Women's History Month

ABOVE: Sisters Yukiko Yajima Furuta and Masuko Yajima Akiyama, at the Cole Ranch, circa 1915. The Cole Ranch was located where Oceanview High School is today off Warner Avenue and roughly two blocks from Historic Wintersburg in Huntington Beach. (Photo Courtesy of the Furuta family) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   Welcome to Women's History Month! Front and center in the image above from the Cole Ranch, circa 1915, is Yukiko Yajima Furuta (left) and her sister, Masuko Yajima Akiyama, at right. Yukiko's husband, Charles Mitsuji Furuta, is at left holding their first child, Raymond. Masuko's husband and fellow goldfish farmer, Henry Kiyomi Akiyama is at right holding their child.

   Masuko's body language tells a story. These were strong women who came to a new country and a new culture to create a new life.

LEFT: Yukiko Yajima Furuta at Senjokaku (千畳閣, "pavilion of 1000 mats") at Hokoku Shrine on Miyajima in 1912, prior to her leaving with Charles Furuta for America. Hokoku Shrine dates back to 1587 and is still open to the public as of 2022. Miyajima is a small island in Hiroshima Bay in western Japan. (Photo Courtesy of the Furuta family) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   Yukiko was born on March 23, 1895, in Hiroshima-ken in a family of five children and was the oldest daughter. At the time she met Charles Furuta on his trip back to Japan in 1912, she was 17 and he was 31. 

ABOVE: Yukiko Yajima Furuta after her arrival in California in 1913, on the beach at Long Beach. She had acquired western clothing before leaving Japan after her marriage to Charles in 1912. (Photo Courtesy of the Furuta family) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ABOVE: Yukiko with Charles riding in style in 1913. They are parked on the unpaved Wintersburg Road in front of the 1910 Wintersburg Japanese Mission, lost to demolition in February, 2022. When the Furutas bought their own car in 2016, Yukiko was scared to ride in it, the street was not well paved, and they could drive only twenty to twenty-five miles an hour. (Photo Courtesy of the Furuta family) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED  

ABOVE: Charles took this contemplative photo of Yukiko in 1914. She describes rural Orange County on her arrival as " a vast and lonely place." (Photo Courtesy of the Furuta family) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED  

   Yukiko and Charles moved into their new home in Wintersburg Village in 1913. She began to learn English from Charles, ventured out on the Pacific Electric Railway trolley into Los Angeles' Little Tokyo for shopping, and began to meet families through the Wintersburg Japanese Mission. Her sister Masuko arrived in 1915, after Yukiko arranged for her marriage to their friend, Henry Akiyama. Life in California became more familiar.

RIGHT: Yukiko and Charles with their granddaughter Marilyn on the Furuta farm in Wintersburg Village in 1953. This was after the passage of the Immigration Act of 1952. By removing race as a basis for citizenship eligibility, the 1952 Act, allowed for the first time a path to citizenship for the Issei. © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

   Yukiko held her family together and when they were separated after Charles was arrested by the FBI in February 1942 after Executive Order 9066, as were many Issei (first generation immigrant) men in Orange Couty. She packed the family's belongings and prepared them for their incarceration at Poston, Arizona. She endured life at Poston, rejoicing when Charles was finally reunited with her after more than a year. When the Furutas returned to Wintersburg Village in 1945, Yukiko helped transition their goldfish business to flower farming and they began again. 

   Yukiko watched her children thrive. Her grandchildren attend college and become successful in professional careers. 

   Yukiko watched the once rural farmland and dirt country roads disappear and change. She became a lifelong Los Angeles Dodgers fan. During her lifetime, there were dramatic leaps in technology, from early aviation to space flight and a man on the moon. Silent movies to talkies. Horse and buggy to freeways and fast cars. All American women gaining the right to vote. The dream of citizenship realized in 1952. A trip to Japan in the late 1950s to find her family had survived, but the Hiroshima she knew as a girl was gone. And before she passed, a formal apology and reparations from the U.S. government in 1988. Snapshots of a remarkable journey.

© All rights reserved.  No part of the Historic Wintersburg blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima. 

