this is hosted by the due dwight d. eisenhower presidential library and museum which provided the video. in 55 minutes, a panel discussion on holocaust denial and the importance of world war ii history education. in two hours, a 1959 film that sets out to answer the question what is jazz? sandra: the japanese in western nebraska from 1900 to 1960. give me a little history on it. next slide. this is the region we will concentrate on. the panhandle, that's where i'm currently living in the north platte valley from north platte to the nebraska-wyoming border

and this is the area i was focusing on stop -- i was focusing on. i'm a native nebraskan but i never heard about japanese settling in western nebraska, not until 2004. i was a grad student at k state at that time. i wasn't a very good grad student because as soon as i heard about the information, i took off for a road trip and that's where i started meeting some of the descendants from these first immigrants coming into the valley. part of it was because i was a little perturbed because the japanese were never in any of the nebraska history books i was familiar with or read. first off, i had to learn and

they had to set me straight because they refer to it -- this is the first generation coming into the united states and into nebraska. then there's the second generation and their grandchildren, the third generation, which for better lack of terms, think of that is the baby boomers, and then the fourth generation -- i will be using a lot of these terms. from my research, the japanese started coming into the united states in the 1870's. people asked why would they do that? like any immigrant group, mainly for economic reasons. things were not going great in japan at the time. scarcity, prosperity, peace, that kind of thing. some did go to hawaii to work in

the sugarcane fields. others started coming through san francisco later on, as i rode out into washington state, along the west coast, and then later on, going through canada and mexico. i was curious, what were these immigrants like? a majority were single young men . they were usually son number 1 -- i'm sorry, some -- son number two or number three. at that time, the oldest son took over the property or farm and there wasn't enough. so basically, the young men came over and it is a typical immigrant story.

you get your money and then return to your home country. started going through the research and it was fun. these are some early photos of them working and most of the men did come from agricultural backgrounds. they were not coming from the tokyo area. as you can see, that's a really good picture of young men working, they were gang laborers on the railroad. instead of go west young man,

they went east. they got jobs in the egg field along the west coast or the fisheries and then got jobs on the railroad. they were basically helping maintain the lines and that's how they went from west to east and started going in through the mountain ranges and the great plains. the reason i brought this up is in that region, because of this pathfinder dam, it helped irrigate the north platte valley and that is huge. it allowed for this crazy crop called sugar beets. i never knew what a sugar beet was. this is a sugar beet and when that was completed and they

started bringing in the irrigation canals, the store -- the soil and temperatures are perfect for growing sugar beets. it's a perfect storm for a great crop and they needed laborers because it was incredibly labor-intensive to turn these fields. it started with the great western sugar company, which is now the western sugar cooperative. there were sugar mills and if you look at the map there, if you have an interest in that, there were refineries in a lot of those little towns along the north platte. the railroad brought them in, and it was the sugar beets and irrigation that really boomed for the agricultural part. so they quit the railroad and became farmworkers.

as you can see from the stats, from this author, a huge percentage of the immigrants were used to hard work and working with their hands and in the soil. i know you probably can't see this well, but this was an article in a 1914 paper and they did a consensus. this had the most japanese in the whole state of nebraska in 1913, for that very reason of them coming into the valley and working. i was fortunate to find this when i did my research. i had no idea what a passport looked like at that time.

this is from 1914 -- go ahead. the reason i bring this up is if you have these young men, where are they going to get the wives? i was asking the women and it was picture brides. they exchanged photos. they may not know the person, you just exchanged photos, but it was -- if you got the photo, you did not have too agree that yes you would be marrying this guy, you did have an option to say no. most of the brides were picture brides and would have come into the coast and the men would have met them there, married and then they would move with them into the valley. the reason i brought that other

book, this is a lovely, lovely book and she does extensive research. i thought it was one of the best books ever that talks about picture brides from their perspective. this is a really great photo of a young family from the 19 teens. definitely not keeping their traditional dress, doing western dress, and this one, you saw the 1914 passport, this is an area called the dutch flats and this is fascinating because they came in early enough and they actually owned land. if you look at the picture to

your right, the woman with the cap in the little kids next to her, keep her in mind because she's going to show up later on in the slides. one thing i was asking was how many folks, how may japanese were in this valley? this gives a rough idea. we are not talking about may be a hundred, there's a decent population. this is an article from the star harold talking about yes, they did have labor contractors that would go round up the labor and have them come in and work with them. more the article -- i did go through the newspapers to find out what can i glean from this group? you can see how they were part

of the community. this is another article from 1920 where they are going to start organizing and doing their own social club. even though most of the japanese in here were agua workers, --ag workers, there were a few that were businessmen, but i've come across no more than five. most of them were farmers. not everything was great. there were anti-asian sentiments. it started in the chinese exclusion act. a lot of this starts happening on the west coast. unfortunately, the u.s. has been down this path many times.

