Ko's family register status is not clear from the surface of the consular report. Presumably she was in her father's household register, in which case her father -- Yamazaki Seigorō (Masagorō on the consular translation), who was still alive (he died on 8 May 1919 in Hongō in Tokyo) -- would have had to approve of the marriage and done the paperwork -- as heads of households had authority over "status actions" such as alliances of marriage or adoption, and their dissolutions. The fact that Ko's name is represented as "Ko Yamazaki (Mittwer)" suggests that she is "Ko Yamazaki" under Japanese law, but "Ko Mittwer" in Richard's esteem, just as John was "John Mittwer" and not "John Yamazaki" in Richard's esteem.

In any event, Richard's marriage to Ko was clearly recognized under Japanese law some 10 days before John's birth -- not that this mattered. It was commonplace in Japan at the time for a wedding ceremony to be conducted in order to establish marriage bonds in the eyes of the community, which enabled a couple to co-habit as husband and wife in the eyes of the community. The marriage would be registered, and at that point become legal, after a healthy child (preferably a son) was born, or whenever the families of the couple decided -- since household registration matters were at the discretion of heads of households. If for any reason the relationship floundered for any reason, from incompatibility to infertility, the couple would simply separate without a need to dissolve the alliance.

Today, too, couples may simply begin to co-habit and at some point decide to marry by filing a marriage notification. Or they may take vows of marriage in a secular or religions wedding ceremony but not file a notification of marriage until later. Or they may file a notification of marriage and never hold a wedding ceremony -- because marriages under Japanese law do not require ceremonies -- and no ceremony is recognized as constituting a marriage.

Under Japanese law, a marriage becomes legal when a marriage notification is submitted, vetted, and accepted by a municipal registrar, for recording on a marriage roll -- and, in the case of a Japanese couple or spouse, noted in their family registers along with related changes in register status. The consular record in Richard Mittwer's State Department file clearly states that the notification of his marriage to Ko Yamazaki was "duly accepted and [the marriage was duly] recorded [in Ko's family register]" -- which means that the marriage was legal under Japanese law.

Consular despatches

A consular despatch related to Richard Mittwer's marriage (No. 456, 18 March 1908) shows that the Yokohama consulate had received instructions from the State Department concerning its role in witnessing the marriage, as follows (Department instruction, No. 173, Consular).

The certificate which a Consul is to issue when he consents to witness a marriage simply attests the fact of marriage in accordance with the laws of the country of its celebration, and he is not called upon, certainly in any civilized country, to concern himself with the consideration of the question of whether such laws are different from or inferior to those of the United States.

>Not withstanding the implication of the State Department's instructions -- that Japan was a "civilized country" hence the quality of its laws were not to be questioned, at least not by a foreign service officer in the capacity of his duties as an American consul -- the Yokohama Consul General expressed what at the time was perhaps the most common doubt voice in some American legalists and courts about the whether a marriage under Japanese was acceptable under "U.S. laws" -- which means state laws, which differ from state-to-state but in common require that the couple being married are present and give their consent under oath -- as follows (Despatch No. 456, 18 March 1908).

The copy of the registration herein enclosed, is all that there is to a marriage according to Japanese law. The parties are not even required to personally appear before any official to take any obligation [oath, vow] or even to have their signatures verified. These registrations [sic = The notifications required to register a marriage] can be prepared anywhere and forwarded to the registrar by messenger or by mail. No ceremony is performed nor contract entered into or obligation made. The question in my mind is whether such a system or method of marriage is sufficient to constitute a proper legal marriage in accordance with the laws of the United States.

Henry had clearly seen his mother's family register by the time he was writing his 1983 autobiography. (Mittwer 1983, page 32)

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Under Immigration Act of 1924, "wife" and "husband" do not include "a wife or husband by reason of a proxy or picture marriage" The marriage of Richard and Kō was neither a proxy nor picture marriage. But even it if had been, the 1924 act would not apply, because Kō was never an immigrant, so the "legality" of her marriage in America was never an issue. Image cropped from pdf scan of act downloaded from Archive.org

1924 Immigration Act

The 1924 Immigration Act was a comprehensive immigration law. There was no "1924 Japanese Exclusion Act" as such. This description of the law misrpresents the law. This is not to say that the law didn't exluded people from several countries on essentially racial grounds. By banning immigration of people ineligible of citizenship, the law permitted congress to set the immigration quotas for China, Japan, India, and other such countries to zero -- which in effect excluded quota immigration from these countries. The law did not, however, exclude non-quota immigration, or other forms of permission to enter the country and stay.

The "Immigration Act of 1924" -- formally "An Act to limit the immigration of aliens into the United States, and for other purposes" -- was a general immigration law, which established conditions for "quota" and "non-quota" immigration visas, and criteria for determining immigration quotas.

Section 13 (Exclusion from the United States) stipulated many reasons for excludion, including Subdivision (c), which provided that "No alien ineligible to citizenship shall be admitted to the United States unless such alien (1) is admissible as a non-quota immigrant under [Section 4: Non-quota immigrants], or (2) is the wife, or the unmarried child under 18 years of age, of an immigrant admissible under [Section 4: Non-quota immigrants], or (3) is not an immigrant as defined in section 3 [Definition of "immigrant"]."

The quota criteria stipulated in the law resulted in zero quota immigration -- with exceptions as noted in Section 13, Subdivision (c) -- for Japan, China, India, and other such countries. The 1924 law does does not itself use or define the term "national origin", or otherwise racialize "nationality". The so-called "national origin" (read "race") limitations arise other determinations of "aliens ineligible to citizenship".

Marriage in Japan not ambiguous

The 1924 Immigration Act did not regard marriages in Japan as "ambiguous". Subdivision (n) of Section 28 (General Definitions) of the 1924 law stipulates as follows (see crop from law to right).

(n) The terms "wife" and "husband" do not include a wife or husband by reason of a proxy or pixture marriage.

There is nothing ambiguous about this. Marriage in the United States is governed by state, not federal laws. State laws differ in many ways, but all state laws require that couples competent to marry under the state's codes present themselves before an official of the court, such as a Justice of Peace, or a non-official who is authorized to witnesses an exchange of vows, thus concluding a legal contract between the concerned parties.

In Japan -- before post-Pacific War reforms in the Constitution, Civil Code, and Family Register Law -- heads of households were responsible for arranging and approving alliances of marriage or adoption, and dissolutions of such alliances, and filing notifications with municipal registrars -- even if the concerned parties had never met, or had not personally consented -- or had agreed through correspondence or other forms of negotiation that might include an exchange of photographs, as in "picture marriages".

Japan as a sovereign state

U.S. laws do not determine the legality of marriages in Japan. Not only does America's 1924 Immigration Act not have the legal capacity to characterize Japan's marriage laws as "ambiguous", no act of Congress has the capacity to determine the legality of a marriage within the jurisdiction of another country.

Nonetheless, in the past, in cases tried in the United States, involving the effects of marriage on nationality or immigration status, many U.S. courts viewed marriages in Japan as qualitatively different from marriages in the United States -- especially with regard to the issue of whether a marriage proxied without the an exchange of vows or other expressions of consent between the parties concerned qualified as a truely contractual marriage. And court rulings in the United affected how state and federal agencies, including U.S. consulates, viewed and treated marriages in Japan under Japanese law, between Americans (including Americans of Japanese descent) and Japanese.

However, since the United States recognized Japan as a sovereign state, with no extraterritorial reservations, American consulates in Japan were duty-bound to accept marriages under Japanese law as legitimate under laws in the United States. At the same time, aware that differences in legal standards were controversial, American consuls were motivated to document marriages under Japanese law with certified original copies and validated translations of the Japanese spouse's register showing the particulars of the marriage.

Consular marriage

Unlike today, Richard and Ko did not take vows before an American consul, and were not issued a so-called "Certificate of Witness to Marriage" or other form of consular marriage certificate. Their marriage under Japanese law was simply noted as a matter of fact.

A few years after Richard Mittwer's marriage, requisites for recognizing a marriage in Japan of an American, whether to another American or to an alien in the eyes of America, began to include taking vows before an American consul. This continues to be the procedure today.

Today, an American who wishes to marry a Japanese national first marries the Japanese national under Japanese law. The couple files a notification of marriage with a municipal registar, then submits documents issued by the municipal register to an American consulate, as proof that they were married under Japanese law, and then they exchange vows administered by an American consul. The American consuls witnesses the marriage as an officer of the United States, who in effect is acting as a proxy of an officer of a court in the American spouse's home state, which is therefore obliged to recognize the marriage as legal under its own laws.

Picture prides and "double marriages"

I have called the above procedure -- of marrying under both Japanese law, and in the presence of an American consul representing the laws of the American spouse's home state -- a "double marriage". The same "double marriage" standard was applied to the "proxy" or "picture" marriages between Japanese immigrants in the United States and Japanese in Japan.

When a Japanese man in the United States appeared to have married a Japanese women in Japan through an arrangment involving correspondence and an exchange of pictures through the mail, his alleged "wife" was allowed to enter the United States on the condition that she and her alleged "husband" marry under the laws of the state of the port of entry. This reason for the "double marriage" was to confirm the couple's personal agency in their alliance of marriage by exchanging vows before an official witness.

For a look at how the "double marriage system" was applied in the United States in cases of "picture bride" marriages between a Japanese immigrant and a woman in Japan, see Double marriages on the webpage titled "The Heymans and Yasuis of Grass Valley and Hood River: How American descendants of Prussian and Japanese immigrants crossed paths" on the Wetherall.org website.

Proxy marriages

When used in the context of a "picture marriage" in Japan between a Japanese man in the united states and a Japanese woman in Japan, the term "proxy marriage" is sometimes thought of as a marriage between the woman in Japan and a "stand-in" for the man in the United States. This, however, is not the case.

Before reforms introduced in 1948, Japanese civil code and family register law authorized the head of household to approve of status actions like alliances of marriage or adoption and their dissolution. Whether a couple married through an arrangement, or through expression of their desire to marry, approval of the marriage was in the hands of the heads of households of the parties to be married, and a head of household filed the notification of marriage that resulted in the marriage being recorded in the family registers of the married parties. In this sense, all marriages in Japan were "proxied" through heads of households.

This created problems for Americans of Japanese descent who were sent to Japan for schooling, and while in Japan, were married under circumstances they later insisted were contrary to their wishes, or argued later that they had not divorced but rather their marriage had been annulled hence never existed. Because an American woman (and a Japanese woman for that matter) could lose her U.S. citizenship (Japanese nationality) through marriage to a foreigner, the validity of the marriage mattered when attempting to regain the lost citizenship (nationality) status after the marriage ended.

See Inaba v Nagle, 1929 on the Yosha Bunko website for the case of Toshiko Inaba, a U.S. citizen who married and divorced a Japanese national in Japan, then returned to the United States, where immigration officials deemed that she had lost her U.S. citizenship on account of the marriage, and refused to admit her because she had become an alien racially ineligible to citizenship. She claimed that she had been married without her consent by heads of households, but a federal court recognized the marriage, and its effects on her nationality, as valid, despite her claim that it had been annulled.

"under duress from native Japanese" Americans of Japanese ancestry who renounced their U.S. citizenship during the Pacific War did so for various and multiple reasons -- including experiences of "duress" they claimed was inflicted on them by "native Japanese" they encountered in the internment camps. The above article, from the 1 March 1946 Reno Evening Gazette, reports the cases of Henry Mittwer and two other renouncees, who were facing deporation, and were petitioning a court for restoration of their U.S. nationality and citizenship so they could remain in the United States. The article to the right, from the 28 February 1946 The Sacramento Union, reports the difficulties in both the United States and Japan, of a renouncee who had been "repatriated" to Japan and was seeking to regain his U.S. status. Articles clipped from Newspapers.com Click on images to enlarge Henry Mittwer's quest for nationality restoration Early reports of appeals by Tule Lake internees for restoration of nationality "renounced under duress" during Pacific War See the comments to the left for details about Mittwer's nationality predicament Travails of nationality renouncer in United States and Japan The Sacramento Union article to the right reports a story of the difficulties of an anonymous man, who apparently was born in the United States to Japanese parents, early enough -- perhaps in the late 1890s -- to fight in World War I as a U.S. citizen. After his evacuation from the west and internment during the Pacific War, he had reason to take actions that resulted in him "renouncing" his U.S. citizenship and being "repatriated" to Japan without U.S. nationality. Then in Japan, he had reason to seek to regain his U.S. nationality and citizenship, but to no avail at the time of the report.

Henry Mittwer's nationality

Henry Mittwer relates the following anecdote in his autobiography (Mittwer 1983, page 95-96, my transcription and structural translation.

  「私には日本に母も兄もいます。友だちもいます。それらの人を敵とは考えられませんから、銃を向けるわけにはいきません」といい切り、私の戸籍抄本に匹敵するパスポートを偉ぶった軍人の机の上に置き、「こんな物、持っていてもなんの役にもたちませんからいりません」といって断わりました。先方も、これはパスポートで戸籍証明書ではないからといって受取りませんでした。しかし、彼は何もいわずに私を市民権放棄組に入れてしまいました。それによって私は国籍を持たない人間になったのです。この事があってしばらく、私は自分かってに母の姓山崎を名乗っていました。
  兵役を断わり、国籍を棄ててしまった男を、当局はなんと考えていたのでしょう。

    "To me in Japan there are (I have in Japan) my mother and an older brother. There are also ([I] also have) friends. Because I can't think of them as enemies, I am not about to direct (point) a gun [at them]", [I] asserted, and [I] set the passport -- which is comparable to a short copy of a family register (koseki shōhon ni hitteki suru pasupooto 戸籍抄本に匹敵するパスポート) -- on the desk of the arrogant soldier -- and [I] refused [military service], saying "A thing like this, even if [I] keep it it's of absolutely no use." The person before [me], saying because this was a passport and not a family register certificate (pasupooto de koseki shōmeisho de wa nai パスポートで戸籍証明書ではない), didn't accept it, However, saying nothing, he put me in the citizenship-relinquishing (renunciant) group (shimin-ken h!ki gumi 市民権放棄組). On account of that I became a person who did not have a nationality (kokuseki o motanai ningen 国籍を持たない人間). There was this matter and for a while (For a while after this incident), I on my own went (I myself chose to go) by my mother's surname [family name] Yamazaki.
  [Regarding] a man who refused military service, and abandoned [his] nationality (kokuseki o sutete shimatta 国籍を棄ててしまった), as for the authorities, what did [they] think [of such a man] (What did the authorities think of a man who had refused military service and abandoned his nationality?).

"citizenship" and "nationality"

Mittwer is writing in Japanese, in reference to his experiences as a wartime internee in the United States, when his status as an "American citizen" and loyalty to the United States were being questioned by U.S. government authorities. He is mainly concerned with "citizenship" as the term was being used on the forms he had to complete and the questions he had to answer in oral hearings conducted in English by Department of Justice representatives. He is not concerned with -- and probably had little knowledge of -- the inner workings and finer points of "nationality law" in the United States, much less in Japan.

Mittwer was thinking pretty much like most Americans thought then and still think today -- and like most Japanese who know a smattering of English think -- that "citizenship" and "nationality" are one and the same. His "shiminken" (市民権) is a literal translation of "citizenship" -- a term not used in Japanese domestic law except in two totally different senses, as follows.

1. As a boilerplate synonym of "nationality" in the "Exit-entry-country control and refugee recognition law" (Shutsu-nyū-koku kanri oyobi namin nintei hō 出入国管理及び難民認定法) known in Americanized English as "Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act", in two instances of the phrase "sono mono no kokuseki mata wa shiminken no zoku suru kuni" (その者の国籍又は市民権の属する国) -- whichs structurally translates "the country with which the person's [outlander's (gaikokujin 外国人) "foreigner's / alien's)] nationality or citizenship belongs (is affiliated)" (Article 5 Paragraph 2, Article 53 Paragraph 1).
2. As an umbrella term for refering to the legal rights of Japanese and foreign (including stateless) residents of Japan's village, town, city, and ward municipalities -- as village (son), town (chō), city (shi), or ward (ku) "denizens" or "citizens" -- "ku-shi-chō-son-min ken" (区市町民権) -- conflated as "shiminken" (市民権).

The 1st sense is sense in which Mittwer uses "shiminken". The 2nd sense is echoed in the United States as well, when speaking of Americans and foreigners alike as "citizens" of a locality or state in which local or state laws may grant foreigners specific rights of political particpation other than those reserved for U.S. citizens or nationals. In Japan, too, some localities have made provisions for limited "alien citizenship" within their jurisdictions.

In the world of international law, such as on passports, only "nationality" matters. U.S. passports certify that the "citizen/nation bearer" possesses U.S. nationality, not citizenship. The bearer is an American because he or she possesses U.S. nationality. Whether the American is a "citizen", i.e., someone who possesses rights of suffrage in a Union state (Constitution), or in the District of Columbia (congressional statute) -- or just a "national", who does not possess rights of federal political participation -- is a matter of U.S. domestic law, not international law.