Sutra and Bible: Faith and Japanese American World War II Incarceration

ABOVE: The bible of Charles Mitsuji Furuta with his handwritten notes on the date and time he arrived at different prison camps. This notation marks his arrival at the military prison camp in Lordsburg, New Mexico, in September 1942. He was arrested after President Franklin Roosevelt authorized Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, and had been a legal resident of the United States for over four decades. Lordsburg was run like a Prisoner of War camp with communal barracks, a bugle call at 6 a.m. and lights out at 10 p.m. (Photo, M. Urashima, 2018, Courtesy of the Furuta family) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   The bible of Charles Mitsuji Furuta, Furuta Gold Fish Farm at Historic Wintersburg, is included in an upcoming exhibit, Sutra and Bible: Faith and the Japanese American World War II Incarceration, at the Japanese American National Museum. He was the first Issei baptized as Christian in Orange County and was an elder in the Wintersburg Japanese Mission. At the time of his arrest by the FBI, he had been a legal resident of the United States for over four decades.

   Charles Mitsuji Furuta held the bible with him after his arrest in February 1942, when he was taken to the Huntington Beach jail, then to Tuna Canyon Detention Station in Los Angeles County, then to military prison camps in Santa Fe and then Lordsburg, New Mexico, and, finally, to Poston, the Colorado River Relocation Center in Arizona, where he was reunited with his wife, Yukiko, and their family. He kept a small photograph of Yukiko inside the bible.

RIGHT: A notation in Charles Mitsuji Furuta's bible marking the time of his arrival at the military prison camp in Santa Fe, New Mexico in May 1942. He was imprisoned there roughly four months before being moved to the military prison camp in Lordsburg, New Mexico. He highlighted a passage in the bible. (Photo, Courtesy of the Furuta family) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

    Charles Mitsuji Furuta arrived at the prison camp at Lordsburg, New Mexico, less than two months after the "Lordsburg killings." Two California men in their late 50s, Toshiro Kobata and Hirota Isomura, were shot at close range by Private First Class Clarence Burleson during a two-mile trek through the Chihuahuan Desert. The men had been involved in a camp protest regarding forced labor conditions, illegal under the Geneva Convention as the prisoners were classified as "enemy alien."

   The incident prompted Spain, the intervening power under the Geneva Convention, to issue a memorandum from the Spanish Embassy to the U.S. Department of State. "...Shiro Kobata and Hirota Insomura, who were invalids aged nearly sixty years (60), former suffering from tuberculosis and latter from spinal disease caused by injury sustained while at work in fishing boat, were unable to walk any further, and had to follow party in automobile escorted by soldiers. Party felt uneasy about these two persons, as they failed to join them at Lordsburg Camp. Moreover reports of gun heard in direction of station gave them evil forebodings...It was announced by camp office next morning two invalids had been shot at dawn 27th on charge of attempt to escape. It is inconceivable that aged invalids hardly able to walk should while under military escort have attempted to escape."

   The Spanish Embassy noted the Lordsburg killings and other troubling incidents in an official communication to the State Department in March 13, 1944. "...a Captain fired revolver to urge internees to hasten their work, at another time an internee requesting a sentry to fetch golf ball which had fallen out of fence was fired at from watchtower, and on third occasion internee was fired at while within twenty feet of fence. During 1942 some 20 American convict soldiers were interned at Lordsburg Camp. Japanese internees requested Commandant to remove these convicts to another place, but request was not complied with. On Thanksgiving Day one of convicts, under influence of liquor, intruded into Japanese internees quarters used abusive language, sat astride Doctor Uyehara, and wounded him in back with a knife."

   It was a frightening time during which all civil liberties were lost and the threat of violence was real. Charles Mitsuji Furuta held onto his faith, and the tiny bible with the photograph of Yukiko tucked inside. The upcoming exhibit shares other items of faith held onto by those enduring WWII incarceration.

LEFT: The Furuta family finally was reunited at Poston, the Colorado River Relocation Center near Parker, Arizona. Charles Mitsuji Furuta (front row, far right) had been separated from his family for over a year. The Furutas were able to return home to Wintersburg Village in 1945. (Photo, Courtesy of the Furuta family) © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

   The Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles will host an online preview at 10 a.m., Saturday, February 26, with a "virtual preview of many never-before-seen artifacts that tell the stories of how Japanese Americans drew on their faith to survive forced removal and incarceration at a time when their race and religion were seen as threats to national security."

   "Sutra and Bible brings the stories of those faced with sudden, heartbreaking exile to light through an array of astonishing artifacts: from the prayer books and religious scrolls they carried with them into camp, to the altars, prayer beads, embroidered senninbari prayer belts, and memorials they handcrafted through the bleakest times, to keep their spirits alive."

REGISTER for the free online preview at Sutra and Bible: Faith and the Japanese American World War II Incarceration.

© All rights reserved.  No part of the Historic Wintersburg blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima.  