there was a fear they were going to take away jobs. so what i'm presenting here is a list of the different laws and acts from state and national. in 1918, that one is really interesting because it will have an effect on nebraska laws. that comes out in federal law. then nebraska start saying we made our own law. this is an article from the star harold in 1920.

they were talking about this in the nebraska legislature, about setting up their own -- they couch it in another way, but basically to keep japanese, asians from owning land. not a great picture, but this is the bill that was presented. it basically denied the japanese once this bill passed that they could own any land. if you are ever the one slide from 1914, they were prosperous enough that they actually own land. when this law took effect, it did not affect them but all the other young men that came in during that teens as they get established, they can no longer purchase land and basically became rent farmers. this came out of the north

platte representative and i had not researched it really but he was good friends with a representative from california and in 1918, they already had their law stating japanese were asians cannot own land, so it shows the connection and how it filtered into nebraska. i question was why would this be any concern for nebraskans? that is the tie right there. the law passed and what you are going to be seeing our photos from the 1920's into the 30's. someone had this in their photo album and i thought this was a really good representation of the 1920's of a father and his young son -- very western dressed, showing part of what life would have been like. the one thing the japanese did,

even though they had their own activities, this hall was moved. this structure served as a community hall for the japanese in the valley. there was another one in mitchell. it was designed and built by the japanese themselves. it's the only structure left in the state that is strictly designed and built by the japanese. this hall is being saved right now and was moved off its foundations to the plains museum, here in gary, nebraska. it's interesting because it was designed by them and built for them, when i first went there, that japanese were even shorter than myself. everything was built to their specks because you go just

another building, but not necessarily. that was one of the unique things about this structure. this is a really good picture of a family typical in the 1920's. they have large families but they were no different from the rest of the families in the valley or during the 1920's. most families had five or more kids. as you can see by the girls hairstyles and everything, there's so many things you can read from this picture, but they had large families because a lot of them and that being rent farmers and kids are farmhands, right? one uniqueness, what made them different or how did they assimilate in, one of the things that would separate them a little different, yet germans

from russia and germans settling in the valley and you also had mexicans all working in the sugar beet fields and onion fields, up and down this valley. they, their parents still carried on the tradition of the japanese bath and i thought that was interesting. if they ended up renting another farm, they would move to that little farmhouse in one family said yes, every time they moved, that was one of the first things the kids did come help their parents set up a japanese bath. i asked what they japanese bath? at the end of the day, you would wash up, wash your body and then go into a very hot tub of water -- i'm generalizing very much. the idea that people only took a saturday bath, no.

they were not typical of that. or their neighbors. the other thing at this time, and this is my own fault. because there were so may children, did they go to the hospital a lot? no. they pretty much did their own medicine. warily was a doctor called. births happened at home. one woman -- how big was her family? i think like 10 kids. she remembered the kids were just all shoot out of the house and when they were allowed to come in, there was a baby brother. or baby sister. next slide. this is another one i think is a good example to show you. i'm going to say probably mid 30's just by their styles.

very much westernized. this is second-generation and that's going to be the bridge from their parents because most of them did not know english when they came into the united states. they attended school -- where they fluent in japanese? no. they could understand their parents, and they would use certain japanese words, but they are the bridge that is typical among immigrant families coming in or their children. this one, i found at the community hall, they would hold japanese summer schools. because of where we are located, denver is much closer than lincoln. denver is only about three hours away. around the front range in colorado, there's a fairly large population of japanese and a lot of them were trout farmers. they would bring in instructors

to teach the kids, they said sometimes they taught the martial arts, they would try to teach the language and keep some of their culture alive. i asked one and he said they have fond memories of it. mainly it was just a break from working in the fields and they could socialize with each other. this -- i love this picture. as you can see, they are having a great time, they are part of the community. this is probably late 1930's, possibly early 40's. the reason i show this picture is because what i was told, the