Likewise, Japanese are Japanese because they possess Japan's nationality -- a purely civil status signifying affiliation with Japan as a state. Aliens are defined as persons who do not possess Japan's nationality -- whether they possess another nationality or no nationality (stateless).

Most Americans did not then, and do not today, reflexively speak of "nationality" in the sense of "citizenship". Rather they think of "nationality" in the racialist sense of "national origin" -- i.e., as a synonym for "race" -- or, in today's vernacular, "ethnicity", "heritage", or "culture". I.e., in Americanese, "nationality" is likely to signify affiliation with a racioethnic "nation" or "people".

Neither Henry Mittwer, nor the officials who determined his fate, were concerned with such distinctions. Their only mutual interest was his nationality -- specifically his U.S. nationality -- without which he would be an alien in the eyes of the United States.

If an alien under U.S. law, however, the question would be whether he was Japanese under Japanese law -- i.e., a subject and national of Japan, which would make him not only an alien under U.S. law, but an "enemy alien" subject to deportation to Japan.

Mittwer, of course, equates "citizenship" with "nationality", hence speaks of "shiminken" (市民権) in one breath and "kokuseki" (国籍) in another. He uses "shimin-ken" as a literal translation of "citizenship" -- and does so because he is referencing his Japanese to the use of "citizenship" in the United States, such as on the forms he had to complete or questions he had to answer when

Furthermore, Mittwer speaks of citizenship "relinqishment" or "waiving" (hōki 放棄), rather than "renunciation" (ridatsu 離脱), and of "not having nationality" (kokuseki o motanai 国籍を持たない), which would mean he understood himself as having become stateless or "without naitonality" (mukokuseki 無国籍). He also speaks of himself as having "discarded" or "abandoned" his U.S. nationality (kokuseki o suteta 国籍を棄てた).

Later, Mittwer refers to himself and others in his legal predicament as "shiminken hōkisha" (市民権放棄者) -- "persons who release-and-discard their city-people-rights" -- which conforms to the usage of "citizenship renunciants" or just "renunciants" in English literature on the many protracted court battles fought on behalf of Mittwer and others by Wayne Mortimer Collins (1899-1974), an American Civil Liberties Union attorney and activist who worked out of San Francisco -- and arguably did more for not only Americans of Japanese descent and Japanese during and after the Pacific War, but also went to bat of .

Mittwer does not write that he "lost" (ushinatta 失った, sōshitsu shita 喪失した) his nationality, or that it was "revoked" (hakudatsu sareta 剥奪された). Nor does he say that he either orally or in writing renunciated his citizenship, whether before officers through a series of actions, beginning with changing his answers on the loyalty questions from yes to no, then saying he wished to go back to Japan, and replying "Yes, I know that" to the question "You understand by repatriating you forfeit your American citizenship?"

The 2016 film Zen to Hone narrates that Mittwer changed his reply to Question 28 -- affirming whether he renounced all allegiance toward the emperior of Japan -- from "Yes" to "No".

Born of Caucasian American citizen father
Alien Enemy
Race            Sponser's race
X White            White
X Japanese         Japanese
  Other            Other
  Mixed [typed]

Application for leave clearance denied because there is reasonable ground to believe that the issuance of leave would interfere with war program or otherwise endanger the public peace and security.

A transcript of the exchange in one hearing shows this exchange (Zen to hone).

Officer Have you dual citizenship?
Mittwer I don't know, maybe I have.

Officer You understand by repatriating you forfeit your American citizenship?
Mittwer Yes, I know that.

An envelope addressed to XXX in the United States, bearing a 27 January 1953 (27-1-28) frank, showed the following return address (Zen to hone.

Mrs. Ko Mittwer
120 Nishi Takeno Maru
Nakaku, Yokohama

In Japanese, this would be written "Yohohama-shi Naka-ku Nishi Takenomaru 120" (横浜市中区西竹之丸120). A search on Google Maps in November 2023 shows a "Yamazaki" nameplate on a gatepost at the same address, on a Google Streetview video dated October 2016.

A War Relocation Authority application for leave clearance, completed by Henry Mittwer, shows some uncertainty about "citizenship" -- he "thinks" he's an American, but he checks both U.S.A. and Japan (Zen to hone).

Citizenship American (I think)

Citizenship   Age
X U.S.A.      25
X Japan       1 child

Renunciation application statistics By early 1945, about 6,000 internees had applied for renunciation of their U.S. citizenship under the 1 July 1944 Renuciation Act. 5,589 (about 93 percent) of the applications were accepted. 5,461 (98 percent) of the renunciants -- including Henry Mittwer -- were from Tule Lake.	Removal (repatriation and deportation) statistics By January 1946, among the roughly 3,300 renunciants who remained in the United States, 3,161 (about 96 percent) -- including Henry Mittwer -- were appealing for stays of deportation orders, retractions of renunciation, and paroles from detention while court hearings were being conducted.
Presumptive dual nationality As a matter of nationality -- a purely civil, i.e., raceless, non-ethnic legal status -- wartime internees of "Japanese ancestry" -- a purely biological race-box status in the United States (but not in Japan) -- were either U.S. citizens, or Japanese subjects and nationals. The latter were enemy aliens on account of the declarations of war between the United States and Japan. But Japanese ancestry enemy aliens were broadly two classes -- permanent residents and sojourners. Permanently residing enemy aliens were generally interned along with U.S. citzens in relocation centers under the War Relocation Authority. Japanese diplomats and others with non-resident visas were detained in camps run by the Justice Department. Enemy alien residents who were detained by the FBI and found to constitute a security threat were also interned in Justice Department rather than WRA camps. Legal problems arose with U.S. citizen internees who wanted to renounce their U.S. nationality and be sent to Japan -- who had proof or presumed that they also possessed Japanese nationality as subjects and nationals of Japan in the eyes of Japanese law -- or, like Henry Mittwer, were uncertain if they were dual nationals. See Dual nationality (below) for details.
Click images to enlarge Images are Yosha Bunko scans from Yosha Bunko copy of Donald E. Collins, Native American Aliens, 1985

Renunciation

Every state, as a sovereign entity, has the right to determine its own provisions, if any, for active renunciation and/or passive loss of nationality. And no state has the right to determine the disposition of another state's nationality -- other than to recognize, or not recognize the nationality, which is generally an artifact of recognizing the other state.

The United States, at war with Japan, essentially terminated the legal relationship they had established in the late Tokugawa, and which had continued, through a series of treaties and other agreements, down to Japan's declaration of war on the United States on 7 December 1941 Washginton, D.C. time - which the United States reciprocated the following day.

Nationality, however, continued to exist, under international private law. And both states, though at war, recognized possessors of the other's nationality as enemy aliens.

Dual nationals posed a problem. Generally, U.S.-Japan dual nationals in Japan were treated as Japanese, and in America were treated as Americans -- and, in both countries, acts of disloyalty made them traitors subject to treason laws. Whereas Americans in Japan, and Japanese in America, as enemy aliens, were subject o laws against spying, sabotage, and other subversive acitivities, but not of treason.

Whether a child born in the United States, to Japanese parents, or to a Japanese mother or father, stood to become a dual U.S.-Japan national depended when the child was born, the marital status of the Japanese parent(s), and whether the Japanese father (whether married or not to the mother), or the Japanese mother (if not married to the father). Japan's 1899 Nationality Law was matrilineal for unmarried Japanese women, and patrilineal for Japanese men whether or not they were married. Until 1924, the Japanese parent(s) of child born overseas, who stood to aquire Japan's nationality under Japanese law, could register the child as Japanese if they returned to Japan. From 1924, Japanese immigrants who had children in place-of-birth states in the Americas, had to "reserve" the child's legal capacity to be claim claim a Japanese passport later in life by registering the child's birth in their household register in Japan. Under U.S. law, the child would a U.S. citizen. However, under Japanese law, the parents -- if taking the child to Japan -- could acquire a Japanese passort for the child. Or an older child, if wanting to be Japanese, could apply for a passport on the strength of his or her status in the parental household register in Japan.

States are also free to treat some aliens according to domestic laws not linked with mutual agreements with other states. Japan, for example, recognizes individuals representing about 50 other nationalities as "Special Permanent Residents" -- entirely on ground linked to effects of the San Francisco Peace Treaty as intepreted by the Japanese government under its own laws.

For example, the San Francisco Peace Treaty confirmed Japan's loss Chōsen and Taiwan as parts of its sovereign dominion. The loss stipuated in terms of the the 19

This being said, most states have some provisions for both active divesture and passive foreiture of their nationality. And today, most states are reluctant to, or strictly outlaw, any form of nationality loss, whether active or passive, that would result in statelessness. For this reason, practically all people today, who have reason to want to lose the nationality of a state, will or must have the nationality of another state. And the state controling the nationality that is to be lost, may chose not to permit or recognize loss, if the dual national's other nationality is of a state it does not recognize.

Nationality renunciation is the act of declaring to the state that controls the-- in some formal manner, to an agent of the state with the authority to determine whether a person possesses or does not possess the state's nationality, such as a competent court or consular official -- that one wishes to divest oneself of the state's nationality. Most states have procedures for voluntary nationality renunciation or divesture. A few have no provisions for voluntary loss of nationality.

Some states have provisions for forfeiture or loss of nationality for nationals who commit an act defined as a cause for denaturalization or expatriation -- such as becoming a member of a military force or holding an office in the government of another country, or voluntarily seeking and acquiring the nationality of another country. Loss of nationality might be come through automatic operation of the law, or be confirmed after a review of the act by a competent government official, board, or court.

A person who is a national of the United States whether by birth or by naturalization, shall lose his nationality by . . . making in the United States a formal written renunciation of nationality in such form as may be prescribed by law, and before such officer as may be designated by the Attorney General, whenever the United States shall be in a state of war and the Attorney general shall approve such renunciation as not contrary to the interests of national defense . . ." [Note 24] [18 U.S. Code Annotated, sec. 801 (i); 58 Stat. 677 (as ammended in 1944).] (tenBroek et al. 1968, pages 315-316, and note 24, page 394)

Donald E. Collins
Native American Aliens
(Disloyalty and the Renunciation of Citizenship
by Japanese Americans during World War II)
Westport (Connecticut): Greenwood Press, 1985 218 pages, hardcover

Unpaginated content includes Contents (1 page), Illustrations (1 page), and 10 full-page black-and-white photographs (between pages 46-47).

Dual nationality

"Japanese ancestry" internees in relocation centers under the War Relocation Authority were mostly either U.S. citizens, or Japanese subjects and nationals who were recognized as permanent residents of the United. The later, but not the former, were enemy aliens on account of the declarations of war between the United States and Japan. And as aliens, they could seek to be repatriated to Japan if they wished to return, or deported against their wishes for offenses recognized as cause for involuntary repatriation.

Among U.S. citizen internees of Japanese ancestry, most appear to have been U.S. citizens only, for whom repatriation -- much less deportation -- were not personal or governmental options. However, those born in the United States before 1924 when Japan's Nationality Law began to required registrations of births in place-of-birth states in order to reserve rights to its nationality -- and those whose births in the United States had been registered in Japan pursuant to the 1924 revision -- were presumptive dual nationals.

While in the United States, presumptive dual nationals were U.S. citizens only. Their potential claims to Japanese nationality was not a matter of public record in the United States -- nor would it have mattered under U.S. domestic or international private law, according to which dual nationals are generally treated according to the nationality they assumed when entering a country. The problem arose, during the Pacific War, when presumptive dual nationals wished to renounce their U.S. status and be "repatriated" to Japan -- where most had never visited much less lived.

The first problems was that, until the 1 July 1944 Renunciation Act, U.S. citizens were not allowed to renounce U.S. citizenship while in the United States. And generally, they could not renounce U.S. citizen when overseas unless they possessed another nationality -- preferably that of the country in which they wished to renounce their U.S. status. In other words, it is difficult if not impossible to renounce one's nationality if doing so would make one stateless.

The 1 July 1944 Renunciation Act was controversial. Proponents argued that it would facilitate the removal of U.S. citizens of enemy ancestry who wished to go to their ancestral countries. The law did not mention, but was prompted by and had in mind, the thousands of Japanese ancestry U.S. citizens who had answered no to the loyalty questions and expressed their desire to leave the United States.

Renunciation applications were accepted only from U.S. citizens who claimed to have an enemy nationality. RESUME

Among the

When interned in the United States during the Pacific War, Henry Mittwer was unable to affirm whether he was a national of Japan in addition to being a U.S. citizen. His U.S. citizenship also became an object of attention, especially after he changed his answer to loyalty questions from "Yes-Yes" -- "Yes" I pledge my allegiance to the United States, and "Yes" I renounce any allegiance to the Emperor of Japan -- to "No-No" -- then signed a renunciation statement pertaining to a request to be "repatriated" to Japan, on which he acknowledged that the consequences of renunciation would be forfeiture of U.S. citizenship and deportation from America to Japan.

Born in Japan to an American citizen, Richard Mittwer, who was married to Henry's mother, and recognzied Henry as his son, was registered at an Amerian. paternity and

Dual, triple, or other multiple nationalities occur when a child is born under conditions that result in the aquisition of its parents's nationalities and/or the nationality of the country where the child is born. Under the nationality laws of Japan, the United States, and Australia as I write this (2023), a child born in Australia to Japanese parent and an American parent potentially acquires 3 nationalities. A child born in Canada to an American parent, and a parent who has both Fench and Burkina Faso nationality, stands to acquire 4 nationalities.

Dual nationality -- which, for convenience, I will speak of as the most common form of multiple nationality -- doesn't really matter that much in everyday life, for dual nationals can generally exercise only one nationality at a time. If entering Japan on a Japanese passport, having an American passport means nothing -- unless one needs to enter the grounds of the American Embassy in Tokyo for citizen services at the American Consulate. Outside the embassy, one is Japanese. If in trouble under Japanese law, one cannot expect help from the United States. Use of one's American passort in Japan, to take advantage of discounts or tax-free items meant for non-Japanese, constitutes fraud.

Maintenance of passports for more than one nationality requires some effort and expense. Traveling with two passports can be inconvenient if the names on the passports are different, And even when the names are the same, care must be taken to use the right passport at departure and arrival checkpoints.

Maintaining a domicile in one country of nationality, and being subject to taxes and/or military service or some other obligation in the other country of nationality, is also a possible drawback of being legally affiliated with two states. And if the two states come to war, being a dual national of the warring states will probably bring a lot of unwanted and generally negative attention.

1916 revisions in Japan's 1899 Nationality Law

1924 revisions in Japan's 1899 Nationality Law

Dual nationality in 1950 Nationality Law from 1985

Alien and native enemies

Nationality and blood in time of war

War is serious business for its makers and takers. Whether or not you want to fight, not knowing how to differentiate a friend from a foe can -- like not knowing how to differentiate a rattle snake from a gopher snake -- cost you your life. During the Pacific War, looks could get you killed -- if you were an American soldier in the Pacific who "looked Japanese" -- or a Japanese soldier who "looked American" -- never mind your friendly uniform, which compatriots who don't know you may think you donned to spy or commit espionage.

On the homefronts of both the United States and Japan, civilians who were subjects, nationals, or citizens of enemy countries were legally subject to apprehension and confinement. American citizens in Japan, and Japanese subjects and nationals in the United States, were categorically enemy aliens under respective US and Japanese laws. There were roughly 1,000 Americans in Japan at the beginning of the Pacific War, and most lived in major cities, began, and about 30 times as many Japanese in America, most residingfaced. American citizens and Japanese subjects and nationals or looked like the sterotypical enemy, or had an enemy-like name, or spoke the enemy's language, and had reason to understand and possibly like the enemy.

During the Pacific War, both Japan and the United States restricted the movements of civilian enemy aliens in their territories. Both defined enemy aliens by nationality. Only the United States restricted the movements of Americans regarded as racially Japanese, especially those residing in the westcoast military zones declared off limits to "All Persons of Japanese Ancestry" including Japanese nationals, who were enemy aliens, and Americans with "Japanese blood".

And if you happened to be a "betweener" -- someone of mixed race or ethnicity -- the identificaiton-friend-or-foe "Who goes there?" challenge was doubly difficult. Someone once is alleged to have told the late actor Okada Masumi (岡田真澄 1935-2006) -- "Ainoko are of no use in war for they understand both countries." It's hard to fight an enemy you understand, because understanding breeds empathy and sympathy, and other emotions that can be fattle at the height of a battle that has the single objective of killing or being killed.

During the Pacific War -- and World War II in Europe after the start of the Pacific War, when the United States joined the countries allied against Germany and Italy in Europe -- the United States established many camps to segregate enemy aliens, and even Americans of racialized Japanese descent, from the general population, especially along the Pacific coast, in what was called .

