nisei

this whole set of photos made me nostalgic for how america used to be, and how the country banded together during WWII and then blam! knocked me down a peg.

love the hair.

Why does it look like they have white make-up on?

Really great that they were still optimistic, considering what they were going through. -- Seen in your 1930s-40s in Color set. (?)

personally madkt I´m glad the US is not the way it used to be placing it´s citizens in made up prisons and calling them camps under the pretext of war. I found yr comment extremely disturbing and really out of place

Thanks so much for sharing this photo. Our treatment of Japanese-Americans at this point in time was shameful. Those who don't remember history are condemned to repeat it.

I am really bothered by the the heading, "war emergency evacuation," as if Japanese Americans were rounded up and shipped off to the camps for their "own good." It shows that the U.S. government can say or do anything and justify it as a "war emergency."

They're preserving the titles of the photos as they were titled when they were taken. It's the Library of Congress historically documenting (and sharing with us) pieces of history. While that time period, and the subject matter is certainly sad and distasteful, I think it would be terrible if the LOC cleaned up the titles and other information to appeal to our modern sensibilities. It's much more important to get an accurate representation of history, imho. But I certainly understand where you're coming from- it was a terrible situation for the government to even conceive of internment camps, let alone put them into practice.

I agree with Jade. I appreciate the photo more because it has the original caption.

I agree with JadeEJF too. Doesn't change the fact that this is a shameful event in our history. -- Seen on your photo stream. (?)

Any chance the name might be "Nomura"? The 1928 "Census, Japanese Population in Oregon" lists Ruth T. Nomura living at 726 Rodney in Portland, single, occupation Student, born Oct. 15, 1907 in Portland. (Take the birthdate with a grain of salt because I've found a lot of wrong dates in this source). She's the daughter of Frank & Kiyo Nomura and there are other siblings at the same address. 1930 census lists her still single, living with her parents, but she's not in the database of internees as Nomura, nor could I find a Ruth born in Oregon in 1907+/- 1 year so she may have been married, deceased or moved away from the West coast by then? Check OSU yearbooks because Googling "Ruth T Nomura" turned up a hit in the Class of 1930 (but the yearbook website wanted me to register to see the photo)

I think this is her obituary - her maiden name is listed in her husband's obituary here - they moved east to avoid internment and ended up in Minnesota. Now you'll have to see if the yearbook photo looks anything like her!

Holy Smokes, vintagepix! You're right! We found her in the 1930 Beaver. Thanks for all of the information. You can bet that we'll be updating everything very shortly to reflect this huge find. I love this kind of thing! Thanks, Doug

I send out my thanks too! This is one of my favorite photos and to have this information about Ruth is really a great find for us -- and even better for our researcher. Tiah

Yay! Will you please link the yearbook photo at some point? That would be so cool! According to Ancestry.com databases there's a listing for her in Who's Who of American Women (Seventh edition, 1972-1973) Social Security Death Index lists her as Ruth Tokuko Nomura Tanbara, born 15 Oct 1907, d. 4 Jan 2008 It looks like she didn't have any children surviving but there are nieces & nephews? Minnesota Historical Society has a collection of her papers.