japanese were very good farmers and so those land owners would try to get the japanese to farm, to rent farm from them. this house on the left -- how many kids today have? i think nine kids may be. you can see it's a pretty small house, but they actually had a hired man and it was a mexican family that would come in seasonal and work for them. they could not own land, but they were highly sought after two b rent farmers. but then they could hire other families to help them out -- highly sought after two b rent

farmers. this one, he came from a pretty high status japanese family. he came to nebraska and got his degrees in agriculture from the university of nebraska lincoln. he had a farm and ended up in the north platte valley area and eventually became a -- became an episcopal preach -- episcopal priest. he was the recorder of japanese history in this valley. thanks to him and his meticulous record keeping, this is the stats. i was always wondering how many japanese were in that valley area?

everything is going great until december 7, 19 41, that is when everything is going to change for them. when that happen, i said i'm going to have to ask you about world war ii. when pearl harbor happened, the fbi and law-enforcement did come. since he was being the leader, he was arrested and was the only one that ended up being in an internment camp. the rest were allowed to go. into their farms and into their homes, but this is what they all told me. remember, a lot of them are young kids, in high school at this time, so they remember their radios were confiscated, firearms, their cameras, anything ceremonial.

as i was talking to them, it was just in passing that i heard this. some families chose to burn or bury their belongings. when i would go into their homes, i did not see a lot of stuff, a lot of heirlooms and stuff that they would have. when i found this out, that made sense. they were restricted, they had to carry permit, and they were limited to travel. if they wanted to go further, they had to let authorities know a reason why. one of the women had this from their mother-in-law. i said what did it look like, so what you are seeing now is the

card they all had to carry with them. i will say right now that most of the japanese, almost all of them did not have to go into the camps. i remember as a kid and maybe i missed it, but i thought all japanese were putting camps. it was just the ones on the west coast. as i was talking to them, -- this is really messed up. on their farms, if they had family members living on the west coast put in the camps, they could request for their family members to come out of the camps and live with them. and help them on the farms.

it just struck me as really messed up. how do the citizens and their neighbors react to their japanese neighbors? this is what i found. when i first did the research, i talked to a gentleman whose dad was i think president of the mitchell bank and he was very supportive of the japanese. the fbi wanted to come in and immediately close all the japanese camps. he said you would break them and you can't do that and he said up to the fbi and they did not mess with their accounts. i think there probably was some name-calling, that type of derogatory term. but outright acts of violence, i have not heard of that. most of them are still

incredibly reticent to talk about that. but because they had been in that valley for so long and it was rural and they were such good farmers, they were model citizens, i think that also helped. i almost view it as perhaps they may be did not get that much harassed by locals. maybe the outsiders coming into the valley. they suffered, certainly they did not congregate anymore. they did not hold church services, they did not go to their community halls and that kind of thing. another picture that she's the one who ended up arrested and sent away to a camp.

the reason i have this picture is he was a meticulous recordkeeper with wonderful admin ship and this is his entry on pearl harbor. notice the shaky handwriting. this is his typical handwriting. for me, it just struck me as obviously that is all he put as an entry for that day and he was obviously shaken up. as represented by his handwriting there. go ahead. i put this in because this is

propaganda for grow more sugar beets. sugar beets and sugar, we know sugar was rationed, so it was a top priority, a commodity, so you needed it. they became essential workers, even though they compass gated -- even a day confiscated a lot of items from them. that's why wanted to stress that. that is one thing that became apparent with everything else going on, they needed their labor and expertise to grow the crop. for those who maybe are not familiar, the 442nd regimental combat team was made up of the sons and they were one of the most highly decorated regimens. as you can see by their metals,

-- the majority of the young men did not fight. i have a couple of books, i have not researched it that much, but there were some that were in intelligence -- i'm not going to say code breaking, but it was a very small group. the majority of the ones that did join the army, some of them were already in the army before pearl harbor and world war ii, because of the lack of jobs, most of them were in the european theater. this is from father connell because he kept good records. -- father kano.