Executive Order 9066: The 2022 Day of Remembrance, 80 years of reckoning

   Eighty years ago on February 19, 1942, Executive Order 9066 was signed by President Franklin Roosevelt. This mandated the forced removal and incarceration of everyone associated with Historic Wintersburg, the Furuta family, clergy and congregation of the Wintersburg Japanese Mission. 

   By the end of May 1942, all Japanese Americans in Orange County were incarcerated at assembly, detention, and concentration centers. The majority were U.S.-born citizens.

LEFT: "Instructions to all persons of Japanese ancestry" posted on an Orange County telephone pole. (Santa Ana Register, May 11, 1942)

   On February 18, 2022, a Presidential proclamation recognizes, "Despite never being charged with a crime, and without due process, Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and communities and incarcerated, simply because of their heritage.  For years, many Japanese Americans lived in harsh, overcrowded conditions, surrounded by barbed wire fences and armed guards.  Not only did they lose their homes, businesses, property, and savings — they also lost their liberty, security, and the fundamental freedoms that belong to all Americans in equal measure."

   The national Day of Remembrance this year initiated on February 18 and includes a three-day program with the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. 

   WATCH: National Day of Rembrance: 80 Years of Reckoning. (click link)

   ONLINE PROGRAM SCHEDULE: Smithsonian's National Museum of American History program schedule and links (click link) to online programs February 18 to 20, including the opening program and six live-streamed panel discussions.

RIGHT: The bible carried by Charles Mitsuji Furuta, Furuta Gold Fish Farm at Historic Wintersburg, as he was taken first to the Huntington Beach jail, then to Tuna Canyon Detention Station, to military prison camps in Santa Fe and Lordsburg, New Mexico, and finally, to Poston, the Colorado River Relocation Center in Arizona. He was arrested and separated from his family within two days of Executive Order 9066 and was reunited with them over a year later at Poston. He had been a legal resident of the United States for over four decades. (Photo, M. Urashima, Courtesy of the Furuta family)

  "Executive Order 9066 sounds so bureaucratic, so government, so normal. But behind the blandness is pain. Behind the plainness, is grave injustice." says Koji Tomita, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to the United States in the opening program with the White House. "Why do we remember an event that caused so much anguish? We do so to remember those who suffered as a result of it. We do so that we will not forget the lessons we learned from those dark times. The significance of this American national experience is not confined to Americans only or to Japanese Americans only. It matters to all of us around the world who believe in liberty and justice for our citizens. It matters today and it will matter for all the years ahead."

LEFT: Tadashi Kowta at Historic Wintersburg in 2013, standing in front of the manse where he lived as a child while his father, Reverend Sohei Kowta, served as clergy for the Wintersburg Japanese Mission. Read the Kowta family's story, Reverend Sohei Kowta: The Sunday Before."

   Ambassador Tomita spoke about the strength of the relationship between Japan and the United States and recognized the years of effort by Japanese Americans to gain formal apology and redress, ultimately leading to the signing by President Ronald Reagan of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. 

   "This redressing of injustice says something about the fundamental strength of American society in having the courage to admit an error and right the wrong...The struggle for perfection amid imperfection---I believe this is one of the attributes that has made the United States a great and respected nation."

© All rights reserved.  No part of the Historic Wintersburg blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima.  

Our American Family: The Furutas of Historic Wintersburg airs nationally on PBS in May 2017!

Go to PBS WORLD Channel at http://worldchannel.org/programs/episode/our-american-family-furutas/ to check for your local channel and regional times.

Learn more about the filming of Our American Family: The Furutas at http://historicwintersburg.blogspot.com/2013/10/our-american-family-features-furuta.html

© All rights reserved.  No part of the Historic Wintersburg blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima. 

"Our American Family: The Furutas" now on Amazon Prime in the United States and Japan!

ABOVE: The Furuta family of Historic Wintersburg, on the C.M. Furuta Gold Fish Farm. Charles Furuta arrived in America in 1900.  He returned to Japan to bring his bride, Yukiko Yajima, to California in 1912.  They created a goldfish and flower farm in the peatlands of Wintersburg Village, now part of Huntington Beach, California. Their farm, along with the Wintersburg Japanese Mission, contain over a century of history of pioneer settlement and the pursuit of the American dream.  Historic Wintersburg was designated a National Treasure in 2015 by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. (Photo, courtesy of Furuta family, circa 1923).  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©

   Our American Family: The Furutas of Historic Wintersburg is now available on Amazon Prime in the United States and in Japan!

   We worked with the production team for Our American Family---providing research, historical photographs, and on-site filming assistance at Historic Wintersburg---in September 2013. In February 2015, the film premiered at the Japanese American National Museum on the national Day of Remembrance, prior to it airing on PBS SoCal and on public television stations nationally. 