Camps specifically for enemy aliens, including some Germans and Italians, were established by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) under the Department of Justice, invoking the Enemy Alien Law and related executive orders. The largest camps, however, were the interim "assembly" or "reception" centers built by the U.S. Army to evacuate Japanese and Americans of Japanese, and the "internment" centers operated by the War Relocation Authority to confine "all persons of Japanese ancestry" who lived within the Western Miliary Zone that embraced most of the westcoast states of Washington, Oregon, and California.

Yosha Bunko scan

Terminology

Today, it is commonplace -- within Japanese American organizations, academia, journalism, and textbooks -- to use both the official terms -- evacuation, removal, assembly, reception, relocation, internment, resettlement, center, camp -- and critical terms -- concentration, isolation, imprisonment, incarceration, prison. Not a few writers prefer the critical terms -- and some exclusively use the critical terms and dispense with the official terms -- because they feel that using the official terms would somehow dignify the discriminatory actions they believe the government misrepresented with "euphemisms" -- and invite criticism from the most critical quarters as "apologists".

I take a somewhat different position.

I use the official terms, not to excuse the actions, but to (1) make distinctions between the several kinds of actions and their intentions, and how they were implemented, and of course the various effects they had on those subjected to the actions, (2) dramatize the emotional disconnects between the technical accuracy of the official terms and the feelings of those who had to endure the actions taken in their name, and (3) reserve the critical shoes for the feet they actually fit.

I prefer to show history as it unfolded, in its own terms, and let consumers of history decide for themselves -- (1) whether the government's actions were atrocious or heinous, or just horribly unjust -- (2) whether the "relocation centers" were truly "prisons" for "incarceration" or even "concentration" -- or (3) whether they were, in fact, places established under to temporarily remove and resettle enemy aliens and citizens of "Japanese ancestry", under emergency measures contrived by a menagerie of frightened, ignorant, unimaginative, banal, arrogant, and racist military and civilian bureaucrats.

There is no way to nuance a "wrong" to make it seem "right". But different degrees of wrongness need to be distinguished in order for the "-est" of "wrongest" to have meaning. In other words, when does an incident or conflict become a war? Shen is a "sanitary engineer" actually a "garbage man"? And is a pig with lipstick really still just a pig?

Never mind that the government's motives and actions were racist on moral grounds, unconstitutional on legal grounds, irrational and contradictory on military grounds, economically wasteful, diplomatically counterproductive, and politically just plain stupid. The fact is that practically "all persons of Japanese ancestry" in designated military zones along the west coast peacefully submitted to the instructions and orders to submit to evacuation and then relocation. They were cooperative and immediately organized new communities in confinement.

Within months, internees began to be granted indefinite leaves to study, work, or live outside the restricted areas, or to enlist in the armed forces. Many remained in the camps, including some who wanted only to return to their homes rather than resettle somewhere else, in an unfamiliar place, preferring the predicable security of the camp to the discrimination they feared awaited them outside. And when the war ended, all but a few thousand renunciants like Henry Mittwer were released to live wherever they wished -- in good health, with their pride and dignity intact, and a will to start over and move forward in life. And a few returned to their lives determined to battle the demons that had displaced them, in courts and legislatures.

Such facts should caution careful writers from speaking of the internment camps in the same breath one speaks of the Jewish death camps in Europe, prisons for convicted criminals, and POW camps. Nor should the 10 internment camps under the the War Relocation Authority be lumped together with the many camps run by the Immigration and Naturalization Service that were dedicated to enemy aliens.

For a fuller look at the terminology problem and another family's internment experiences, see
Relocation camps: Arrests, detentions, evacuations, internments, and other Pacific War dislocations
on the The Heymans and Yasuis of Grass Valley and Hood River page on the Wetherall website.

Article reporting names of American civilains detained (interned) in Japan as enemy aliens Monday, 16 March 1942, Los Angeles Times, clipped from Newspapers.com
John Mittwer and William and Syd Duer Kanagawa No. 1 Detention Camp at Uchiyama Roster of internees, June 1943 to August 1945

Internment in Japan

Images of the treatment of civilian internees in camps and other facilities for enemy aliens in Japan during the Pacific War, have sometimes been affected (infected) by the worst images of the treatment of POWs in Japanese POW camps both outside and inside Japan. Conditions in POW camps were not always "atrocious" or "inhumane", and treatment in enemy alien camps was generally acceptable.

Before looking at the experiences of John Mittwer at enemy alien facilities in Yokohama and later in Yamakita, let's review what is meant by "enemy alien" and "internment".

Terminology

I have used "internment" in the general titles "Internment in Japan" and "Internment in America". In America, official terminology is problematized and often ignored by critiques who prefer speak of "internment" as "incarceration" or "imprisonment" -- which, in officialese, refer to different pretexts and facilities.

Japanese terms are not contentious, but like carefully distinguished terms in English, they need to be differentiated rather than conflated. The term "shūyōjo" (収容所) is generally used in Japanese to refer to a place where people are gathered and contained -- essentially "internment centers" or "internment camps" in the United States. The Japanese term "yokuryūjo" (抑留所) means a place where someone is detained or held by police on susicion of committing a crime, including spying or espionoge. Those convicted of a lesser offence may service a sentence at such a facility -- essentially a "jail" -- while those convicted of a more serious offence will serve time in "keimusho" (刑務所) or "prison". At the end of the day, "internment camp", "jail", and "prison" facilities were differented in both countries.

Given the rights of states to (1) treat aliens differently from their own subjects, nationals, or citizens, (2) differentiate between friendly and enemy aliens during times of war, and (3) criminalize espionage and sabotage on the part of aliens, and treason in any form on the part of their own people -- the United States was not wrong to investigate Japanese in the United states as "enemy aliens". Nor was it wrong for the United States to investigate dual nationals to determine where their loyalties lay.

What was odious in the United States was that assumption that all Japanese in the country were spies or potential saboteurs until proven otherwise. And most odious of all was the treatment of Americans who happened to be of Japanese descent as de facto enemy aliens.

Komiya 2009

小宮まゆみ
敵国人抑留：戦時下の外国民間人
東京：吉川弘文館
二〇〇九年 (平成二十一) 三月一日 第1刷発行
7、270ページ、単行本

Komiya Mayumi
Tekikokujin yokuryū: Senji-ka no gaikoku minkanjin
[ Enemy-country-persons (Enemy alien) detainment:
Foreign-country (Foreign) civilians under wartime ]
Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan
1 March 2009 (Heisei 21) 1st printing published
7 (front matter), 270 (main text) pages
Softcover, jacket, obi

Dewa 2021

出羽仁 (編)
シディングハ?・イーンド・デュア
英国人生年の抑留日記
(戦時下日本の敵国人抑留所)
東京：論創社
2021年12月15日 初版第1刷印刷
2021年12月25日 初版第1刷発行
503ページ、単行本

Dewa Hitoshi (editor)
Sydengham Yeend Duer
Eikokujin seinen no yokuryū nikki
(Senji-ka Nihon no Tekikokujin yokuryūjo)
[ Detainment diaries of a British youth ]
[ (Enemy alien detainment camp in Japan under wartime) ]
< Interned in Wartime Japan: Diary of a Young British National >
Tokyo: Ronsōsha
15 December 2021 1st edition printed
25 December 2021 1st edition published
503 pages plus 8 pages of plates, hardcover, jacket, obi

All 3 of the Mittwer brothers, born and raised in Japan the sons of Richard Mittwer and Yamazaki Ko, were confined during the Pacific War -- John in Japan on account of his U.S. nationality -- Frederick and Henry in America on account of their putative Japanese blood.

John Mittwer, who was living in Yokohama when the war broke out in December 1941, was arrested by Kanagawa prefectural police as a civilian enemy alien, within a day or two after 8 December 1931, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and a few ports on the Asian side of the Pacific, and declared war on the United States and Great Britain. He probably spent the first few days in a police jail before being sent to the Yokahama Race Course club house, which Kanagawa police had commandeered for use as an enemy alien detention facility. The facility became known as "Kanagawa No. 1 detention house" (Kanagawa dai-ichi yokuryūjo 神奈川第一抑留所), aka "Negishi detention house" (Negishi yokuryūjo 根岸抑留所).

Yokohama Race Course, a horse racing facility in the Negishi heights (Negishi-dai 根岸台) area of Yamate (山手) in Naka-ku (中区) in yokohama, was built in 1866, two years before the start of the Meiji period, and was operated as race track until 1942. The first horse races in Yokohama were held in 1862 at a track in Kannai (関内) called "Yokohama Shinden racehorse track" (Yokohama Shinden Keibajō 横浜新田競馬場). Kannai was near the foreign settlement that was opened in 1859 pursuant to the 1858 Japan-US Treaty of Amity and Commerce, which established a treaty port and an extraterritorial foreign settlement at Kanagawa (Yokohama).

During the Pacific War, the club house of the Negishi race course was one of many buildings commandeered throughout Japan by prefectural police, which were under the Interior Ministry, and were responsible for overseeing the confinement of enemy aliens in the event of war. The Imperial Navy requisitioned the race track for military use in 1942. The track closed on 10 June 1943, and on 25 June the detention facility moved to buildings in the Uchiyama area of Kita Oshigara village in the foothills of the Tanzawa mountains in the western reaches of the prefecture. The Uchiyama facility was closed around 10 September 1945, a week or so after Japan formally surrendered.

During the Allied Occupation of Japan, the grounds of Negishi Race Course were used to build the U.S. Navy Negishi Heights housing facility for families of U.S. Navy military and civilian personnel. An equestrian sports museum was also built on the race course site. Most of the area, on the top of Negishi Heights, is "Negishi Forest Park" (Negishi "(Negishi shinrin kōen 根岸森林公園), which includes within its expansive grassy areas and woods, some buildings that were once part of the Negishi Race Course, and the "Equine Museum of Japan" (Uma no hakubutsukan 馬の博物館) with a "Pony Center" for kids.

The following data was compiled from microfilmed scans of rosters for all War Relocation Authority internment camps, published in 2001 under the title Final Accountability Rosters of Evacuees at Relocation Centers, 1942-1946), by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Washington, D.C.. Scans of the rosters are available through several websites. I accessed them through Ancestry.com.

The rosters show the statuses and movements of internees, from arrivals at a camp and transfers to other camps, to grants of indefinite leave to a municipality outside the restricted westcoast military zone, and releases from internment or transfers to another facility when the camp closed. The rosters are typed with some overstrikes, and occasional corrections and supplementary information written by hand.

Japan confined most enemy aliens in dozens of small facilities all over Japan.

On 16 March 1942, American papers began running lists received on 15 March of the names of American civilians reported by the International Red Cross to have been interned by Japan as enemy aliens. The list included 90 civilians who were in Japan at the start of the Pacific War and were presumed to have been interned shorly after the war began. The other 129 civilians had been brought to Japan from Guam, where they had been residing when Japan invaded and captured the U.S. territory in 1942, after Japan captured the American territory in January 1942, andlisting

John Mittwer's detainment chronology

28 July 1941 (27 July 1941 Washington time)   During July, after France falls to Germany, Japan begins to establish bases on French Indochina as a territory of Vichy France, which was collaborating with Germany and hence an ally of Japan. On the 25th and 26th (Washington time), the United States and the British Commonwealth (including Canada) freeze Japanese assets. The American freeze extends to China "to prevent puppet administrations there from doing Japan's business" (The Kingston-Whig Standard, Kingston, Ontario, Saturday, 26 July 1941, page 1), and on the 28th (Japan time, 27th Washington time), Japan reciprocates by freezing American and British assets.

From this point, Japan begins to prepare contingencies for the detainment of aliens of potential enemy states.

30 September 1941   As of this date, there were about 568 aliens in Kanagawa prefecture who were regarded as potential enemy aliens.

Britain    262
America    148
India       48
Denmark     24
Poland      20
Holland     18
Philippines 16
Canada      11
Others      21
--------------
Total      568

During August and September, over 250 of these foreigners leave Yokohama for other countries aboard the Tatuta-Maru and Hikawa-maru, as tensions increase between Japan and the ABCD (American, British, China [ROC], and Dutch) encirclement states, which were blockading Japanese shipping in support of scrap iron and oil embargos against Japan. By the end of November, the number of potential enemy aliens in Kanagawa aliens is down to aroung 300.

Enemy aliens -- "teki-sei gaikokujin" (適性外国人 "enemy-quality outlander") or "tekikoku-jin" (敵国人 "enemy-country-person") -- () -- a subject, national, or citizen of an enemy country. Japan and the Republic of China (ROC) became embroiled in a war in 1937, but by 1938 the ROC government had fled ahead of Japan's advancing army from the capital at Nanking to Chungking in the hinterland. Japan helped create a pro-Japan nationalist Chinese government in Nanking, and in 1940 the new government allied itself with Japan, and together they viewed the ROC government in exile as a renegade government that had lost its its right to rule. ROC, allied with the United States, would join America's declaration of war on Japan after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The government of China that had allied itself with Japan would declare war on the United States in 1943. Japan never did declare war on ROC, though when forced to surrender in 1945 had to recognize ROC as an Allied Power, when in the wake of Japan's defeat returned to power in China. In any event, Chinese in Japan were never enemy aliens. Neither were Germans or Italians, or Soviet nationals, or since Germany and Italy were allies with Japan. Nor were Soviet Union nationals, or nationals of other countries with which Japan was not at war.

28 November 1941   The Police Bureau of the Interior Ministry (Naimushō Keihokyoku 内務省警保局) produces a guideline titled "Matters concerning emergency measures related to foreign affairs" (Gaiji kankei hijō sōshi ni kan suru ken 外事関係非常装置に関する件), which lists categories of aliens who, in the event of war become "enemy aliens" (enemy-country-persons tekikoku-jin 敵国人), are to be detained (my structural translation).

 i  Persons enrolled in the military of an enemy country
ro  Crewmembers of ships or aircraft, and people with these
      qualifification, who are enemy aliens
ha  Among enemy aliens, males from 18 to 45 years old
ni  Persons [Enemy aliens] with special skills (wireless
      [radio] technicians, military factory technicians, etc.)
ho  Foreign spy [intelligence] suspects other than those
      who are to be apprehended [the above]

Komiya 2021

小宮まゆみ
解説 戦時下の敵国人、抑留日記について
ページ25-45
シディングハム・イーンド・デゥア
英国人青年の抑留日記
(戦時下日本の敵国人抑留所)
東京：論争社
2021年12月15日初版第1刷印刷
2021年12月25日初版第1刷発行
503ページ

Komiya Mayumi <Mayumi Komiya>
Kaisetsu: Sennji-ka no tekikokujin, yokuryū nikki ni tsuite
[ Commentary: On detainment diary, enemy aliens under wartime ]
< Commentary Wartime diary of Sydengham Duer >
Pages 25-45

Komiya 2009

小宮まゆみ
敵国人抑留：戦時下の外国民間人
(歴史文化ライブラリー 267)
東京：吉川弘文館
2009年2月1日
270ページ、単行本

Koymia Mayumi
Tekikoku-jin yokuryū: Senjika no gaikoku minkan-jin
(Rekishi bunka raiburarii 267)
[ Enemy alien detention: Foreign civilians under wartime ]
[ (History culture library 267) ]
Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan
1 February 2009, published
270 pages, hardcover, jacket, obi

30 January 1942
Naimushō regulations on enemy alien treatment
Article 1: purpose of internment espionage prevention and protection
Article 2: respect honor of internees and care for them
Article 3: allow freedom of religion
29 articles stipulating daily activity rules
visitors allows

Nationwide, 341 civilians interned in a total of 34 camps in 27 prefectures.
Highest number in Kanagawa prefecture
93 enemy aliens in Kanagawa confined
59 in Kanagawa Dai-ichi Internment Camp, Negishi Race Course
34 in Kanagawa Dai-ni Internment Camp, Yokohama Yacht Club

Kanagawa No. 1 was at the Negishi Race Course (Negishi kyōbajō 根岸競馬場) in Chūō-ku in Yokohama. Kanagawa No. 2 was at the Yokohama Yacht Club (Yokohama yottokurabu 横浜ヨットクラブ) in Shin-Yamashita-chō (新山下町), along the waterfront, also in Chūō-ku.

25 June 1941   A number of internees repatriated on exchange ships. On this date, 16 Americans from Kanagawa camps left aboard the Asama-maru. 17 more left aboard the Tatuta-maru. Following this, Kanagawa No. 2 at the yacht club closed some of internees still at the camp went to facilities in Tokyo. Others went to Kanagawa No.1 in Negishi, which now had 34 internees, mostly long-time residents.