these were the sons of the issei who are in the valley. central would be more like north platte or the central part of the state. we did have young women that ended up being in the army nurse cadet corps. after the war, 1952, the mccarran walter act. that rescinded the stupid immigration policy thing in 1924 and allowed if you were a good and upstanding citizen, and its implied intent was for the asians, that they could become u.s. citizens.

then you could apply for naturalization. remember these issei are now in their 50's, 60's and they are having to go through naturalization classes and remember the young woman from the photo from 1914, this is her and this is her naturalization certificate. this is her husband. this was a naturalization ceremony, i believe in north flat. -- north platte. he helped them study for the test. as you can see, most of the

folks are in their 50's, 60's and remember these folks when they came over, a majority did not know english. the reason i through this church in, even though the war is over, we still have natural -- still have national service stop this is a great picture. the guy on the right had two older brothers that served in the 442nd. he's doing his stint in the army and there he is with one of his army pals. as i am learning about him and was talking to some of them, one only said we like to fly under the radar. i said you are no longer under the radar anymore.

when i was doing research, not much has been written about them. in 76, this was a book that was produced on the different ethnicities in nebraska and the nebraska history in 2002, someone did an article and it's the university nebraska lincoln along with others that allowed them to leave the camps. a book was published by a gunner on a bomber and he flew not only european but pacific theater jobs. in 2014 -- this was the first one ever on contributions by the nisei, talking about their parents that came into the

valley. in 2010, these are manuscripts and the letters of father kano. i had three colleagues at k state -- she was working at the eisenhower and they were doing the world war ii exhibit. they made this display, info panel. these are the nisei now. this is about six years ago. they have their own club. i got a lot of good information from her. she still around. there is nancy.

she's on her farm that was still in the family. i worked with a producer with nebraska education public tv and they did a nice little video documentary on the japanese in western nebraska tybalt -- titled invisible people. so if you are interested in watching that, youtube nebraska stories, invisible people, it goes a little more in depth. joy: thank you so much. at this time, i'm opening up the floor for questions. if you have a question, type it in the chat and we will discuss.

a see a question -- go ahead and if you can unmute yourself and ask your question. >> first of all, thank you for this information. it is brand-new to me and it is fascinating. of the 500 or so that in the early years, how many are now left in the nebraska area and are they like so many kids, they want to leave and go elsewhere? how many are left of the original families? sandra: that's a good question because i asked the same thing

and they mirror what is typically happening in rural america. a lot of them never went into agriculture. that nisei group is probably no more than 50. most of their children are not. when they had children, they didn't have as many, they, almost all of them have college educations and did not take up into the agricultural field. they would move out and go to lincoln, denver, maybe chicago, someplace else. in some ways they very much mirror rural america. >> do you know how many of them joined the four 42nd? sandra: it was actually quite a

large number that were in service. that list was 50 maybe? >> thank you. sandra: sure. joy: i saw another hand up. dawn: i always go back to dwight eisenhower. was there any sort of situation -- you may not will to enter this directly, but may be theoretically, did we have any sort of japanese communities in kansas? was there any sort of marginal connection to the eisenhower's at all? sandra: i'm going to say no. i looked in kansas at the time i was there. nebraska and i looked at south dakota. for the region and western

kansas, it was because of dryland farming, there wasn't irrigation. when i looked at south dakota, because of the black hills and -- i call it the smoking gun letter from the bishop from the abyss cabal church, he was not encouraging the japanese to come into south dakota because he wanted to keep them in japan so they could proselytize. there was never any of that support. why they come into nebraska is the sugar beets and railroad and dumps them in right in that long valley. but i look at kansas and that's a large part because

geographically and top auger fee. -- top agar fee. joy: are there any connections through the sugar beet industry? sandra: very much so. there is a much more large population. one of the questions i asked and had to be careful how i ask is you have a rural community and everybody kind of inter-mary's. there was no real intermarrying between japanese and whites at this time. you have the picture brides and where are you finding wives? they would go to the denver area. certainly the nisei, when i started interviewing them, they

made the trip down to colorado and mix with that. also, during the teens and 20's and 30's, you eat rice, you've got your japanese food, where are you getting this stuff? was a dry goods store but there was also a truck that would be loaded with japanese food that would come up into the area and sell to the families. joy: john wood, you joined back in and had your hand up before. do you still have question? >> i wanted to know if you would share your personal background and history with us if that's ok . sandra: growing up, i like