LEFT: The Our American Family team, Michael Nolan and Bradford Van Demark, flew to California from their homebase in Nashville, Tennessee, to film at Historic Wintersburg and conduct oral histories for with the Furuta family.  The advance work and research was assisted by Historic Wintersburg author Mary Urashima and also utilized the 1982 oral history of Yukiko Furuta, held by California State University Center for Oral and Public History. (Photo, M. Urashima, Michael Nolan and Bradford Van Demark at the Huntington Beach Pier, September 2013) ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©

   Prior to it's debut in 2015, a video trailer was released in 2014, when Historic Wintersburg was named to the America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places list by the National Trust for Historic Preservation (watch the video at the March 20, 2017, post on our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/Historic-Wintersburg-Preservation-Task-Force-433990979985360/)

RIGHT:  Film actress Takayo Fischer---known for her roles in Pirates of the Caribbean, The Pursuit of Happyness, and Moneyball, among other films and productions---brought to life the voice of Yukiko Furuta for the film, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0279137/.  We thank Takayo for her gracious contribution to this effort. (Photo, Courtesy of IMDb)

   In 2015 and 2016, Our American Family: The Furutas aired nationwide on PBS stations, after Historic Wintersburg was designated a National Treasure (less than 100 National Treasures in the United States, Historic Wintersburg is the first and only National Treasure in Orange County, California).

   We are pleased to share the producers' announcement that Our American Family: The Furutas, is available internationally on Amazon Prime! Learn more about the Furuta family and Historic Wintersburg, along with the inspiring stories of four other American families. More information regarding the Amazon Prime release at (United States), https://www.amazon.com/Our-American-Family/dp/B06VXWQX8N and (Japan) https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B06VY6WMNB

Special thanks to the producers of Our American Family: Steve Young, Michael Nolan and Bradford Van Demark.  Thank you for recognizing the importance and inspiring story of this American family!  

All rights reserved.  No part of the Historic Wintersburg blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima.

"Instructions to All Persons": Day of Remembrance 2017 on the 75th year anniversary

   On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt authorized Executive Order 9066 which mandated the removal and incarceration of Americans of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast.  The majority of the 120,000 Americans confined in "relocation centers" scattered throughout the United States were U.S.-born citizens.  

   Those classified as "non-citizen alien" were confined at detention stations, and Department of Justice and Immigration and Naturalization Service prison camps; the Issei (first generation) had not been allowed to apply for citizenship.  Many---like Charles Furuta, of the Furuta farm at Historic Wintersburg---had been in the United States for over four decades, many since the 1880s. 

LEFT: An excerpt from The Spoilage describing the conditions at the Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston) in May 1942 as people from Orange County, California arrived. (Source: The Spoilage: Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement; Dorothy Swaine Thomas, Richard S. Nishimoto;University of California Press, 1946)

LEFT: New arrivals at the Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston) filling cloth sacks with hay, to make bedding. Barracks were constructed of green lumber, which dried quickly in the Arizona heat causing openings for wind and dust. There was no furniture or screens between families in the barracks, no medical services, and water and sanitation systems were not complete. The temperature was reported to be over 100 degrees in May, 1942, as people arrived.  (Photograph, National Archives and Records Administration, May 21, 1942)

   Everyone associated with Historic Wintersburg---the Furuta family, the clergy (Reverend Sohei Kowta and his family), the congregation---were forcibly removed from California and confined.  The FBI interrogations of Charles Furuta and Reverend Kowta occurred on the Historic Wintersburg property.  By May 1942, all Japanese Americans in Orange County were gone.

RIGHT: The Furuta family at the Colorado River Relocation Center (Poston) in Arizona. Front row, left to right: Kazuko Furuta, Grace Furuta, Yukiko Yajima Furuta (holding her grandson, Ken Furuta, who was born in Poston), and Charles Furuta. Back row, left to right: Dan Fukushima (husband of Etsuko Furuta and well known basketball coach in San Jose, California), Etsuko Furuta Fukushima, Martha and Raymond Furuta (son of Charles and Yukiko Furuta).  Dan Fukushima originally had been sent to Manzanar, but was allowed to join Etsuko at Poston, where they were married in one of the camp barracks by Reverend Sohei Kowta of the Wintersburg Japanese Church.  All the Furuta children had attended Huntington Beach High School.  Photographs from inside the camps were rare, as cameras at first were not allowed. This photograph was taken circa 1945, prior the Furuta family and others being released to return home.  (Photograph, Furuta family collection, 1945). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©

   In 1988, the federal government issued a formal apology, redress and reparation for the violation of civil liberties, as President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.  At the signing, he talked about meeting the Masuda family---congregants of the Wintersburg Japanese Church---in 1945 as an Army captain accompanying General Joe Stillwell.  Read more of this history at http://historicwintersburg.blogspot.com/2012/06/masudas-national-civil-liberties-icons.html and http://historicwintersburg.blogspot.com/2016/05/kazuo-masuda-memorial-day-program-may-30.html

   Join Historic Wintersburg and stop by our information table at the Day of Remembrance 2017, 2 p.m., Saturday, February 18, at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. More information at http://www.janm.org/events/2017/02/#18

All rights reserved.  No part of the Historic Wintersburg blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima.