18 August 1942
1942-08-18
After Midway, fears of espionage
2 conditions added
1. suspects of espionage or anyone who might disrupt prevention of espionage
2. those who communicate with japanese subjects to hinder fighting spirit and unity of country.
2nd item added women, older men, teachers, missionaries and nuns as subjects of internment. 4 new internees added to No.1 in September 1942
2 Americans and 16 Canadians sent to No.1 as result of postponement of September 1942 exchanges.
Total at camp now 54.
1943-02-01
Standard of Control for Foreign Internees issued by Naimushō
Banned from leaving or visiting home
Forced labor for camp maintenance

25 June 1943   Kanagawa No. 1 at Negishi Race Course closed. On this day, its 53 internees are trained to Yamakita station, a 2-hour hike from the buildings in Uchimura village where they would be detained for the duration of the war.

1943 June No. 1 moved to Uchiyama in Kita-Ashigara-mura.
Horse track became Navy printing office
Uchiyama facility originally villa of Catholic Onvent Maria Order
Used for summer school for Gyosei Middle School (Fujimi Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo)
2-story wooden building with tile roof
2-story wooden building with thatched roof

1943-06-25 53 internees arrive by train at Yamakita station.
1943-08 Dutch man leaves camp because of illness leaving 52.
1943-09 exchange operation reactivated, 3 Americans leave, now 49
No more exchanges.
Conditions worsened.
5 internees died.
3rd highest death rate in civilian camp after camp in Hokkaido where TB devasated Aleut detainees fro Attu island, and Kanagawa Atsugi Camp where there were older internees.
Duers on 2nd floor of Japanese style building with thatched roof.
Police office Katsunosuke Watanabe, incharge of No. 1., tried in postwar war crime tribunal and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

William and Sydengham Duer interned as enemy aliens.

1941 Yokohama Yacht Club → Negishi Race Course
1943 Uchiyama Detention Camp. Yamakita, Ashigara mountains
Camp 2-hour hike from Yamakita station
Miwa and Eddie at Ufuna house until seized, then at Uchikoshi
Uchikoshi house burned in air raid

17 February 1942 Executive Order 9066 The order, signed by President Roosevelt, was one of many he issued to set in motion actions related to the prosecution of the war overseas against Japan, Germany, and Italy, the the defense of the United States from attacks from outside or within its borders. This order concerned especially with the protection of "national-defense material, national-defense premises, and national-defense utilities" within the United States.domestic defense of militarily material, premises, and utlities defense the defense of the homeland against espionage and sabotage by enemies, enemy agents, or other subsersives inside America's borders.

Internment in the United States

People in the countries of the Allied Powers aligned against Germany, Italy, and Japan racialized the Axis enemies. Japanese, in not racialized more than Germans and Italians, were inevitably racialized differently -- as "Orientals". For that reason alone, most Japanese were more visible. And as aliens, they were also undoubtedly the least familiar of the three Axis enemies in terms of understanding their histories and ways of life.

There was never a question as to what to do with enemy aliens who posed threats to security. The problem was how to treat enemy aliens who did not seem to threaten security. Dual nationals were widely viewed as potential spies, as were children of unions between friendly nationals and enemy aliens.

Perhaps the greatest problem, legally, was how to treat friendly nationals of enemy alien ancestry. This was not a huge problem in Europe, where nationality was acquired primarily through patrilineal right of blood, which meant, for example, that someone born in France or the United Kingdom to Japanese immigrant parents would becme Japanese rather than French or British.

Nationality laws in the America's, however, generally recognized that anyone born in the country was a citizen. Not only had more Japanese emigrated to the United States than to European countries, but practically had had children who were born in the United States, who were thus native Americans -- and also possibly Japanese only if their Japanese parents had registered their births in their parents' household register in Japan, thus security the right of the child to obtain a Japanese passport if in the future the child wanted to go to Japan as a Japanese subject and national. Though not many nisei became dual nationals, the very possibilty was viewed as such a threat that the United States twice pressure Japan to revise its laws -- once in 1916, to make it possible for dual nationals to renounce Japan's nationality, and again in 1924 to require timely registration at time of birth in order to reserve the right to acquire Japan's nationality through birth overseas to Japanese parent.

Wartime internment in the United States was fundamentally different to that in Japan in that the United States strongly racialized Americans of Japanese ancestry, to the point that it treated most as enemies aliens. Both countries generally interned enemy aliens, but the United States -- unllike Japan -- systematically interned its own people if they happened to be of Japanese ancestry and resided in the westcoast restricted zone. Japan kept an eye on Japanese of American, British, and other enemy national descents, but generally did not intern them.

Terminology

Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor triggered a declaration of war from the United States Congress against not only Japan but also Germany and Italy. The declaration of war was preceded and followed by vollies of presidential proclamations and executive orders to set in motion the prosecution of the war overseas, and the defense of United States territories on the homefront and within the homeland.

On 7 December 1941, after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, and before America's formal declaration of war on Japan, Germany, and Italy the following day, Roosevelt issued Presidential Proclamations 2525 concerning Japanese as enemy aliens. On 8 December, he issued proclamations 2526 and 2527, similarly concerning Germans and Italians as enemy aliens, The latter proclamations ended with a paragraph reading "The regulations contained in Proclamation No. 2525 of December 7, 1941, relative to natives, citizens, denizens or subjects of Japan are hereby incorporated in and made a part of this proclamation, and shall be applicable to alien enemies defined in this proclamation."

At this stage, legal concern was with aliens of the countries with which America was at war -- Japanese, Germans, and Italians regarded as "natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized" -- i.e., aliens who possess the nationality of, or otherwise legally belong to, Japan, Germany, or Italy. The concern is not yet about Americans of Japanese, German, or Italian ancestry, though known dual nationals might find themselves scrutinized as aliens.

WCCA issued exclusion orders for 108 areas it had defined with the help of census data, each area including about 1,000 Japanese or Americans of Japanese descent. The evacuation was carried out with the help of 48 field offices and 97 temporary "civil control stations" established to ensure an orderly removal from homes to the the 17 assembly camps.

11 March 1942   General Order No. 35, issued by General DeWitt, who commanded the Western Defense Command (WDC), established the Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA), "To provide for the evacuation of all persons of Japanese ancestry from Military Area No. 1 and the California portion of Military Area No. 2 of the Pacific Coast with a minimum of economic and social dislocation, a minimum use of military personnel and maximum speed; and initially to employ all appropriate means to encourage voluntary migration." WCCA, under the command of a colonel, operated out of the Whitcomb Hotel in San Francisco.

Forthcoming

14 March 1941   The Western Defense Command (WDC) is established under Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, to enhance the U.S. Army's prepardness to protect the Pacific coast states of Washington, Oregon, and California, the hinterland states of Idaho and Montana, Nevada and Utah, and Arizona, and the Territory of Alaska. WDC was headquartered at the Presidio in San Francisco, with the headquarters of the Fourth U.S. Army, which was also under DeWitt's command.

7 December 1941   Imperial Japan declares war on the United States in the form of a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and nearby Hickman Field, among other targets, and within hours invaded other U.S. but also British and Dutch territories in the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

7 December 1941   President Roosevelt issues

Presidential Proclamation / Aliens / No. 2525 / Japanese authorizing the p>

PRESIDENTIAL PROCLAMATION
ALIENS
No. 2525
Alien Enemies -- Japanese AUTHORITY WHEREAS it is provided by Section 21 of Title 50 of the United States Code [11 F. C. A., tit. 50, § 21] as follows: "Whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government, and the President makes public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies. The President is authorized in any such event, by his proclamation thereof, or other public act, to direct the conduct to be observed, on the part of the United States, toward the aliens who become so liable; the manner and degree of the restraint to which they shall be subject and in what cases, and upon what security their residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the removal of those who, not being permitted to reside within the United States, refuse or neglect to depart therefrom; and to establish any other regulations which are found necessary in the premises and for the public safety."

8 December 1941   The United States declares war on Japan, and also on Germany and Italy, thus joining Britain and the other European Allies against Germany and Italy, which were allies of Japan. And the European Allies join America's declaration of war against Japan, thus making World War II, which had started in Europe in 1939, a global war with European and Pacific theaters.

12 December 1941

December 1941   Western Defense Command (WDC) established under General John J. DeWitt. Part of his mission included individuals who might endanger military security and locations that were exposed to espionage or sabotage.

17 February 1942   Executive Order 9066 gave WDC the authority to "prescribe military areas from which all persons"

14 March 1942   The W

Page 1	Page 2
Page 3	Page 4
War Relocation Authority Application for Leave Clearance 32-item questionnaire for internnes of Japanese ancestry seeking leave for purposes including study or work Images of document captured from Densho Digital Repository pdf file Document attributed to K. Morgan Yamanaka, Yamanaka Collection Click on images to enlarge
Click on pages to enlarge Harold Stanley Jacoby's Tule Lake: From Relocation to Segregation Grass Valley (California): Comstock Bonanza Press, 1995, xv, 122 pages, paper cover WRA's goal of resettling internees back into the American stream of life Chapter Seven: The Registration Program, pages 70-71 Yosha Bunko scans

War Relocation Authority Application for Leave Clearance

27.   If the opportunity presents itself and you are found qualified, would you be willing to volunteer for the Army Nurse Corps or the WAAC?

28.   Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or other foreign government, power or organization?

Harold Stanley Jacoby

Harold Stanley Jacoby (1907-2000), a former War Relocation Authority official at Tule Lake Relocation Center in California, and professor at University of Pacific, was born in Oakland and died in Stockton, California. One of his informants, a former student, Barry Minoru Saiki (1919-2006), was born and raised in Stockton, and died in Stockton after living half his life in Japan.

Barry helped found the Japan Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), shortly after which I became a member. I was a member, with Barry and several others, of the Japan Chapter's U.S.-Japan Relations Committee, the main job of which was to prevent JACL headquarters from involving itself in human rights issues in Japan it knew nothing about. Barry and I also found common ground as graduates of the University of California at Berkeley, and as writers of letters to the Pacific Citizen and local Japanese papers.

It's an even smaller world, because by chance I also know David Comstock, Jacoby's nephew, and the owner of Comstock Bonanza Press, in Grass Valley, which published Jacoby's book. David and I have exchanged email regarding Nevada County history. And Grass Valley, in Nevada County in California, is one of my two home towns, the other being San Francisco.

Page 1	Page 2
Page 3	Page 4
Click on images to enlarge Statement of United States Citizen of Japanese American Ancestry 28-item questionnaire for Japanese American males 17 years old and older in a survey intended to determine their eligibility for military service conducted by the U.S. Army and the War Relocation Authority at WPA relocation centers in February and March 1943 Images of document captured from Densho Digital Repository pdf file
Click on pages to enlarge Harold Stanley Jacoby's Tule Lake: From Relocation to Segregation Grass Valley (California): Comstock Bonanza Press, 1995, xv, 122 pages, paper cover Variations of Questions 27 and 28 Chapter Seven: The Registration Program, pages 72-73 Yosha Bunko scans

Statement of United States Citizen of Japanese American Ancestry

In February 1943, the U.S. Army, in cooperation with the War Relocation Authority, distributed a questionnaire called "Statement of United States Citizen of Japanese American Ancestry" (Selective Service Form 304A). The object of the form was to register all male citizens of Japanese ancestry 17 years old and older, determine the degree of their loyalty to the United States, and encourage the able-bodied and loyal to enlist in the armed forces.

The form originated from a similar form called "Application for Leave of Clearance" -- "clearance" meaning "security clearance" -- "leave" meaning release from the camp to a locality outside the restricted westcoast military zone if found to pose no security risk, for the purposes inluding study, work, and military duty.

Loyalty questions

Questions 27 and 28 on the American citizen statement -- commonly referred to as the "loyalty questions" -- were contrived to separate the "loyal" from the "disloyal" American internees. They were somewhat different from their numerical counterparts on the leave clearance application (above).

27.   Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty wherever ordered?

28.   Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization?

Question 27

Question 27 could have been asked anyone, of any nationality, in any country of the world, or from any planet in the solar system or any galaxy in the universe. If dogs and horses could read, and were wanted for military service, they too could have been asked this question.

The variation intended for women was as stated on the leave clearance application.

27.   If the opportunity presents itself and you are found qualified, would you be willing to volunteer for the Army Nurse Corps or the WAAC?

Question 28

The numerical counterpart of Question 28 on the leave clearance application (above) is as follows.

28.   Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor, or other foreign government, power or organization?

Both forms of the Question 28 lumped together several questions that failed to discriminate between the following different classes of respondents.

1. Japanese nationals and subjects
   Because they possessed Imperial Japan's nationality, they had a legal right to feel loyalty toward both Japan (as nationals) and the emperor (as subjects). Not withstanding that they could reasonably be suspected of feeling some degree of loyalty toward Japan, as law-abiding, tax-paying aliens who had been legally admitted to the United States, with permission to settle and have families, they should not have been denied their freedom without due process.
2. American citizens and nationals
   As possessors of U.S. nationality, they were legally obligated to be loyal to the United States. For that reason alone -- not withstanding their ancestral ties to a country with which the United States was at war -- their loyalty should never have have been questioned without reasonable cause and due process. If no reasonable cause could be established, they should never have been deprived of their freedom. And if such cause could be established, they should never have been detained or confined in any manner without judicial process.
3. Dual nationals of the United States and Japan
   U.S.-Japan dual nationals faced both legal and emotional conflicts. Those with close ties to both countries would have difficulty choosing Men were subject to military duty in both countries, and stood to be drafted in the country they would rather not serve. Men and women alike, with close personal or family ties to both countries, might prefer not choose sides. would likely have emotional difficulty choosing one nationality over the other.
4. Americans who grew up in Japan
   Nationality is an artifact of nationality laws. It is passively acquired at birth, through right of soil (place of birth) in the United States, and through right of blood (family lineage) in Japan. The difference between these who principles of birth right nationality are not especially important, but America's nationality law becomes right of blood for children born overseas to an American parent, and Japan's law becomes right of soil for children born in Japan to unknown or stateless parents. is become or right of blood artifact of birth. Legally, it is a purely civil status of no value other than as a signifier of state affiliation. Whether one feels as though one "belongs" to the state, or feels an exclusive loyalty toward the state, is an purely emotional matter. , being
More importantly, though, for those who had experienced life in both countries, ,, but more importantly, and could understandably create conflicting emotional oyalties even if legally. Japan's 1899 Nationality Law did not prevent dual nationality. It had provisions for losing nationality, but none for renunciation. The United States, upset by the fact that children born to Japanese immigrants became both U.S. citizens and subjects and nationals of Japan, diplomatically pressured Japan to revise its 1899 law to permit dual nationals overseas to renounce its nationality. This did not prevent dual nationality, however, and the United States pressued Japan to again revise the 1899 law to require that the immigrant parents of children born in the United States and other place-of-birth states in the Americas register the births of their children in their Japanese household registers in order to preserve the child's right to claim Japanese nationality in the future. c. Today's law, which originated in 1950, has minimized dual nationality since it revision in 19s, nor did it have provisions for renouncing its nationality -- until a 1916

Japanese, legally barred from naturalization on account of their putative race, had no legal obligation to be loyal to the United States. And non-dual national Americans of "Japanese ancestry" -- possessing only U.S. nationality -- had no legal right to claim loyalty to either Japan (as its national), much less to the emperor (as his subject).

Dual nationals, everyone's favorite spy suspects, potentially at least had legal conflicts of interest. Both countries of nationality could try them for treason for acts they committed in the uniform of the other country's armed forces. And the country they happened to be in during the war had the right to expect them to renounce their allegiance to the other country as a gesture of loyalty to country they were in -- or be treated as an enemy alien. Dems za rules, you could say.

Harold Stanley Jacoby (1907-2000), a former War Relocation Authority official at Tule Lake Relocation Center in California, and professor at University of Pacific, was born in Oakland and died in Stockton, California. One of his informants, a former student, Barry Minoru Saiki (1919-2006), was born and raised in Stockton, and died in Stockton after living half his life in Japan.

Barry helped found the Japan Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), shortly after which I became a member. I was a member, with Barry and several others, of the Japan Chapter's U.S.-Japan Relations Committee, the main job of which was to prevent JACL headquarters from involving itself in human rights issues in Japan it knew nothing about. Barry and I also found common ground as graduates of the University of California at Berkeley, and as writers of letters to the Pacific Citizen and local Japanese papers.

It's an even smaller world, because by chance, I know David Comstock, Jacoby's nephew, and the owner of Comstock Bonanza Press, in Grass Valley, which published Jacoby's book. David and I have exchanged email regarding Nevada County history. And Grass Valley, in Nevada County, in California, is one of my two home towns, the other being San Francisco.

