Internment and the Matsuyama Family
Sonoma, CA
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during WW2 precipitated
the 1942 internment of Japanese citizens and immigrants in the US. The
government suspected they would be disloyal and work as spies for Japan. Pearl
Harbor hysteria was coupled with an existent anti-Japanese nativism in
California. In Sonoma this was personally brought home by Georgiana Wallman’s marriage
to Frank Atsuo Matsuyama.
Georgiana clearly went outside the box by marrying a
Japanese immigrant. Frank, Georgiana and
their half Japanese children must have experienced prejudice and nativist
sentiments during their lives. Yet Sonoma County also demonstrated tolerance of
Japanese immigrants. (2)
I don’t know when or if Frank ever became a US citizen. If
he was not a citizen by 1924 he would not have been allowed to apply after that
on the basis of the Oriental Exclusion Act of 1924. Earlier, in a 1922 Supreme Court decision,
Ozawa v. US, the court ruled Japanese were not eligible to be citizens as they
were not ‘white’. If Frank had become a citizen before 1922, he would have been
lucky.
Frank had ambition and through his life developed a
multi-pronged professional career. He was not a one-dimensional agriculturalist
or truck farmer as many Japanese immigrants at the time were. He may have had
connections, the smarts and persistence to gain citizenship early on in his
life. Also, marrying a US citizen must have helped to become a citizen himself.
Frank immigrated between 1900 and 1905. He was 14 years old
in 1900. He married Georgiana in 1912 at age 22; so he either became a US
citizen upon and after marriage or he had roughly 10 years to get his papers in
order before anti-Japanese nativism resulted in Ozawa vs. US and the Oriental
Exclusion Act of 1924.
Georgiana reportedly lost her US citizenship upon marrying
Frank and had to reapply, see the 2/1/11 Gerald Hill I-T article. There is some
question raised in the 100 years Edition I-T article (1) as to whether
Georgiana was an immigrant herself (German) or whether she was born in
California. I have found no evidence that Georgiana was a German immigrant or
that she lost her citizenship upon marrying Frank.
Georgiana’s father George Wallman was in Bolinas by 1880. At
that time he was 28 years old; in the 1900 Census his immigration year appears
to be 1873, age 21. Georgiana was not born until 1886. Chances are she was born in California,
especially since all census records indicate her to be born in California. It’s
possible I have the wrong George Wallman in Bolinas but I found record of no
others. In terms of Georgiana’s citizenship history, she was California born.
Of the Matsuyama family, sons Louis and Frank Matsuyama had enlisted
in the army before internment. The
enlisted boys and later Alvin and ‘Little’ George (‘Big George’ was George
Dolcini), changed their last names to Wallman so as to avoid the possible stigma
of a Japanese surname. George Matsuyma’s attorney for the name change was A. R.
Grinstead. Grinstead had the same office space as the German immigrant Poppe
family, one later and currently occupied by Bob Parmelee.
Georgiana Matsuyama had been granted permission to keep the
three youngest Matsuyama kids on account of she was American. On 5/22/1942 this
permission was revoked. Son Little George, age 22, who was in the process of
enlisting for military service, was sent to Tanforan internment camp, the
former Tanforan Race Track in San Mateo, where the internees were housed in
horse stalls. George stayed until August when the FBI told him he had
been mistakenly detained. The Sebastiani cannery offered George a job. In June of 1943 George was accepted into the
US military where he served in Europe, Japan, Korea and Vietnam.
The younger children Virginia and Alvin were 15 and under. In
process of being taken from his family Alvin got pneumonia and spent 2 weeks in
the hospital, then was sent by Greyhound to internment. Virginia was there
about four weeks. The father, Frank Atsuo Matsuyama’s attorney, later was able
to have these interned children released.
A sister, the newly married Alice, to Charles Kemper, a
German –American in the merchant marine, moved to PA (to Charles’ relatives)
after Pearl Harbor and she stayed until 1943; afterwards she was allowed to
come back to CA on experimental basis to work and wait in SF for her husband’s
return from sea.
“Alice had to persuade her father to leave CA rather than go
to the internment camp with his children. Professor Matsuyama went to Denver
where he continued training police officers” in the martial arts, specifically
the yawara stick.
In 1942 Frank
moved to Denver ahead of the relocation and internment order for Japanese after
the Pearl Harbor attack. According to Gerald Hill, Georgiana went with him.
Frank worked for the Denver Police Dept. (2) The Matsuyumas
would return to Sonoma and find they were readily re-assimilated, even
welcomed. One has to wonder who was there to manage the children’s affairs if
the mother and father both left town?
Alvin later went on to join the military.
The I-T had this to say about Japanese-Americans: ‘The
experience of California in permitting Japs to ‘peacefully penetrate’ their
state until they became a menace to the entire nation has been observed by
other states in the union who realize that Jap farmers are also convenient
spies for their country’.
What a switch for the Matsuyama family, here you have
multiple immigrant American dreams ending up sullied by the same type of
state-sponsored oppression immigrants sought to escape from in the first place.
After the war, law was changed to allow Japanese immigrants
to apply for citizenship. Census records up to this time show Georgiana
Matsuyama as head of household with no mention of her husband Frank Atsuo
Matsuyama. Frank was not permitted to own land according to the California Alien Land Laws of 1913 and
1920. I have found no evidence that Frank ever became a naturalized US citizen.
‘The
government reported that during the war there was not a single case of
espionage or sabotage by Americans of Japanese heritage. The Civil Liberties
Act of 1988 was signed by President Ronald Reagan, conceding that the
relocation was prompted by racial bias. That measure provided some financial
reparations of a maximum of $20,000 for each survivor.” Gerald Hill
The saga of Japanese internment during WW2 is one of the
darker chapters in US history wherein mass racial and cultural bias resulted in
widespread prejudice, from the government and citizenry alike.
References
(1) Index Tribune
-5/22/1942 I-T
-100 years Edition, 7/1979, I-T
-7/24/85 I-T John Lynch
-2/1/11 I-T Gerald Hill Korematsu article: http://kathleenandgeraldhill.com/fred-korematsu-day-honors-interned-americans
(2)
Sonoma County library video of Japanese internee memories
(3) Sonoma Valley
Japanese-Americans detained during WWII
Note: No author
attribution, Gerald Hill probable author
http://news.sonomaportal.com/2006/11/02/pub-a-5/
Frank Matsuyama, who had
emigrated as a teenager, was a noted instructor of martial arts employed by
several police departments. His wife was a German émigré whom he had met in
Sonoma. Frank moved to Denver just ahead of the relocation order and set up
practice there. Two of his sons, Louis and Frank, had joined the U.S. Army
prior to Pearl Harbor and thus were not subject to relocation. Son George and
daughter Alice were not so lucky. Both were taken to Tanforan, even though
Alice was married to an American serving in the Merchant Marine. After several
months of efforts by the family lawyer and the backing of family friends in
Sonoma, they were released. George eventually enlisted in the Army and Alice
joined her in-laws in the east. After the war George took his mother’s maiden
name of Wallman.
In the immediate shock of the sneak attack in Hawaii, the vein
of prejudice, jealousy and irrationality surfaced across the West. The Japanese
truck farmers were among the most successful growers of vegetables in the
country. Through a combination of anti-Asian immigrant laws and restrictive covenants
contained in deeds to real property, usually they could not hold title to their
land, but either leased it or had it held in trust for them. These laws and
covenants that “title may not be held by anyone but Caucasians” were not
declared unconstitutional until 1949. Relocation gave those desirous of
capturing the farms, businesses and property a chance to purchase them at
distress prices.
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