GOTO-HEALTH

I was born in 1939 and raised in the Ontario, Oregon, inland locality of Eastern Oregon. My family moved there to start over, after hardships and discriminatory activities in the Seattle, WA, community in 1937. Opportunities for row-crop farming was created with the Owyhee Dam providing irrigation in 1930. 

 

When I was hired to start the University of Washington Library Archive “Japanese Collection” in 1970 my job was to gather stories of the Japanese Experience in the Pacific Northwest. I interviewed my family, my Grandpa K Tsukamaki and several of his friends. 

 

In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, signing Executive Order 9066, excluded anyone with 1/16th Japanese Heritage from living within 400 miles inland from the Pacific Coast. Ontario grew from a little over 100 of us to over 1000 in population of Japanese. It was the largest per capita city with Japanese, maybe in the whole USA at one time, outside the 10 Incarceration locations. Elmo Smith was the reason, saying, "If the Japs, both alien and nationals, are a menace to the Pacific Coast safety unless they are moved inland, it appears downright cowardly to take any other stand than to put out the call, 'Send them along; we'll cooperate to the fullest possible extent in taking care of them.'"

 

All the other surrounding small towns on both sides of the Snake River, dividing Idaho and Oregon, had newspaper articles and “No Jap” signs. Smith, according to my relatives, encouraged compassion and understanding. 

 

Gathering stories from early immigrants from Japan that chose to stay in America and raising families, I find entrepreneurial endeavors. They also seemed to get to know the Mayors and County Sheriffs. My dad was one of the first second generation, Nisei, before WWII in Ontario’s Malheur county and spoke English fluently. As I was growing up, he always talked anyone of the neighbors, who called him, “Jap”, into having coffee and becoming friends.

 

With the need for Japanese food ingredients, my Tsukamaki family started the ONTARIO FISH MARKET in 1945 and praised Elmo Smith.