Click on image to enlarge Wartime civilian exclusion instructions Instructions to all persons of Japanese Ancestry living within designated boundaries of King County, Washington pursuant to Civilian Exlusion Order No. 57 dated 10 May 1942 to be carried out by Saturday, 16 May 1942 Western Defense Command and Fourth Army Wartime Civil Control Administration J. L. DeWitt   [ Lt. Gen., commanding ] Photograph pasted on 9 x 13 inch cardboard Yosha Bunko scan

1942-1946 (1952)

Pacific War confinements of Mittwer and related families

Detention houses in Japan and Internment camps in America

During the Pacific War, both Japan and the United States restricted the movements of civilian enemy aliens in their territories. Both defined enemy aliens by nationality. Only the United States restricted the movements of Americans regarded as racially Japanese, especially those residing in the westcoast military zones declared off limits to "All Persons of Japanese Ancestry" including Japanese nationals, who were enemy aliens, and Americans with "Japanese blood".

All 3 of the Mittwer brothers, born and raised in Japan the sons of Richard Mittwer and Yamazaki Ko, were confined during the Pacific War -- John in Japan on account of his U.S. nationality -- Frederick and Henry in America on account of their putative Japanese blood.

John Mittwer, who was living in Yokohama when the war broke out in December 1941, was arrested by Kanagawa prefectural police as a civilian enemy alien, within a day or two after 8 December 1931, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and a few ports on the Asian side of the Pacific, and declared war on the United States and Great Britain. He probably spent the first few days in a police jail before being sent to the Yokahama Race Course club house, which Kanagawa police had commandeered for use as an enemy alien detention facility. The facility became known as "Kanagawa No. 1 detention house" (Kanagawa dai-ichi yokuryūjo 神奈川第一抑留所), aka "Negishi detention house" (Negishi yokuryūjo 根岸抑留所).

Yokohama Race Course, a horse racing facility in the Negishi heights (Negishi-dai 根岸台) area of Yamate (山手) in Naka-ku (中区) in yokohama, was built in 1866, two years before the start of the Meiji period, and was operated as race track until 1942. The first horse races in Yokohama were held in 1862 at a track in Kannai (関内) called "Yokohama Shinden racehorse track" (Yokohama Shinden Keibajō 横浜新田競馬場). Kannai was near the foreign settlement that was opened in 1859 pursuant to the 1858 Japan-US Treaty of Amity and Commerce, which established a treaty port and an extraterritorial foreign settlement at Kanagawa (Yokohama).

During the Pacific War, the club house of the Negishi race course was one of many buildings commandeered throughout Japan by prefectural police, which were under the Interior Ministry, and were responsible for overseeing the confinement of enemy aliens in the event of war. The Imperial Navy requisitioned the race track for military use in 1942. The track closed on 10 June 1943, and on 25 June the detention facility moved to buildings in the Uchiyama area of Kita Oshigara village in the foothills of the Tanzawa mountains in the western reaches of the prefecture. The Uchiyama facility was closed around 10 September 1945, a week or so after Japan formally surrendered.

During the Allied Occupation of Japan, the grounds of Negishi Race Course were used to build the U.S. Navy Negishi Heights housing facility for families of U.S. Navy military and civilian personnel. An equestrian sports museum was also built on the race course site. Most of the area, on the top of Negishi Heights, is "Negishi Forest Park" (Negishi "(Negishi shinrin kōen 根岸森林公園), which includes within its expansive grassy areas and woods, some buildings that were once part of the Negishi Race Course, and the "Equine Museum of Japan" (Uma no hakubutsukan 馬の博物館) with a "Pony Center" for kids.

The following data was compiled from microfilmed scans of rosters for all War Relocation Authority internment camps, published in 2001 under the title Final Accountability Rosters of Evacuees at Relocation Centers, 1942-1946), by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Washington, D.C.. Scans of the rosters are available through several websites. I accessed them through Ancestry.com.

The rosters show the statuses and movements of internees, from arrivals at a camp and transfers to other camps, to grants of indefinite leave to a municipality outside the restricted westcoast military zone, and releases from internment or transfers to another facility when the camp closed. The rosters are typed with some overstrikes, and occasional corrections and supplementary information written by hand.

Detention houses in Japan
Movements of John Mittwer according to Komiya Mayumi, Tekikokujin yokuryō, 2009

1st Kanagawa No. 1 Detention House (Negishi Race Course, Yokohama, 1941-1943)
神奈川第一抑留所 (神奈川県横浜競馬場、横浜市中区根岸蓑沢二九)
Kanagawa dai-1 yokuryūjo (Kanagawa-ken Yokohama-shi Naka-ku Negishi Minosawa 29)
John Mittwer, a U.S. citizen residing in Yokohama, was apprehended in December 1941
as an enemy alien by police, under the Interior Ministry, and interned in a building
the ministsry commandeered at Yokohama Race Course in Negishi in Naka ward.
The facility was formally named "Kanagawa No. 1 Detention House".

2nd Kanagawa No. 1 Detention House (Uchiyama, Kita-Ashigura-mura, 1943-1945)
神奈川第一抑留所 (神奈川県足柄上郡北足柄村内山)
Kanagawa dai-1 yokuryūjo (Kanagawa-ken Ashigarakami-gun Kita-ashigara-mura Uchiyama)
John Mittwer was among the 53 internees at Kanagawa No. 1 Detention House when it moved
to buildings at Uchiyama in Kita Ashigara village near Odawara on 25 June 1943.
He was released around 10 September 1945 when the facility was closed.

Internment camps in the United States
Movements of Mittwer, Egami, and Oyama families according to
"Final Accountability Rosters of Evacuees at Relocation Centers"

0. Owens Valley (Manzanar) Assembly (Reception) Center (Manzanar, California)
23 March 1942   Henry Mittwer goes to Manzanar with contingent of volunteers.

Today the resistors, too, are heroes
Mittwer went to Manzanar before the start of compulsory evacuation and relocation.
Decades later, someone at a talk he had given about his life asked him how he felt
when forced to enter an internment camp during the Pacific War. Mittwer said "Forced?"
He then said "I wasn't forced. Nobody was forced. It was voluntary." (Zen to hone)
Mittwer was saying that most internees had peacefully followed military and then civilian
orders and instructions to leave their homes and businesses and be transported to
temporary assembly centers and then to internment camps. While the orders and instructions
may have been compulsory, compliance did not require what most people regard as "force".
Contemporary resistors criticized the Japanese American Citizens League for promoting
peaceful submission rather than resistance. For many years after the war, many of those
who followed the exclusion orders -- to show their willingness to cooperate with the
government as good US citizens -- regarded the resistors as a blemish on the wartime
patriotism of those who volunteered from the camps to fight in Europe and the Pacific,
some to lose a limb or their life. Today the resistors, too, are heroes.

1. Manzanar (Manzanar, California)
Internee           Citizenship  Arrived      Departed     Destination   Type
Mittwer Henry                A   1 Jun 1942  18 Dec 1942  Gila River    T

2. Gila River (Rivers, Arizona)
Internee           Citizenship  Arrived      Departed     Destination   Type
Egami Kumao                  A  31 Aug 1942  20 Jun 1944  Chicago       Ind-JnFam
Egami Hatsuye                A  31 Aug 1942  20 Mar 1943  Topaz         T-Cent
Egami Sachiko                A  31 Aug 1942  15 Jul 1943  Topaz         T-Cent
 (Married MITTWER Henry Fam. No. 810)

Mittwer Henry                A  19 Dec 1942  11 Oct 1943  Topaz         T-Cent
Mittwer Sachiko (nee Egami)  A  31 Aug 1942  15 Jul 1943  Topaz         T-Cent

3. Central Utah (Topaz, Utah)
Internee           Citizenship  Arrived      Departed     Destination   Type
Mittwer Henry                A  25 Jul 1943  18 Feb 1945  Tule Lake     T
Mittwer Sachiko Ester        A  17 Jul 1943  18 Feb 1945  Tule Lake     T
Mittwer Eric Kazu            C  18 Oct 1943  18 Feb 1945  Tule Lake     T
Egami Hatsuye                A  23 Jul 1943  10 Oct 1943  Cincinnati    Ind-Invit

4. Tule Lake (Newell, California)
Internee           Citizenship  Arrived      Departed     Destination   Type
Mittwer Saburo Henry         R  22 Feb 1945  20 Mar 1946  Crystal City  Term-T
Mittwer Sachiko Ester        A  22 Feb 1945  30 Oct 1945  Chicago       Term-W-G
Mittwer Kazu Eric            C  22 Feb 1945  30 Oct 1945  Chicago       Term-W-G
Mittwer Kyoko Gretchen       C   5 Jul 1945  20 Mar 1946  Chicago       Term-W-G

5. Heart Mountain (Heart Mountain, Wyoming)
Internee           Citizenship  Arrived      Departed     Destination   Type
Mittwer Fred                 C   4 Sep 1942  22 Jul 1944  Denver        Ind-Empl
Mittwer Mary Teiko [Taiko]   C   4 Sep 1942  19 Feb 1943  Denver        Ind-JnFam
Mittwer Edward               C   4 Sep 1942  19 Feb 1943  Denver        Ind-JnFam
Mittwer Katsuro              C   4 Sep 1942  19 Feb 1943  Denver        Ind-JnFam

6. Jerome (Senson, Arkansas)
Internee           Citizenship  Arrived      Departed     Destination   Type
Oyama Katsuji                A  30 Oct 1942  18 Aug 1943  Denver        Ind-JnFam
Oyama Miyo                   A  30 Oct 1942  18 Aug 1943  Denver        Ind-JnFam

7. Crystal City Interment Camp (Crystal City, Texas)
Internee           Citizenship  Arrived      Departed     Destination   Type
Henry Mittwer                   13 Apr 1946  18 Oct 1946  Seabrook Farms  Paroled

In late July 1946, Sachiko, who had been working in Chicago since her release
from Tule Lake, takes Eric and Gretchen to Crystal City to live with Henry.
Henry, released from INS expulsion proceedings on 5 October 1946, is parolled
in order to work at Seabrook Farms, a large frozen food company in New Jersey.

8. Seabrook Farms (Seabrook Farms, New Jersey)
Henry, Sachiko, Eric, and Gretchen Mittwer live at Seabrook Farms, a large
frozen-food farm and factory that, short of labor, began recruiting Japanese
Americans from internment camps in January 1944.

The 1950 census shows Henry as a "welder" in the "frozen food" industry.
In his 1983 memoirs, Henry writes that he oiled equipment, replaced conveyor belts,
and did electric and gas welding in the machine section of the maintenance department,
and that Sachiko kept time card records for a while.

Abbreviations
     A            = Alien
     C            = Citizen
     R            = Renunciant?
     Ind-JnFam    = Indeterminate leave, join or accompany family
     Ind-Empl     = Indeterminate leave, employment
     Ind-Invit    = Indeterminate leave, community invitation
     T            = Transfer (to another internment center)
     T-Cent       = Transfer to Central Utah (Topaz) internment camp
     Term-Repat   = Terminal departure, repatriation to Japan
     Term-T       = Terminal departure, transfer (to another facility)
     Term-Vol Int = Terminal departure, voluntary internment at other facility
     Term-W-G     = Term with Grant
                    Terminal departure, release from internment
                    with payment of nominal amount for resettlement

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Instructions Governing Voluntary Movement of Japanese from Los Angeles to Owens Valley 18 March 1942, Headquarters, Southern California Sector, Pasadena, California (Bulletin 2) Images of document captured from Densho Digital Repository pdf file Document attributed to CSU Dominguez Hills Department of Archives and Special Collections Click on pages to enlarge Henry Mittwer on Manzanar final accountability roster Composited from full roster downloaded from Ancestry.com Click on image to enlarge Henry Mittwer's family on Gila River final accountability roster Composited from full roster downloaded from Ancestry.com Click on image to enlarge Henry Mittwer's family on Topaz final accountability roster Composited from full roster downloaded from Ancestry.com Click on image to enlarge Henry Mittwer's family on Tule Lake final accountability roster Crop of full roster downloaded from Ancestry.com Click on image to enlarge On the above page Only Henry Saburo Mittwer is "R" and only Sachiko is "A" (alien). Eric and Gretchen, and all others on the page, are "C" (citizen). Only Henry was terminated by transfer (Term-T) to Crystal City. Sachiko and the children were terminated with grants to Chicago. 3 citizens were terminated with voluntary internment (T-Vol-Int) in Crystal City. 13 citizens were terminated by repatriation to Japan before the closure of Tule Lake. All other citizens were terminated with grants, bound for California or other states. 2 citizens were bound for Honolulu in the Territory of Hawaii. Sachiko would later take the children to Crystal City to be with Henry. Internment camp roster notes Owens Valley (Manzanar) Assembly (Reception) Center, Manzanar (Owens Valley), California Henry Mittwer voluntarily trained from Los Angeles to Owens Valley on 23 March 1942 with a contingent of other "Persons of Japanese Ancestry" who volunteered to help build the facility that would become first an assemblly (reception) center for evaucees (under U.S. Army control), then a relocation center for internees (under War Relocation Authority control). He would remain at the camp as an evacuee and internee, but later be transferred to 3 other camps and, finally, an Immigratijon and Naturalization Service facility for illegal alien families. The 11 April 1942 inaugural issue of Manzanar Free Press reported that "Henry Mittwer is organizing . . . a dance orchestra" ("Musicians Tuning Up", page 2). The 23 April 1942 edition of The Arizona Daily Star, probably sourcing Manzanar Free Press, reported that "evacuees [at Owens Valley] are organizing a dance orchestra under the baton of Henry Mittwer" (untitled brief, page 7). See Orchestra conductor (below) for images of articles and other details. Manzanar Relocation Center Manzanar (Owens Valley), California The Manzanar roster shows Henry Mittwer as an alien -- unlike his brother Fred Mittwer, who is shown as a citizen on the the Heart Mountain roster. The 1 June 1942 "Original Entry" of Henry Mittwer at Manzanar is a bureaucratic anomaly. Henry was already at Manzanar. He arrived on the evening of 23 March 1942 as a member of a detail of men who had volunteered for evacuation to help build the camp. He was part of contingent of men who went by train. Others convoyed in their own cars or tructs. All went in accordance with "Instructions Governing Voluntary Movement of Japanese from Los Angeles to Owens Valley", issued on 18 March 1942 by Headquarters, Southern California Sector, Pasadena, California (Bulletin 2). The final accountability roster for Manzanar shows that Henry Mittwer originally entered Manzanar from "MnAC" or "Manzanar Assembly Center". The assembly center was also called Manzanar Reception Center. Manzanar is in Owens Valley, and the assembly (evacuation) facility called the Owens Valley Assembly Center when it opened on 22 March 1942, the day before Henry's arrival. On 1 June 1942, the Owens Valley camp -- until then an assembly center under Army control -- officially became the Manzanar War Relocation Center under War Relocation Authority (WPA) control. From this day, Henry Mittwer and other other evacuees already at Manzanar officially became internees. The relocation (internment) facility was built with the help of evacuees, including early volunteers like Henry Mittwer. As more barracks were built, more evacuees arrived. And evacuees began to organize as a community from the very beginning. Henry Mittwer became involved in camp activities within a month of his arrival. The 23 April 1942 edition of The Arizona Daily, a Tuscon paper, reported in an article filed from "MANZANAR, Owens Valley", that "musically inclined evacuees are organizing a dance orchestra here under the baton of Henry MittwerMittwer had become the founder and conductor of a band at Owens Valley Assembly Center. See image of the article in the Mittwer-Egami chronology. Gila River Relocation Center Rivers, Arizona The Gila River roster classifies both Henry and Sachiko as aliens. Egami Kumao, and his wife Hatsuye and their daughter Sachiko, were interned in Gila River from Tulare Assembly Center between Fresno and Bakersfield in California in August 1942. On 29 December 1942, Sachiko married Henry Mittwer, who had been transfered to Gila River from Manzanar on 18-19 December to marry her. Hatsuye was transferred to Central Utah in March 1943. Sachiko followed her in July 1943, and Henry joined them there in October 1943. Kumao remained at Gila River until June 1944, when he was granted indefinite leave to join family members in Chicago. Henry and Sachiko obtained a marriage license on 28 December 1942 in Rivers in Pinal County, Arizona. They were married the following day, and according to Henry's autobiography, they were permitted a 2-day honeymoon in Phoenix (Mittwer 1983, page 94). The Pinal County, Arizona marriage license, unlike the licenses of some states, does not record the races or nationalities of the bride and groom. Henry, born and raised in Japan, obtained a U.S. passport in 1937, and he used this passport to come to the United States as a U.S. citizen in 1940 when he was 21 years old. Sachiko, also born in Japan, was only 8 months old when she came to the United States with her parents in 1921, as a Japanese national. Because Henry was an American citizen, the passenger manifest showing his arrival in the United States did not classify his "Race or people" -- unlike Sachiko, who was classified as required for aliens arriving at U.S. ports. Central Utah (Topaz) Relocation Center Topaz, Utah The Gila River roster shows both Henry and Sachiko as aliens. Eric Kazu (Kazuo) is born in Topaz in Utah -- i.e., at Central Utah Internment Center -- on 18 October 1943. Sachiko's mother Hatsuye Egami is residing with Henry and Sachiko in Topaz. She was transferred to Topaz from Gila River in March 1943 when Sachiko was expecting a child. However, she appears to have been granted indeterminate leave pursuant to a community invitation from Cincinnati -- 8 days before Eric's birth. Tule Lake Relocation (Segregation) Center Newell, California The Tule River roster shows Henry as "R" and Sachiko as "A" under "Citizenship". On previous rosters, Henry -- like Sachiko -- had been classifed "A" for "alien" -- while their children were "C" for "citizen". Judging from what Henry writes in his 1983 autobiography, Perhaps "R" meant "renunciant" -- someone who had "renounced" or otherwise "relinquished" their U.S. citizenship. Henry, Sachiko, and Eric are transferred to Tule Lake from Central Utah in February 1945. Kyoko Gretchen (Gretchen Kyoko) is was born in Newell, California -- i.e., at Tule Lake Internment Center -- on 5 July 1945. Sachiko and Eric are terminally released with grants for Chicago on 10 October 1945, after the end of the Pacific War. Gretchen, however, is left with Henry, until 20 March 1946, when the camp is closed. She is terminally released with a grant for Chicago to join her mother and brother, while Henry is transferred to a facility in Crystal City for enemy aliens, pending his petition for restoration to U.S. citizenship. Why Gretchen, only 16 weeks olds, was left in Henry's care is not clear. The accuracy of the roster is confirmed by an article in the 28 February 1946 edition of The Sacramento Union, concerning Henry's petition for citizenship restoration, which reports that "Mittwer's wife and 2-year-old son have been relocated and now are in Chicago, while he remains at the camp [Tuly Lake Relocation Center] with an 8-month-old daughter." See Henry Mittwer's nationality (above) for an image of the article and other details. The accuracy of the roster is also confirmed by Henry's account of the family and its temporary breakup at Tule Lake in his autobiograhy. See Mittwer 1983 (pages 109-117). Crystal City was not a reclocation center but a facility for enemy aliens and their families. However, some Japanese Americans were sent there. Whereas Manzanar, Heart Mountain, Gila River, Topaz, and Tule Lake and other such camps were established and operated by the War Relocation Authority, Crystal City was set up and run by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which was then under the Department of Justice. As such, it also held Germans who had been in the United States, and some Germans sent to the United States for internment by Latin American countries. Tule Lake, the last relocation center to close, held a number of internees, like Henry Mittwer, who were regarded as having forfeited their U.S. citizenship by refusing to declare their loyalty to the United States, and indicating their desire for "repatriation" to Japan, Such internees were sent to Crystal City pending decisions made regarding their petitions for citizenship restoration. Heart Mountain Relocation Center Heart Mountain, Wyoming The Heart Mountain roster classifies both Fred Mittwer (born in Japan) and Mary (Oyama) Mittwer (born in Ameirca) as citziens. Henry Mittwer's brother Frederick Mittwer (b1909), his wife Mary (b1907), nee Oyama, and their sons Richard (b1938) and Edward (b1941), were interned at Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming, on 4 September 1942, from Santa Anita Assembly Center. Mary and the children were granted indeterminate leave to join family in Denver on 19 February 1943. Fred joined them in Denver some 17 months later on 22 Jul 1944. The family then lived briefly in Chicago, where a daughter, Vicki, was born in 1945. Jerome Relocation Center Senson, Arkansas The Jerome roster classifies Mary (Oyama) Mittwer's parents as aliens. The Oyamas are granted indeterminate leave to join family in Denver on 18 August 1943. Crystal City Internment Camp (Texas) U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) informed Henry Mittwer, in a form letter dated 30 November 1987, that he and his family were interned at Crystal City Internment Camp, an Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) facility in Texas for aliens from 13 April to 18 October 1946. Mittwer's 1983 autobiography left me with the impression that his family, which ended up in Chicago after their release from Tule Lake, voluntarily joined him at the Crystal City camp after he had been sent there. The WRA internment camps were established mainly for Americans of Japanese ancestry, not for Japanese enemy aliens. However, the camps also accommodated Japanese who had been legally residing in the United States as immigrants, who the FBI did not suspect of espionage or otherwise view as a threat to national security. They also accommodated some people who were not of Japanese ancestry who wished to remain with their Japanese-ancestry families. INS internment camps, however, were for aliens. Before the start of the Pacific War and America's joining the war in Europe, the Crystal City camp had been used for migrant laborers who had crossed the border into the United States from Mexico. During the war, it was used to intern enemy aliens and their families -- including Japanese who had been arrested by FBI agents and deemed security threats by hearing boards. In some cases, a Japanese immigrant husband and father would be sent to an INS camp as an enemy alien, while his wife and children were interned at a WRA camp. See, for example, 1941-1946 Pacific War dislocations on the "Heymans & Yasuis" page on the "Wetherall.org" website, for the internment camp experiences of the family of Masuo Yasui (1886-1957). Masuo, businessman, orchardist, and community leader in Hood Rivere, Oregon, was arrested by FBI agents on 12 December 1941, called before an enemy alien hearing board on 3 February 1942, and denied a petition for a rehearing on 26 May 1943. On 3 June 1943, he was transferred from the last of the many jails he had been kept at, to the virtually all-male INS Sante Fe Internment Camp in New Mexico, where he would remain until his release on 6 January 1946, some 4 months after end of the Pacific War. 8. Seabrook Farms (New Jersey)