history and nebraska was always about the pioneers. that was it. i never thought history was a viable occupation. so i came to it late in life. i actually worked out at boeing for many years. started taking night classes and then they said you can get your history degree and master's in the evening. that's how i got started in the history field. does that answer your question? >> are you a descendants of the original issei and nisei? sandra: i'm not japanese, i'm korean. >> i was curious if the population of japanese americans has decreased since so many

japanese americans have not taken up farming. the japanese population of nebraska. sandra: i'm not sure. i can only speak for the western part of the state. there were a few folks doing research in lincoln and omaha. i think some of them were used as strike breakers. you had businesses and packinghouses in the eastern part of the state, but i'm not certain because i focus mainly on the western part or into the panhandle. >> i'm curious about the episcopal priest. was that a japanese-american church?

sandra: they had their own service. one of the church is here in mitchell, nebraska -- >> does it survive as a largely japanese-american church? sandra: no. it does not. by the 1960's, when they started having children, they are going into college and they are baby boomers and going into college in the late 70's and moving on. i did ask, what is your reaction

to dropping the bomb. a lot of them came from hiroshima, so i remember that he was in national service, he was in the army, he was stationed in korea. this would have been early 50's. he took leave and went over and located his dad's sister and he could not speak any japanese, they could not speak english, but they welcomed them in he got to meet his cousins and they carried still terrible scars from the dropping but he felt there was no animosity. he didn't hate americans were anything. when i did ask, they would have been in high school when the bomb dropped.

they were like everybody else, just shocked when the news broke about the bomb. joy: at this time, i'm going to ask anyone on the phone if you have a question, press star six to unmute. if it doesn't work the first time, try again. i do see there is still a hand up. i will come back to you. i will come back to you, sandra. >> a supportive comment -- an american author, sandra dallas, has written the book on the beet farms. i think it is in eastern colorado, not so much western

nebraska, but is very much the same story that you are telling of the japanese working in the beet farms and support and prejudice from the small town in colorado. the author is sandra dallas but i do not remember the name of the book. sandra: when i was doing my information -- my research, most of the information i found came from egg journals because they would write some articles about the japanese, germans from russia, child labor and that mexicans because they were working in those fields. >> this one is fiction, but a good story. joy: ica comment -- agriculture journals in brighton, colorado?

sandra: this area still needs a lot more research. i just barely scratched the surface, but finding repositories that have documentation, that was another thing -- finding documentation, primary sources is really difficult. you have to go through the great western sugar company, through their records, that type of thing because if they did keep journals, if they did keep anything, they were destroyed because of the confiscation and that type of thing during the war. and they were of a generation that didn't really talk about a lot of stuff with their kids.

dawn: in america, we have this history of immigrant communities coming in and totally assimilating and becoming american and losing that cultural heritage from wherever they came from originally and then there's some sort of push to reclaim any sort of cultural heritage that is particularly important for that group of people. where is this group at on this spectrum that i have imagined more than anything else? sandra: i think they are aware of their history but you are not going to see a big japanese festival there. let's put it like that. the one thing that struck me was like in every culture was the

importance of food. at dinner with some of the nisei , they always have a thing of rice. so i asked do you guys keep in that tradition and most of them are like no. very few. there is only one or two that knows how to make sushi. the majority, no. they have completely assimilated. >> did you find any evidence of buddhist churches or temples? sandra: yes. there was christian and there was buddhist, and in that community hall, that eventually end up being a buddhist temple. there was a little side door by

the stage door that would have the accoutrements for it. but it was itinerant and he would travel around and he would come from denver but it wasn't services all the time. there are some that still adhere to the buddhist church, but the majority were episcopalians, were some methodists, and then you have a section that was buddhist. joy: brighton colorado has a very large japanese newspaper collection. sandra: i was told that during the 19 teens, there was a japanese newspaper, but as far as anybody knows, nobody has ever turned up a copy of it or

if any still exists. joy: are there any other questions? you have a question? >> you were talking about whether the nisei and their descendants are keeping up with the culture and food at all. what about language? is there any attempt to relearn the japanese language question mark -- japanese language? sandra: that's up to them individually. their children would probably be in their 30's, 40's. they will refer to some food items or something with a japanese name, but full-blown learning the language, no.

joy: thank you, sandra. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> american history tv is on social media. follow us at c-span history.