Born in Sierra Madre, California in April 1923, Yosh Kuromiya and his family moved to Monrovia, where he attended grammar school, junior high and high school. He was attending Pasadena Junior College as an art major when his family was forced out of their homes and imprisoned, like other Americans of Japanese ancestry, during World War II. His family was first sent to the assembly center at the Pomona Fairgrounds, before they were imprisoned at the Heart Mountain concentration camp in Wyoming.
Draft resister Yosh Kuromiya (seated, center) was a member of the “Poster Shop Gang,” designing and printing posters at the Heart Mountain concentration camp, one of ten such camps where Americans of Japanese ancestry were unjustly imprisoned during World War II.
Photo: Kuromiya Family Collection
Kuromiya became one of 63 members of the Fair Play Committee, a group of Heart Mountain prisoners who resisted the draft in protest of the government’s denial of their civil rights. Along with other Fair Play Committee members, Kuromiya, then 21 years old, was arrested, tried and convicted of draft evasion.
Kuromiya was sentenced to three years in federal prison. He was released on parole after two years, and was pardoned by President Harry S. Truman in late 1947.
A retired landscape architect, Kuromiya resides in Alhambra, California with his wife, Irene. Today, he often speaks to groups and organizations about his experiences during World War II, and especially about his experience as a draft resister.
Below is the text of a speech he gave to the Greater Los Angeles Singles Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League on May 13, 2011.
Good evening and happy Friday the 13th! If you haven’t already had your share of misfortune today, maybe you are about to, but I hope not.
I would like to thank you all, for having me here tonight. However, I must warn you that I am neither a historian, a professor, a scholar, nor even a speaker. My exposure to history is that I’ve been around for 88 years, but never seemed to make a difference. I’ve professed a few ideas during those years but never received an encouraging response, much less a degree. Read more of this post
42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage: The Passage of Time
August 13, 2011 9 Comments
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Editor’s Note: UCLA Nikkei Student Union and UCLA Kyodo Taiko member Yoshimi Kawashima participated in her second Manzanar Pilgrimage this past April, at the 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage. She shares her thoughts about her experiences with us below.
Yoshimi Kawashima
Photo: Gann Matsuda
The dust stirred gently in the opaque light of the rising sun, drifting along the near empty road. Eyes still drowsy from the four-hour trip, mind still struggling to awake from rising with the dawn light, we finally reached the parking lot which would lead to the Manzanar National Historic Site—my second time at the annual Manzanar Pilgrimage since my freshman year at UCLA.
When I went to my first Manzanar Pilgrimage in April 2009, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I was only newly exposed to the history of Japanese American Internment, and now, physically stepping into the forlorn desert they had once been forced to call home brought forth mixed emotions.
What does it mean to be a (Japanese) American of this generation? Read more of this post
Filed under Commentary, Manzanar, Manzanar At Dusk, Manzanar Pilgrimage, News Tagged with 42nd Annual Manzanar Pilgrimage, civil rights, concentration camp, discrimination, Edward Kobayashi, Eryn Tokuhara, JANM, Japanese American, Japanese American Incarceration, Japanese American Internment, Japanese American National Museum, Manzanar, Manzanar At Dusk, Manzanar National Historic Site, Manzanar Pilgrimage, Michelle Cheng, racism, UCLA Kyodo Taiko, UCLA Nikkei Student Union, World War II, Yoshimi Kawashima