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A long entry on Manzanar in Densho Encyclopedia includes the following two sections in the order shown but separated by other sections. The footnote numbers are as received but I have not shown the footnotes. The block indented notes are mine. The Densho article does not include the inset National Parks Service map, which I copped from the National Park Maps, an independent website not affiliated with the National Park Service.

Terminology   Densho, like most Japanese American organizations, views the relocation centers as "prisons" in which relocated people were "incarcerated" as "inmates" rather than detained as relocatees or internees. National Park Service's Manazar website writes -- In 1942, the United States government ordered more than 110,000 men, women, and children to leave their homes and detained them in remote, military-style camps. Manzanar War Relocation Center was one of ten camps where the US government incarcerated Japanese immigrants ineligible for citizenship and Japanese American citizens during World War II -- thus mixing its relocation metaphors (last viewed 30 April 2025, underscoring mine).

Click on map to enlarge Map of Manzanar War Relocation Center Image downloaded from National Park Maps (An independent website not affiliated with the National Park Service) Blocks/Barracks Each of Manzanar's thirty-six blocks had fourteen residential barracks that were 20 x 100 feet, with a 15th barrack that was designated as a recreation hall. Blocks also included a mess hall (40 x 100), men's and women's latrines (each 20 x 30), a laundry room (20 x 40), and an ironing room (20 x 28). The blocks were numbered consecutively from 1 to 36. Two of the blocks were later converted into schools: Block 7 became the site of the high school in the fall of 1942, and Block 16 became the elementary school, starting with the third school year in the fall of 1944. Each residential block housed around 250 to 300 inmates. [5] Each barrack building was initially separated into four 20 x 25 rooms. As noted above, additional partitions were added later to allow for larger numbers of smaller units. According to the Engineering Section Final Report, "… an average of two partitions per building were added to make additional apartments." Units were initially furnished only with metal cots, an oil-burning heater, and a bare light bulb. Inmates initially slept on straw filled tick mattresses. Over time, these were replaced by cotton mattresses, many of them manufactured in the camp mattress factory located in Warehouse 25. [6] The recreation hall in each block was located at the end of the block, opposite the mess hall. As was true in the other WRA camps, they were used for a wide variety of purposes aside from recreation, including as elementary schools for the first school year, as churches, a gift shop, and even a Visual Education Museum. [7] Medical Facilities When the WRA [War Relocation Authority] took over Manzanar [from the Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA), which was under the Assistant Chief of Staff for Civil Affairs, Western Defense Command and Fourth Army] on June 1, 1942, the hospital consisted of a temporary makeshift facility that took up much of Block 7. Hospital functions were squeezed into regular residential barracks that lacked running water and even basic equipment and supplies. A new 250-bed complex opened at the end of July (with a formal dedication on September 12) and was located west of Blocks 29 and 34. The general design of the hospital was similar to that found in other WRA camps, consisting of a series of barracks like buildings (nineteen in the case of Manzanar) connected by a covered hallway. Floors were of wood covered with linoleum. Toshiko Eto Nakamura, a nurse at Manzanar, recalled that the complex had two levels, with the upper level having women's, men's, children's, and communicable disease wards and the lower level having the doctors' offices, x-ray and operating rooms, outpatient and dental clinics, and the pharmacy. Later, a "community hostel" was added to house senior citizens and the infirm. [41] When the new hospital complex opened all of the five doctors and four dentists were inmates. Arthur Miller was the chief of the Health Section and nominally in charge, but he had no medical training. James M. Goto was the initial chief of the medical staff, and the other inmate doctors were Yoshiye Togasaki, Teize Takahashi, Masako Kusayanagi, and Tom Watanabe. Kiyoichi Iwasa arrived from Tulare Assembly Center soon after the hospital opening to become the sixth doctor. Yoriyuki Kikuchi headed the dental clinic. The hospital staff at opening included a total of 290 workers. W. Morse Little eventually arrived in October of 1942 to fill the position of chief medical officer He was succeeded by Agnes V. Bartlett in August 1945, who oversaw the closing of the hospital. Over the life of the camp, there were 4,028 in-patients, an average of 118.5 per month, and 63,323 out-patients, an average of 1,862.4 per month. [42] The hospital played a key role in the 1942 riot/uprising. On December 5, the night of the initial assault, Fred Tayama was brought to the hospital and questioned there. The next night, a crowd of 50 to 75 converged on the hospital intending to finish the attack on Tayama. They were initially prevented from entering by three women inmate employees. Later, five representatives from the group were allowed to search the hospital by Little, who thought Tayama had already been taken elsewhere. Hidden under a bed by other inmate employees, the group did not find him. The crowd later threw rocks at the hospital, breaking a window. Later that night, after the shootings, the victims were brought to the hospital for treatment, and one, Jim Kanagawa, died there four days later. [43]

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Manzanar data

The following table represents a widely disseminated summary of data on Henry Mittwer compiled during his stay at at Manzanar, first as an Assembly Center, then is a Relocation Center, before he was moved to Gila River (see above). All the received data is shown here, but I have edited the data to the extent of adding some words for clarification, spelling out some abbreviations and dates, and reducing upper case to lower case for all but proper nouns, among a few other mechanical revisions.

The same data is represented on numerous data bases which recycle public data from official Relocation Camp records. I have consulted the data bases at JapaneseRelocation.org, which is the easiest to navigate, and at Ancestor.com, which requires membership.

The highlighting of selected fields, and the comments below the highlighted fields, are mine.

Nandemoya

Henry Mittwer as a jack-of-all trades and captain of his soul

Returning to California from Seabrook Farms, Henry quickly reached the bottom of his savings, and tided over for a while on unemployment benefits. But he was not the single man he had been a decade ago when he arrived fresh off the boat to see his father and brother. He now had a wife and 2 children, and scouring the newspaper ads, he found a job processing line applying iron powder [flux] for electric welding, which he'd learned to do at Seabrook Farms.

His next job involved repairing hearing aids, and gradually he provised their home with a refrigerator and washing machine, and household furnishings, and tables made of empty boxes [wooden crates} turned into proper chairs and tables.

This was toward the end of the Korean War, when MacArthur was about to bomb northern China, and was fired and faded away. During war, science and technology further advanced, and all manner of new companys were spourting up, and offering more employment opportunities.

Henry was fished by an ad that invited the reader to grow with a company in the fascinating field of electronics. The company consisted of its president and half a dozen employees at a [back] street plant (factory) (machi kōjō 町工場). Its main product was a vibration measurement device that incorporated an artificial crystal, and its associated electronics. The main demand for the product was to monitor the vibration state of a rocket in flight, as part of the rocket's automatic telemetery measurement system.

Within half a year, the company had moved from a whole-in-the-wall warehouse (kabe-no-ana hodo no sōko 壁の穴ほどの倉庫) to a spacious California-style plant surrounding a courtyard where the president could relax, and employees too quickly grew to 140, 150 people.

whole-in-the-wall   "Kabe-no-ana" is not an expression one would expect to encounter in Japanese with the meaning intended here. Whether Henry heard it in English before going to America, or picked it up with other Americanisms after going to California, is not known. Its use here most likely signifies that his brain was thinking in English, or his Japanese and English brains were linked. As a metaphor in context, it probably travels in Japanese, but some readers might puzzle over almost certainly evidence that to read in Japanese.

Henry, starting with the company when it was small, found himself among the veterans, promoted to the research lab as the right arm of a bona fide physicist. He wore a white smock, and the higher math he's studied at Topaz became useful. In fact, the accumlation of all his experiences until then -- building radios, making a telescope, constructing model airplanes, and chemistry play in Japan -- the welding and lathe techniques he's acquired at Seabrook Farms -- even the knowledge of x-rays he'd learned at the hospital in Crystal City -- contribtued to the confidence he began to feel in his general abilities.

chemistry play  

Henry had been accepted among scientists. For him it was a childhood dream come true, and he burned with the awareness that he had become an elite.

The biographical film Zen to hone shows Henry Mittwer rummaging through his ""stuff" in a room cluttered with the detritus of decades of hobbies. The camera is rolling in expectations of witnessing some unrehearsed nostalgia, and he is in full show-and-tell character. An old movie camera, a crematory urn made and given him by his friend the novelist and writer Mizukami Tsutomu (水上勉 (1919-2006).

He was the head of the Kyōto chapter of International Ikebana, and taught ikebana to gaggles of mostly kimoned women. He was a potter -- something he began in America and continued in Japan -- who turned out tea bowels, vases, and plates. His works were such that he mounted a "Henry Mittwer tea bowl exhibition" (Henri Mitowa chatōten ヘンリ・ミトワ 茶陶展) (Zen to hone).

In another scene, he pulls from a white canvas bag a bulky tape-mended folder full of sheet after sheet of washed ink sketches on newsprint, of fleshy nudes with striking nipples and pubes on newsprint -- and, for the benefit of the soundtrack, proclaims that he drew them because he's a "nandemoya" (何でもや) -- someone (ya) who does it all, anything and everything (nan demo). One of the prints bears the date "1991 2/16" (Zen to hone. A later scene shows such a drawing for sale at a flea market.

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Hobbiest

Henry Mittwer's youth in Yokohama is that of that of boy infatuated with science, in particular the applications of science to tangible developments like phonographs, radio, television, and astronomic telescopes. The following account of Henry's teenage hobbies is a close 3rd-person paraphrasing of his 1st person account in his 1983 autobiography (Mittwer 1983, pages 49-51).

Henry writes that, around the time Premier Ine in the early 1930s, wanting to quit school, he spent a lot of time alone in the house. He couldn't wait to go to the bookstore on the days that magazines like Shōnen kagaku (少年科学) ["Boy's science"] came out. He eyes lit up at articles on the machinations of science and the world of machine works.

He'd already built several model planes, and so set his eyes on a crystal radio, which he built from parts he had his mother buy him. He went on to make 1-tube, 2-tube, 3-tube, and 4-tube superheterodyne receivers, which could pick up a couple of local NHK stations. But signals from major foreign broadcasts were blocked by signals from noise (static) transmitters, so he wasn't able to hear their content.

Commercial radio had just begun to spread in the world a century ago as I write. The first commercial broadcast was heard in the United States in 1920 and in Japan in 1925. Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1856-1894) did not demonstrate the existence of the "electromagnetic waves" postulated in a theory advanced by James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) in 1864, until 1886. And "electromagnetic radiation", in reference to "Hertzian waves", did not become "radio waves" until after the turn of the century. "Radiophone" meaning "radiated sound" and "radioactivity" meaning "radiation activity" -- and "radiogram", meaning a message transmitted by "radio-telegraph" from a "radiographic station" -- are other examples of early uses of "radio" as a prefix for something that originates or propagates from from a point in the manner of a "radius" that stems from the center of a circle.

Henry also assembled a phonograph with expensive 8-in dynamic speakers. He even attempted to construct a television of the older mechanical kind, before the days of Braun tubes. But lacking some expensive parts, he couldn't finish it.

Having no money, but intrigued by the stars, he polished a mirror for a 10-centimeter-diameter reflecting telescope while listening over and over to music on the 4 or 5 records he had bought. The scope was crude, but with it he could see the craters of the moon, Saturn's ring, and the Andromeda nebula [now called a galaxy] some 100,000 light years distant.

The biographical film Zen to hone (see below) shows an old phonograph and several records, and a telescope. The telescope, though, is not a stubby, plump refractor with the eyepiece at the top and perpendicular to the tube -- but a longer, skinnier refractor with the eyepiece at bottom looking up through the tube -- presumably to facilitate Henry's attempt to kiss his then Madonna, while she is transfixed by the spectacular views of the Moon's craters and Saturn's ring. Aware of what Henry is about to do, Madonna -- the good girl that she is -- backs off.

