Sam Kitaguchi Passes

Museum Date Set

Now it’s for sure. Our program on Vanished: Lompoc’s Japanese at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) will take place on Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 2 p.m. It was set up today.

Response to our e-mails indicated overwhelming support for June 18 over other available dates. Not only will lots of one-time Lompoc residents and their children and grandchildren be present, but so will Dr. Kent Haldan, the Diablo Valley College instructor whose research formed the basis for the book, and also Dr. Art Hansen, the retired Cal State Fullerton history and Asian Studies professor whose wonderful review of the book (“narrative force, organizational clarity, innovative research and intellectual penetration”) gave it credibility for museums, libraries and bookstores all over the state.

It’s now available at the JANM gift shop and M&S Pharmacy in Los Angeles as well as book stores in Lompoc, Solvang, and Santa Barbara. We’ve also had contact from Sacramento State, the California Museum in Sacramento, and Manzanar National Historic Site, as well as numerous calls from the Central Coast.

Most recently, last Friday, George Toshio Johnston published a review of Vanished in the Los Angeles Rafu Shimpo.  He gave Vanished an amazing 19 inches of space including a photo of the book’s cover. Thank you George, and thank you Lucille Honda for putting us in touch.  

The second printing of the book has arrived and is now available. We’ve changed the description of the cover, we’ve corrected the spelling of ofuro and of Aki Iwata’s name, and we added Dr. Hansen’s praise and page numbers for the photo pages.

Speaking of the cover, as many of you know, the photograph by Todoroki Hozaki was not taken in Lompoc, despite what the author wrote. Thanks to Tets Furukawa we’ve found that the parade took place in Guadalupe. And it was not a Fourth of July parade. It was a procession staged to celebrate the donation of the altar to the Guadalupe Buddhist Temple. It took place not in July but in October of 1933. But the biggest surprise came from George Yoshitake. It turns out that the donor of the altar was his wife June’s grandfather! Small world.

One bit of sad news--Satoru "Sam" Kitaguchi passed away the evening before Thanksgiving in Phoenix. The fourth of six children born in the US to Gitaro and Ume Kitaguchi, Sam grew up on the family asparagus farm near La Purisima Mission. He later became an engineer and was awarded a commendation by NASA for his work on space vehicles. In retirement he provided lengthy family histories for the book Vanished. Sam had recently graduated high school at Gila River when he accompanied his father back home to Lompoc in 1945 to inspect the vandalized family home. Sam absolved the Rivaldi family, neighbors to the Kitaguchis, for any responsiblity. The Rivaldis farmed the Kitaguchi land during the war. "We have no quarrel with the Rivaldi's," Sam declared. "They did an excellent job. We were very grateful." On a lighter note the episode in which Sam was clobbered with a baseball bat by Akira Francis Nishimura at Japanese School in Lompoc became a reference point in the book. "I thought I killed the guy," said Nishimura years later. Nishimura predeceased Kitaguchi by less than a year.  Kitaguchi leaves a sister, Satsuko, and two brothers, Chitose and Tome as well as his immediate family. A memorial service will be conducted soon by Phoenix Memorial Park.

Invitation to the JA National Museum

We’re going to the museum!

Yes indeed, the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) in downtown Los Angeles.

We’ve been invited to talk about the book as part of the museum’s 2011 program series.

“I gave the book to a reviewer who read it and REALLY liked it,” e-mailed JANM Program Director Koji Sakai. “And of course, (Professor) Art (Hansen) loved it too. I looked it over as well and would be honored to have you come down and do a reading/talk.”

My reaction was, “I’m honored to be invited by such a well-respected museum!”                 

The exact date of our program, whether it takes place on Saturday, June 18 (Father’s Day weekend), or Saturday, June 25 or Saturday, August 27, is a decision we need you to help us decide. Why? Because we want you to participate that day. If you enjoyed the three book launch reunions, or especially if you missed them, this event will be the BIGGEST of the Lompoc reunions.

Please post your opinion here as a comment or e-mail your preference as soon as possible to lompocwriter@gmail.com

Not only will there be a program at the museum, but soon, probably about December 1, Vanished will appear on the shelf at the JANM store.

Not only that, but the Santa Maria Sun will print an excerpt from the book on December 9.   

Response has been so overwhelming that the first printing of Vanished has been exhausted. The second printing should be completed by Wednesday, November 24, but shipping will be delayed due to Thanksgiving weekend.

All this is good. Better than that: GREAT, hectic but great.

Thank you everybody for your support.

Connections Multiplying

After the Northern California “book tour” we enjoyed two more book events at The Book Store in Lompoc.

As a result connections are popping up everywhere! Just yesterday a Lompoc woman named Jerry Beattie made contact with the Shirokawa family whom she had not heard from in decades. And a retired teacher named Jits Furusawa, who now lives in Lompoc, told about his stepfather, Osamu Matoba, who returned briefly to Lompoc after the war. Osamu Matoba is the older brother of Kiyoshi Matoba who starred as a baseball player in Lompoc in 1940-41

And this note from Lucille and Kaoru Bill Honda.

