Oral History Interview with Alan Tanaguchi, March 18, 1995 (open access)

Oral History Interview with Alan Tanaguchi, March 18, 1995

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Alan Tanaguchi. Tanaguchi was a Japanese-American internee at the Gila River Camp in Arizona during World War II. At 19 years old, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Tanaguchi became a part of the internment program of the War Relocation Authority. He provides detail of life growing up in Stockton, California before December 7, 1941 and after, and experiences of bigotry and racism among his peers. He provides detail of his father being in the Justice Department internment group. He served as the dean of the College of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, and at Rice University in Houston. He designed an addition to the Nimitz Museum.
Date: March 18, 1995
Creator: Tanaguchi, Alan
System: The Portal to Texas History
Oral History Interview with Mei Nakano, March 18, 1995 (open access)

Oral History Interview with Mei Nakano, March 18, 1995

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Mei Nakano. Nakano is a Japanese-American and was an internee at the Amache Internment Camp in Colorado. She was born in 1924 in Olathe, Colorado. She provides detail of her life growing up in Colorado and various prejudices she received from teachers and classmates. They moved to Los Angeles, California in 1935 where she graduated from high school. She provides detail of the discrimination she and her family received in California, particularly after 7 December 1941. As notices were going out to other Japanese-American families regarding evacuation, Nakano describes her family’s preparations for the inevitable. They were evacuated by the War Relocation Authority to the Santa Anita Racetrack and in 1942 transferred to the Amache Internment Camp in Colorado. She provides much detail of life in these camps. Nakano returned to California after the war.
Date: March 18, 1995
Creator: Nakano, Mei
System: The Portal to Texas History