Waiter

Henry's first job appears to have been as a waiter when he was "16 years -- at a grill on the 4th floor of the 5-story Olympic Shokudō near Yoshidabashi bridge where it crosses the Ōokakawa river (canal) from Bashamichi in Kannai to to Isezakichō.

Radio shop technician

Forthcoming.

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Auto mechanic

Forthcoming.

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Orchestra conductor

Right Manzanar Free Press Vol. 1, No. 1, 11 April 1942 Cropped from Densho pdf file Click on images to enlarge Below The Arizona Daily Star Thursday, 23 April 1942, page 7 Clipped from Newspapers.com	Page 1	Page 2  Orchestra Tuning Up
Henry Mittwer volunteers to help build Owens Valley (Manzanar) camp On 23 March 1942, this writer's 1st birthday, Henry Mittwer joined a contingent of volunteers who trained or drove to Owens Valley Reception Center at Manzanar in Owens Valley, California, to help construct the barracks and other facilities that, from 1 June 1942, became Manzanar War Relocation Center. See Mittwer family internments (below) for images of the 2-pages of instructions for volunteers dated 18 Mary 1942. From 23 March to 31 May 1942, Mittwer and others of nominally "Japanese Ancestry" at Manzanar, in Owens Valley, were "evacuees" at an assembly or reception center under U.S. Army control. From 1 June 1942, administration of the camp was passed to the War Relocation Authority, and people confined to the camp became "internees". Manzanar Free Press report on Henry Mittwer picked up by Tuscon paper "Henry Mittwer organizing dance orchestra" On 21 April 1942, 2 days shy of a month after Mittwer arrived as a volunteer at Owens Valley, the inaugural edition of Manzanar Free Press ran an short article under the headline "Musicians Tuning Up", reporting that "Henry Mittwer is organizing from a field of surprising talent a dance orchestra" (page 2, see image to right). "under the baton of Henry Mittwer" Two days later, on 23 April 1942, probably sourcing Manzanar Free Press, an untitled brief in The Arizona Daily, a Tuscon paper, reported that "Musically inclined evacuees are organizing a dance orchestra under the baton of Henry Mittwer." They hoped to enlarge the orchestra "to symphony proportions with Dr. Shinzo Mitani as the conductor." (Page 7)	Page 3	Page 4

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Clinical laboratory technician

Forthcoming.

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Welder at cannery

Forthcoming.

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Furniture designer

Yosha Bunko scan Furniture by Mittwer low tables coffee tables Masamori Kojima Furniture by Henry Mittwer Scene March 1953 Pages 28-29 Scene was launched in Chicago by James T. Nishimura and others as a Life, Look, and Ebony style photojournalistic magazine featuring Japanese Americans. It's original tag line was "The Pictorial Magazine". Nishimura stepped down as president in March 1953, and a year later, interests in the magazine were sold and it moved to Los Angeles. After missing 3 issues, Scene resumed under the presidency of Masamori Kojima (1922-1988) from the June 1954 issue. By then it's tag line had become "the Internaitonal East-West magazine". Already losing circulation and deeply in debt, however, it folded with the August 1955 issue (Volume 6, Number 8, Issue 73). From September 1955, it merged into Fortnight, another LA graphic rag. See Brian Niiya's Scene (magazine) overview at Densho (last updated 12 June 2020, as viewed 20 January 2024) for other details. Mittwer's first work after arriving in the United States appears to have been as a mechanic in a garage. At this time in his life, Mittwer earned a living doing carpentry, plastering, electrical work, and plumbing, and home repairs. On weekends he made furniture for his own home and remodeled the kitchen, and out of his Sunday carpentry came parlor tables and display shelving that won good design awards in New York and attracted such attention that he toured Europe with his products. (Mittwer l983, pages 159-160).

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Potter

Forthcoming.

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Tour guide

Forthcoming.

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Electronics technician

Forthcoming.

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Zenjin

As someone who breathed Zen, Henry Mittwer was a "zenjin" -- or "zenbito" or "zento". These words are graphically represented by 禅人. To ask which is correct is the wrong question. Both are heard, and a true Zenist wouldn't care which -- or, for that matter, want to be labled anything.

Nonetheless, people who build homes are called carpenters, to differentiate them from plumbers or farmers, and Henry Mittwer -- though a jack of all trades -- became primarily a Buddhist who practiced within the framework of what has come to be called Zen -- the nature of which is not of interest here. The question here is how did Henry Mittwer happen upon the path that led him to Zen.

Henry's father appears to have grown up Catholic but became a a Presbyterian in February 1895, according to a Moody Bible Institute record showing his enrollment in the school from October 1895 with the aim of pursuing "ministerial" work. Henry wrote that his father attended St. John's University in Minnesota from 1887-1888 when 11 years old, apparently refering to a grade school affilaited with the college, which had a Benedict order seminary that trained young men for the priesthood (Mittwer 2010, page 6).

Nothing tangible is known about Richard Mittwer's religiosity, much less how much Christianity figured in his household in Japan. Whatever his exposure to Christianity when growing up in Japan, Henry stated in his 1983 autobiography that, from his mission school days in Yokohama, he had rejected the world of relgion (Mittwer 1983, pages 129-130).

Presumably, when marrying Sachiko, the daughter of a protestant minister, Henry went along with the ceremonial aspects of Christianty, as a matter of civility rather than faith. His beliefs, such as they were, appeared to be anchored in science and technology, knowledge of which he had absorbed through work and self-study, not college.

Henry's conversion to Buddhism apparently began in the early 1950s, when among his fathers books he found a copy of The Religion of the Samurai (武士の宗教) by the Buddhist scholar Kaiten Nukariya (Nukariya Kaiten 忽滑谷快天 1867-1934), published in 1913 (Mittwer 1983, page 128). Mittwer writes that the book, which focuses on Zen as "the meat and bones of Kamakura samurai", shed new light on the religious world that he had come to reject from his Yokohama mission school [St. Joseph College] days. The book, he adds, "became the guidebook to the repair of my mental structure" (Watakushi no seishin kōzō o shūsei suru tebiki ni natta 私の精神構造を修正する手引になった) (Ibid., pages 129-130).

The religion of the Samurai -- subtitled "A study of Zen philosophy and discipline in China and Japan" -- was published in London by Luzac & Co. in 1913. The Preface is dated Harvard Square, Cambridge, April, 1913." Nukariya is described as a "Professor of Kei-ō-Gi-Juku [Keiō] University and of Sō-tō-shū Buddhist College".

Henry seems to have found Nukaya's book around 1952 in Frederick Mittwer's garage, among other things their father had left -- which Henry had never seen. Around 1955, though, a friend visiting Henry's home brought a man named Bob Aitken (Robert Baker Aitken 1917-2010), who had the appearnce of "Shakuson (釈尊 Buddha) just descended from the mountain" (Mittwer 1983, page 132).

Henry, hearing Aitken's account of his serendipitous crossing of paths with the British Zen and haiku scholar R. H. Blyth (Reginald Horace Blyth 1898-1964 R. H. ブライス Buraisu) at a detention camp for enemy aliens during the Pacific War, pulled out The Religion of the Samurai -- "which I had begun to forget" -- and showed it to Aitken. "That's a valuable book, so take care of it," Aitkin said, and added -- "If you have interest in this book, I'll introduce you to a good person." That good person turned out to one of Aitken's Zen principal mentors, Nyogen Senzaki (Senzaki Nyogen 千崎如幻 1876-1958), who would change the course of Henry's life (Ibid., page 134).

Mittwer wrote that Aitken was taken into captivity on Wake Island (Mittwer 1983, page 133), but wartime newspaper reports, and postwar accounts, say he became a civilian enemy alien in Guam. Guam captees were taken to the prefectural Interior of Japan and most ended up at a detention camp in Kōbe. Blyth, taken into custody from his home in Kanazawa, was later detained in same camp with small contingent British and other enemy aliens who had been residing in the greater Kansai area. Aitkin appears on a 7 September 1945 roster of detainees at the Hyōgo prefecture detainment camp (Hyōgo-ken yokuryūjo　兵庫県抑留所) at Takema Gakuen (竹馬学園), a "protective custody school" (yōgo gakkō 養護学園) for handicapped children in the foothills of Mt. Futatabi (Futatabi-san 再度山) on the northern outskirts of Kōbe -- the largest civilian detainment facility in Japan.

Aitken, born in Philadelphia, was raised but spent most of his life in Hawaii, and considered the islands his home. Aitken and his wife established a zendō (禅堂) or "Zen hall" in Hawaii in 1959 -- the year the territory became a state.

Aitken, a civilian working in construction on Guam when Japan took the American territory shortly after the start of the Pacific War, was held in a detainment camp for civilians in Kōbe for the duration of the war. In the camp, he was introduced to the Zen and haiku writings of R. H. Blyth (Reginald Horace Blyth 1898-1964), and met Blyth himself, who had been detained from his residence in Kanazawa.

The Preface of Blyth's Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics (Zen to Ei-bungaku 禪と英文學) is dated Kanazawa, May 1941 -- 7 months before the start of the Pacific War. The colophon of the 4th edition published by The Hokuseido Press (Hokuseidō shoten 北西堂書店) in Tokyo on 30 May 1956 states that the 1st edition was published on 29 December 1942 -- over year a into war. Some reports suggest Blyth was still writing the book during his detainment. It is quite possible that he corrected galley proofs while detailed, and enemy aliens interned in Japan were generally able able to correspond, and could be visited by family members and others cleared by police, who oversaw the custody and detainment of civilian enemy aliens. Whatever his case, the publication of his book in Japan during the war -- when the use of an enemy language, even katakana expressions derived from an enemy language, was generally proscribed -- is one of many examples of how life went -- though arguably, Blyth's book had propaganda as well literary value.

Mittwer became a disciple of Nyogen Senzaki (Senzaki Nyogen 千崎如幻 1876-1958) in the heady 1950s when Nyogen and Ruth Stout McCandless (1909-1994), a disciple since 1941, were collaborating in the writing of the earliest postwar popularizations of Zen, like Buddhism and Zen, a hardcover booklet published in 1953 by The Philosophical (Wisdom) Library in New York. In 1989, nearly 30 years after Nyogen's death, Charles E. Tuttle in Tokyo would publish The Iron Flute, by Zenzaki & McCandless, described on the dust jacket as "100 Zen Kōan / with commentary by / Genro, Fugai, and Nyogen / Translated and edited by / Nyogen Senzaki and Ruth Stout McCandless".

I would describe Senzaki was popular and charasmatic proselytizer of Zen, based in California, first in San Francisco, later in Los Angeles. In San Francisco, he established a center for practicing Zen he called "Mentor Garden" (Mentorgarten, Mentoru Gaaden メントル・ガーデン). He is also known for "floating Zendo" meditation centers.

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Chajin

Forthcoming.

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Nude artist

Forthcoming.

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Writer and editor

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Film producer

Forthcoming.

Front and back covers of 2020 paper cover edition of Duncan Ryūken Williams, American Sutra, 2018-02-19 Yosha Bunko scans

Duncan Ryūken Williams
American Sutra
A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War
Cambridge: Harvard University Press
Hardcover 2019-02-19, paper cover 2020

Senzaki Nyogen (千崎如幻 1876-1958)

Henry Mittwer's spiritual mentor to Zendom in the material world

The earliest years of the life of Senzaki Nyogen (千崎如幻 1876-1958) are surrounded by mystery, as there is no unequivocal evidence of his place of birth or parentage. That he became Japanese, and later perhaps the most influential early proselytizer of Zen Buddhism in the United States, is certain.

Senzaki Nyogen chronology

5 October 1876   Senzaki Nyogen (千崎如幻 1876-1958) was born on 5 October 1876, apparently in Sakhalin, the year after Japan swapped its interest in Karafuto on the southern half of Sakhalin to Russia, for Russia's islands in the northern Kuriles, which became Japan's Northern Chishima islands.

The circumstances of Senzaki's birth are unknown. There are several versions of how he was apparently picked up as foundling and eventually taken in by a family named Senzaki in Fukaura-machi in Aomori prefecture and registered as its 1st son. His register name, and his name growing up, was Senzaki Aizō (千崎愛蔵).

The Japanese edition of Wikipedia states that, according to Senzaki's grandmother, when an infant he was abandoned in Sakhalin by his parent(s) in Sakhalin (Saharin de oya ni suterare サハリンで親に捨てられ). It adds that his actual [biological] father, whose identity is unknown, is said to have been "either Russian or Chinese" (Roshiajin, aruiwa Chūgokujin ロシア人、或いは中国人). (Last viewed 27 April 2025).

However, the journalist Nancy Ukai (Nancy Hana Ukai Russell, b1954), in an article titled The American Sutra of Nyogen Senzaki (viewed 27 April 2025), writes that Senzaki was born in "Kamchatka, Japan". However, Kamchatka, above the Chishimas (Kuriles), was part of Russia.

8 April 1895   Senzaki Aizō becomes Senzaki Nyogen (千崎), a Buddhist monk.

8 July 1905   A "List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the U.S. Immigration Officer at Port of Arrival" shows "Senzaki Nyogen", age 28 years 10 months, arriving in Seattle on 21 July 1905, aboard the S.S. Iyo Maru, which had embarked from Yokohama on 8 July 1905. He is a "Priest" by "Occupation", "Japan" by "Nationality", and "Japanese" by "Race or People". He last resided in "Aomori Ken" and is bound for San Francisco. He paid for his own passage and was in possession of [at least] 50 dollars. An index card showing the same information states he was "JAP" by "Race" and "JAP" by "Nationality".

Senzaki came at the request of his Zen master, Shaku Soyen (Shaku Sōen 釈宗演 1860-1819), a Rinzaisō monk, who had introduced Zen to the United States at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. Shaku, based in Japan, came to San Francico in June 1905, and enlisted his disciple, Suzuki Daisetz (Suzuki Daisetsu 鈴木大拙 1870-1966), who had been in the United States since 1896, as an interpreter. And he had Senzaki Nyogen, another disciple, to join him as an attendant. Sōen returned to Japan in August 1906 by way of Europe, India, and Asia, while Suzuki stayed until 1909, and Nyogen stayed the rest of his life.

In 1911, back in Japan, Suzuki would marry Beatrice Erskine Lane (ベアトリス・アースキン・レイン 1878-1939), a Radcliff-educated Theosophist from Newark, New Jersey, who had come to Japan to study under Soyen.

A "Certificate of Marriage" issued by "American Consular Service, Yokohama, Japan", states that "Teitaro Suzuki", a "subject of Japan, aged 41", married "Beatrice Erskine Lane", a "citizen of the United States, aged 33", on 12 December 1911. They adopted a son named Victor. Beatrice died on 16 July 1939 in Japan and is buried at Tōkeiji (東慶寺) in Kamakura. Teitarō died on For details and photographs, see 1911 Suzuki Teitarō Daisetsu under "Couples 1" in the "People" section of this website.

12 September 1918   Senzaki filed a P.M.G.O. (Provost Marshal General's Office) Form No. 1 (Red) military service card at the Local Exemption Board in San Francisco on 12 September 1918 as "George Nyogen Senzaki", 41, born October 5th 1876, "Oriental" by "Race", a "Non-declarant" alien, and a "citizen or subject" of Japan. He gave his occupation as "Manager of an apartment house" at 1005 Larkin, San Francisco, where he resided, and his nearest relative was his father, Heijiro Senzaki, at "178 Fukaura, Japan" -- then the village of Fukaura (Fukaura-mura 深浦村), a town (machi 町) from 1926, and still a town as of this writing in 2023 -- on the coast of Aoyama prefecture. 12 September 1918 registration, for men 18-45, was the 3rd military service registration during the war.

1920 census for San Francisco shows "Senzaki Geo N", 42, "Jap" by "Race or color", residing at 1005 Larkin Street and occupied as an "Assn Mngr" at an "Apt Home". He immigrated to the United States in 1905 and is classified as an alien (Al).

1940 census for Los Angeles shows "Senzaki Nyogen", 64, living alone, "Jp" by "Race or color", single, with 5 years of college, an alien, occupied as a "Monk" with "Own school".

8 September 1942   Senzaki was evacuated from Los Angeles to Santa Anna Assembly Center, then relocated to Heart Mountain Internment Center on 8 September 1942. He was terminally departed with a grant (TD-WG) for Pasedena on 17 September 1945. After the war, he resumed his life as a Rinzai sect Zen monk, and would cross paths and inspire Henry Mittwer.

1950 census for Los Angeles shows "Senzak [sic] Nyogen", 73, living at the Miyako Hotel, "Jap" by "Race", never married, place of birth "Unknown", occupied as a "Buddhist monk".