Did I tell you that a friend that we had not seen for over 55 years recently wrote to us to say she just finished reading your “Vanished” book? She said Bill never told her that he was a coach with girls’ basketball in Lompoc before the war.  We were all living in Salt Lake City after World War II started. Her name is Mary Kikukawa Nakagama. (Mary and a few other friends, including Bill, belonged to the Japanese Church of Christ in SLC and used to hang around with each other). I didn’t know her very well because I used to attend the Japanese Buddhist Church across the street (as my Father and Mother were Buddhists). She has lived in Gardena, CA for about 40-50 years. Apparently a relative of hers from Salt Lake City attended the Montrose launch and sent Mary your book. At any rate she said she and her daughter, Julie, were driving up to the Biltmore Hotel in Santa Barbara  for a couple of days from Los Angeles and invited Bill and me  to dinner at the Biltmore a couple of weeks ago. You can imagine what a pleasant surprise that was! Of course, we didn’t recognize them, but Mary said the minute she saw us she knew who we were. We had a great time visiting with them and we invited them to lunch the following day and after lunch they came to our home and looked through Bill’s OLD picture albums with Mary in a lot of the photos. Since I knew that it was Julie’s birthday that day, early in the morning I went to Von’s and bought a small fresh strawberry shortcake and later that afternoon after we delved through all the albums, I put some candles on the cake and we all sang “Happy Birthday” to Julie. and she was very ‘touched.’  It was a real joy to see them after all these years! John, see what your book lead to????

Thanks, Lucille.

One more thing: all 500 of the first printing of Vanished have been sold. A second printing has been ordered. The first batch of books at M & S Pharmacy in Los Angeles has already sold out. They will be replenished for Saturday morning. Thank you, everybody.

Nor Cal Book Launch Lifted Off

The Northern California Book Launch Saturday in Livermore was as joyous as the first two launches.

The highlights were many-- Dr. Kent Haldan, whose research made the book possible, shared innumerable juicy details of his work digging out the story. His presentation sounded like "Book Notes" on CSPAN. He talked about baseball becoming an acceptable Nisei weapon of self-assertion during camp and post-war days. And he talked about interviewing recalcitrant farmers fifty years after they led their campaign to block return by evacuees to the Central Coast.

Richard Endo, eldest son of Fumiye Iwamoto Endo, talked of the close connection which remains yet today between the Guadalupe Buddhist Temple, of which the Lompoc temple was long a branch, and the large temples in California's urban centers. "We use it for retreats," he explained.

Chiyo Iwamoto Kobayashi, the Prom Queen of Chapter One of Vanished, had decided that a one-day trip from Los Angeles to Livermore was a probably too much for an 85-year-old, but guess what --she changed her mind. "My nephew and niece were coming so I decided I wanted to see them," she said with a grin as she walked in the door.

The event was attended not just be relatives of one-time Lompocans, but by members of the Livermore Presbyterian Church, the host United Christian Church, and the Livermore Genealogical Society

It was announced that Vanished had been reviewed in a full-page account in the October KaMai Forum, but the capper was an e-mail which Haldan had received from Dr. Arthur Hansen, Professor Emeritus of History at Cal State Fullerton. Dr. Hansen offered these words about Vanished:

"This book is a minor classic in terms not only of narrative force, organizational clarity, innovative research, and intellectual penetration, but also for what it contributes to the democratic triumvirate of diversity, civil liberties, and social justice. Reading it made a similar impact that Michi Weglyn's classic Years of Infamy: the Untold Story of America's Concentration Camps had on me when I first encountered it."

Wow. We thought we had a good book, but comparison to Michi Weglyn represents, as Haldan would call it, a home run.

Nor Cal Book Launch Goes Ahead / LA Outlet Set Up

The Northern California book launch party for Vanished: Lompoc's Japanese is going ahead with Dr. Kent Haldan as well as author John McReynolds

It will be held Saturday, November 6 at 1 p.m. at United Christian Church in Livermore. Directions may be found on the Calendar page of this website.

Dr. Haldan made available his doctoral dissertation which served as the research basis for Vanished.

In other news, the first Los Angeles area walk-in outlet for Vanished: Lompoc's Japanese has been set up.

Thanks to Hank Iwamoto at M & S Pharmacy, the store will stock our books beginning sometime next week. M & S Pharmacy is located at 4561 Centinela in Westside Los Angeles. Until now readers in the Los Angeles area could only order on-line.

In yet more news, the editor of Nikkei Nation, George Toshio Johnston, who is also a columnist for the Rafu Shimpo, will be interviewing John McReynolds tomorrow morning. Also Wayne Maeda, a Northern California book reviewer, has asked for a copy to review.