1957   Zen Bones, Zen Flesh: A Collection of Zen & Pre-Zen Writings edited by Paul Reps, with Nyogen Senzki, Kakuan, Tomikichiro Tokuriki, and others, is published by Charles E. Tuttle in Vermont and Tokyo. This 211-page hardcover book, with a slipcase and obi, would inspire Henry Mittwer, who had already met Senzaki. It would also influence numerous writers and artists of the "beat" generation, then incubating in San Francisco and New York. The beats, and a flurry of Zen and other Buddhist writings, would usher in the hippies of the 1960s and 1970s, who prefigured the quest of American new agers for esoteric spirituality in the 1980s and 1990s.

7 May 1958   Senzaki dies in Los Angeles, where he is buried in Evergreen Cemetery. The tomb marker reads "Nyogen's stupa" (Nyogen tō 如幻塔) followed by "Nyogen Senzaki" and his birth and death dates. A "tō" (塔)is a heap or mound of earth, such as one over a grave. The graph came to be used to refer to a place where the remains of a Bhudda have been consecrated, such as a stupa or pagoda, or other tower or steeple.

Yosha Bunko scan

Books by or with Henry Mittwer

Forthcoming

Jacket and obi of Henry Mittwer Seisen's 1992 From the foot of Arashiyama billed as his random thoughts "Cherishing the Japan that Japanese have forgotten" Yosha Bunko scans

Click on pages to enlarge" Mizukami Tsutomu's preface on Henry Mittwer as "a person unchanged as ever" Yosha Bunko scan

Click on pages to enlarge" Henry Mittwer's afterword as "Henrii Mitowa Seisen" in which he likens this collection of essays to a pile of old newspapers which had been discarded after reading with no thought of revisiting Written on the grounds of Daihonzan Tenryūji at Arashiyama in Kyōto Yosha Bunko scan

Henry Mittwer 1992

Arashiyama no fumoto kara

From the foot of Mt. Arashi

ヘンリ・ミトワ
嵐山のふもとから：楽書き集
大阪：編集工房ノア
一九九二年一月一日 第一刷発行
一九九六年六月一日 第二刷発行
249ページ、単行本

Henry Mittwer
Arashiyama no fumoto kara: Rakugaki-shū
[ From the foot of Mt. Arashi: A collection of scribblings ]
Osaka: Henshū Kōbō Noa
1 January 1992 1st printing published
1 June 1996 2nd printing published
249 pages, hardcover, jacket, obi

The book begins with a 2-page preface by Mizukami Tsutomu (水上勉 (1919-2006) dated 8 May 1991, titled "a person as ever unchanged" or "an ever unchanging person" (Aikawarazu no hito 相不変の人). A decade later, Mizukami, already a close friend, would publish a dialog with Mittwer on facing death (see next).

Mizukawa characterizes Mittwer as a "person who has struggled" (kurōnin 苦労人), but doesn't show the wrinkles of struggle. He is awed by how Mittwer is always calm and smiles, and writes -- "I can't think (It's hard to believe) that this person has a history of having lived the hell of that forced-accommodation-place (internment camp) life in America (Ano Amerika no kyōsei shūyōjo seikatsu no jigoku o ikita reki ga arŪ to wa omoenai あのアメリカの強制収容所生活の地獄を生きた歴があろうとは思えない)." (Page 2)

"Kurōnin" also means a person who, as a result of suffering and laboring, knows the world and human feelings. Mizukawa supposes that Mittwer's ability to shake off the travails of his life as he does, comes from "having connections with the depths of Zen" (Zen no fukami to kakawari ga aru daroō 禅の深みとかかわりがあるだろう). (Page 2)

"kyōsei shūyōjo"

Introductions to Henry Mittwer invariably include, if not begin with, his experiences in America's internment camps for "all persons of Japanese ancestry" were were living in the restricted military zone along the west coast at the start of the Pacific War. The dust jacket of his 1983 autobiography (above) highlights the importance of his internment, during which he vacillated about his American citizenship, and agreed to lose it in return for being sent back to Japan.

The expression "kyōsei shūyōjo" -- forced" (kyū 強制) accomodation (shūyō) place (jo 所) -- is the standard Japanese translation of English expressions like "concentration camps", where Jews were gathered and killed in Germany -- and "internment centers", where "all persons of Japanese ancestry" residing along the west coast in the United States were relocated during the Pacific War. The expression "shūyōjo" -- means simply a "place" (jo/sho 所) to "take in" (shū 収) and "contain" (yō 容) something -- a facility for admitting people and goods, especially prisoners, captives, and refugees". The term "syūyō" (収容) is also used to speak of how many in-patients a hospital can bed, or how many spectators a stadium can seat.

"no one was forced"

Of interest here is footage in the 2016 biographical film Zen to hone (see below), which was first screened 4 years after Mittwe died. The footage shows Mittwer's appearance at at 2007 film festivalthe 1995 Kyoto International Film Festival. The festival included a screening of Reggie Life's Doubles: Japan's and America's Intercultural Children, in which Mittwer had been interviewed.

Someone in the audience asked Mittwer how he felt when forced to enter an internment camp during the Pacific War. Mittwer says "Forced?", then states "I wasn't forced. Nobody was forced. It was voluntary."

Henry and many others did, in fact, respond to the call for "volunteers" to help build the camps in which they were then interned. And for sure, practically everyone interned peacefully complied with military orders to make arrangements for their shops, farms, homes and belongings, after which they submitted to procedures for evacuation to and reception at the assembly centers, then relocation to the internment camps.

The point of citing Mizukawa's assessment of Mittwer's personality, however, is RESUME

Giant sequoias

Mittwer prefaces a chapter on giant sequoias (kyoboku sekoia 巨木セコイア) with remarks about the antiquity of earthenware from the Jōmon period. He imagines Jōmonians surrounded by massive forests of giant trees. Primitive forests survive today only on Yakushima (屋久島) in the Ōsumi islands (Ōsumi shotō 大隅諸島) off the southern coast of Kyūshū toward Okinawa. But fossils uncovered around Sendai suggest that the archipelago of Japan was once a dense forest of giant cryptomeria (kyoboku-na sugi 巨木な杉).

He then segues across the Pacific to large primitive forests in "western California" (seibu Kariforunia 西部カリフォルニア), in particular Sequoia National Park "near San Francisco" (Sanfuranshisuko ni chikaku サンフランシスコに近く), where some trees, he says, are estimated to be from 4,000 to 5,000 years old, thrust into the heavens from 120 to 130 meters, and have trunks from 7 to 8 meters in diameter.

Two varieties of redwoods are found in California -- coastal redwoods, among them the tallest trees in the world, north and south of San Francisco -- and the giant sequoias on the western watershed of the Sierra Mountains on the eastern side of the state. The larger sequoias that Mittwer alludes to are in Sequoia National Park and neighboring Kings Canyon National Park, in the southern stretch of the California Sierras -- not at all close to San Francisco, but nearer to Los Angeles.

Mittwer's numbers are also a bit inflated. The oldest surviving sequoia appears to have seeded some 3,200-3,266 (as many as 3,500) years ago. The tallest is 94.8 (95) meters. The thickest trunk measured breast high is the General Grant at 8.8 meters.

The northernmost groves of giant sequoias, a protected species, are on the western slopes of the Sierras in Placer County Big Trees Grove, in the southern, Placer County reach of the Tahoe National Forest, headquartered in Nevada City, in the foothills to the north, where my father practiced law. I worked 4 summers, an early fall, and a late winter and spring for the Tahoe National Forest, as a surveyor. When living in San Francisco, during my first 14 years of life, we camped in redwood groves north and south of San Franciso.

The siding of our home in Grass Valley, near Nevada City, was redwood. My father made bookshelves in the living room with redwood planks on brick blocks. The lumber came from coastal redwoods, which are also protected but are still harvested -- not sequoias. However, a couple of neighbors planted sequoias in their yards, including one of our fence neighbors. And during the 55 years that our family home was there, the sequoia next door soared above the ponderosa pines and incense cedars that survived in the subvision where our home was located. The sequoia nearest our home was recenty taken down because it threatened a neighbor's home.

Sekaiya

Mittwer

Jacket and obi of Jisei no kotoba Mizukami Tsutomu and Henry Mittwer, 2003 Yosha Bunko scan

Click on image to enlarge Henry Mittwer's afterword Yosha Bunko scan

Click on image to enlarge Start of dialog on "Parent-child bonds severed by war" in which Mittwer says he "relinquished citizenship" Yosha Bunko scan

Mizukami Tsutomu and Henri Mittwer 2003

Jisei no kotoba

Words about leaving life

水上勉、ヘンリ・ミトワ
辞世の辞
東京：ビジネス社
2003年2月1日 第1刷発行
159ページ、単行本

Mizukawa Tsutomu and Henry Mittwer
Jisei no kotoba
[ Words of (about) leaving the world ]
Tokyo: Bijinesusha [Buisness-sha]
1 February 2003 1st printing published
159 pages, hardcover, jacket, obi

Mizukami Tsutomu (水上勉 1919-2004), called Minakami Tsutomu when I was studying Japanese literature in the 1960s and 1970s, was a novelist who dabbled in the arts and culture. He later went reverted to Mizukami Tsutomu, the more common reading of his name, which apparently he had changed to Murakami as writer.

Though Mittwer wrote both the foreword and afterword, Mizukami is the first billed author, most likely because he was much better known.

The book is a collection of 17 snippets of dialog divided into the following 7 chapters (my translations).

1. 千崎如幻という僧がアメリカに生きた
   A monk named Senzaki Nyogen lived in America
2. 人生は巡り会い
   Life is serendipity
3. 師と出会うための縁
   Destiny to encounter teacher (mentor)
4. 人の世は仮の住処
   The world of a person is a temporary habitat
5. 狂雲、一休
   Aberrant cloud, Ikkyū [1394-1481]
6. 人の道は片道切符
   The path of a person is a one-way ticket
7. 死と仲良くする
   Getting along with death

Films

Henry Mittwer was a film buff who socialized with film people, is credited for contributing to films, and aspired to produce films. He envisioned a film version the The girl who wore red shoes story novelized by Kikuchi Kan red shoes" and musically told in a popular song by Noguchi Ujō (野口雨情 1882-1945) (赤い靴はいてた女の子) (1979年) − that became popular with the Forthcoming

2014

Henri no akakutsu

Henry's Red Shoes

Forthcoming

Above   Jacket of 2019 Transformer DVD release of 2016 Hitobito Films edit of Zen to hone Below   Front and back of flyer for 2018 Cinemonde theater screening Click on images to enlarge Yosha Bunko scans
Chanel Kong's review of Nakamura Takayuki's Zen and Bones As screened on 27 April 2016 at the Asian Pacific Film Festival in Los Angeles Images captured from Visual Communicatjions pdf catalog Click on images to enlarge

Nakamura Takayuki 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019

Zen to hone

Zen and Bones

中村高寛 (監督)
禅と骨
製作：2016年
劇場公開日：2017年9月2日
配給：トランスフォーマー
127分

Nakamura Takayuki (director)
Zen to hone
[ Zen and bones ]
Produced: 2016
Theater release: 2 September 2017
Distribution: Transformer
127 minutes

Zen and Bones (directory, producer)

Chanel Kong's review of Nakamura Takayuki's Zen and Bones is of a 123-minute 2015 edit of the film as screened on Wednesday, 27 April 2016, at the Asian Pacific Film Festival in Los Angeles. The DVD edition by Transformer, released on Friday, 4 October 2019, describes the film as a 2016 Daijōbu Hitobito Films (大丈夫・人人FILMS) work running 127 minutes.

The film tells the story of Henry Mittwer's life through footage of actual places and people -- photographs and documents -- oral accounts by Henry Mittwer (ヘンリ・ミトワ), his wife Sachiko Mittwer (サチコ・ミトワ), their son Eric Mittwer (エリック・ミトワ), their daughters Kyoko Mittwer (京子・ミトワ) and Ishihara Shizu (石原静), and several friends and acquaintances -- plus reenactments of episodes in Henry's earlier life played by popular actors, including Wentz Eiji (ウエンツ瑛士 b1985) as Henry Mittwer, Yo Kimiko (余貴美子 b1956) as Henry's mother Yamazaki Kō, and Chad Mullane (チャド・マレーン b1979) as Henry's brother John Mittwer, among others.

Director Nakamura is known as a filmographer of life in Yokohama. His first full-length film was Yokohama Mary (Yokohama Merii ヨコハマメリー) [http://hitohito.jp], a 92-minute documentary, released in 2005, of the partly legendary life of a prostitute, known as "Hama no Merii" (ハマのメリー), who specialized in foreign seamen and military personnel in the city, became homeless in old age, and wandered the streets -- at least in some people's imagination -- in a white dress, white shoes, and thick, flakey white makeup.

Zen to hone was Nakamura's fist full-length film since Yokohama Merii. The film includes a segment in which Henry Mittwer, while flipping through sheet after sheet of a folder of ink-wash shetches of nude studies on newsprint, one of them dated "1991 2/16", proclaims that he drew them because he's a "nandemoya" (何でも屋) -- a "jack of all trades". Some people have been astonished by the range of Mittwer's seeminly "extra-religious" activities -- isn't a Zen monk supposed to be leading a cloistered life of austerity and meditation?

But no. Everything Mittwer did was part and parcel of his Zen path.

Director Nakamura relates the following anecdote on the Transformer website promoting Zen to hone (my structural translation).

「坐禅をするだけが“禅”ではない。それは型であって入口に過ぎないんです。型は何でもいい」。彼曰く、どんな仕事をしていても、その道を極めていけば、すべては禅に通じていくというのだ。頭の中で何かが閃いた気がした。私は“映画”という道でそれをやればいいのだと。そしてその結果、ドキュメンタリーの様々な手法のみならず、ドラマ、そしてアニメなどジャンルを縦横無尽に駆け巡ることになった。

[A certain head priest at Tenryūji (where Mittwer lived) said] "Doing only zazen is not 'Zen'. That (Zazen) is a form, merely an entrance [to Zen]. A form is nothing." He (The priest) says (was saying) [that], whatever work [you] do, if (when) [you] go on (take) that path resolutely, everything leads to Zen. [You] feel that something has flashed in your head. [So] if I [Nakamura] do that on the path called "films" [it's] good. And that result (the result of that [resolute path following]) became (was) (And that resulted in) something [in which I] run around (deploy) not only the various methods of documentaries (documentary methods), but [also] drama, and animation and other genres, vertically-and-horizontally-without-limit (ever which way, freely, as I please).

Nakamura is describing his own mix of staged and animated representations with conventional documentary techniques, as the fruit of his Zen-esque resoluteness as a filmmaker. He so much as calls Zen to hone a work of Zen.

Inspiration for title

One of Henry Mittwer's earliest encounters with Zen in English was Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, first published in 1957 by Charles E. Tuttle in Tokyo, as a hardcover volume with an obi in a slipcase. The Tuttle edition alone went through numerous printings, and as of this writing, Tuttle still publishes a paperback edition. The book has been brought out by many other publishers, and has been translated into several langauges.

The earliest editions are subtitled "A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings" as "Compiled by Paul Reps", and were illustrated with woodblock prints by Tomikichiro Tokuriki (1902-1999). Later editions are represented as "Compiled by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki", in which Paul Reps (1895-1990), an artist and haikuist, is described as the editor, and Nyogen Senzaki (1876-1958), a Zen monk who was intrumental in spreading Zen awareness in the United States, where he settled, is credited as the transcriber.

The collection is promoted as including "4 books in 1" -- "101 Zen Stories" (actual Zen experiences over a period of 5 centuries) -- "The Gateless Gate" (mind problems used in attaining Zen) -- "10 Bulls" (a 12th century commentary on the stages of awareness leading to Zen) -- and "Centering" (a 4,000-year-old teaching in India that may have been the roots of Zen).

Which is a long way of saying that the title of this book stuck in Mittwer's mind for half a century, and inspired the title -- if not exactly the theme -- of the semi-documentary, biographical film Zen to hone (Zen and Bones), directed by 第一章 青い目の禅僧 第二章 別れのブルーズ Daibonzan Tenryūji 大本山天龍寺 Nahōin 南芳院 The first footage in the film of Mittwer talking, shot in June 2011 when Mittwer was 92 years old, shows him in a casual white robe fetching a vintage movie camera from a clutter of belongings in a tatami room at his residence in Tenryūji in Kyōto.

Above   Front and back of CD soundtrack of Zen to hone (2017) Featuring 11 tracks by Nakamura Yūsuke and Eddie Ban, Ōnishi Junko, Crazy Ken Band, and others Below   Cover of liner notes Bottom   Center of liner notes Click on images to enlarge Yosha Bunko scans

2017

Zen to hone original soundtrack

Including "Redshoes" tracks by Eddie Ban