Our American Family: The Furutas airing nationwide on PBS World Channel this May!

*UPDATE: MORE AIR DATES ADDED THROUGHOUT MAY 2016 ON PBS WORLD CHANNEL!  Air dates at http://www.ouramericanfamilytv.com/air-dates/

   In September 2013,  filming began to capture the story of Charles Mitsuji and Yukiko Yajima Furuta---American pioneers from Hiroshima, Japan---and their descendants.  With the recorded oral history of Yukiko Furuta, an Issei or first generation immigrant---conducted thirty-one years ago in 1982---the stories and memories of five generations of the Furuta family are brought to life in Our American Family: The Furutas, in May 2016.

    Interviews on film include then 91-year-old Etsuko Furuta, the daughter of Charles and Yukiko, born on the Furuta farm in Wintersburg Village, and Martha Furuta, wife of Charles and Yukiko's son, Raymond.   
 

RIGHT: Our American Family producers Michael Nolan and Bradford Van Demark capture an image of a bicycle on the Furuta farm, behind the Wintersburg Japanese Mission, during filming in 2013. (Photo, M. Urashima) © All rights reserved.

   The interviews with the Sansei generation--second generation born in America--include Norman, Dave and Ken Furuta, sons of Raymond and Martha, and the grandsons of Charles and Yukiko Furuta.  The documentary includes historic photographs of Wintersburg Village and Huntington Beach, and present-day images filmed on the Furuta farm.  

LEFT: Charles and Yukiko Furuta, with their first child, Raymond, in Wintersburg Village (now Huntington Beach), circa 1914. (Photo courtesy of the Furuta family). © All rights reserved.

   The personal history shared by the Furuta family is iconic for the Japanese American experience on the West Coast, from pioneer settlement of the American West through the traumatic upheaval of World War II incarceration and the return to California to rebuild a life.  This is part of the story of Historic Wintersburg, designated a National Treasure at the end of 2015 by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Washington, D.C.

   Our American Family: The Furutas was first screened in February 2015, on the Day of Remembrance at the Japanese American National Museum.  It then aired around the country, coast to coast, on public television.  Due to public interest, it is airing again this May during Asian American Heritage Month.

California air dates and times:

May 4 @ 4PM PT

May 7 @ 10:30AM PT

May 12 @ 11:30AM PT

    Watch the 4-minute preview and find the link for PBS World Channel (with local channel information and local times for your television provider and region) at http://www.ouramericanfamilytv.com/ 

   A feature from the 2013 filming at Historic Wintersburg is at http://historicwintersburg.blogspot.com/2013/10/our-american-family-features-furuta.html

ABOVE: Yukiko Furuta in 1912 at the Itsukushima Shrine on the island of Itsukushima (known as Miyajima), near Hiroshima, which is today a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  She visited the shrine before her arrival in America and shortly after her marriage to Charles Furuta, who traveled back to Japan from California for the marriage arranged through family and friends. Charles Furuta--who had arrived in America in 1900--returned to Japan to marry Yukiko, after saving his earnings and acquiring farm land in Wintersburg Village, known today as Historic Wintersburg in Huntington Beach, California. Our American Family: The Furutas begins circa 1912. (Photo courtesy of the Furuta family). © All rights reserved.

All rights reserved.  No part of the Historic Wintersburg blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima.

Our American Family: The Furutas of Historic Wintersburg airing today in both Southern California and in Northern California!

   Our American Family: The Furutas of Historic Wintersburg is on KOCE today in Southern California, 7:30 p.m. on the main channel.  Please check your provider listing for the channel number.

  Our American Family: The Furutas of Historic Wintersburg is on KQED today in Northern California, 11:30 p.m. on the main channel.  Please check your provider listing for the channel number.

   We hope you're watching California!  This is the story of an American pioneer family who helped settle Orange County, California, surviving tremendous civil liberties hurdles on their way to full citizenship.

   For a complete listing of public television stations across the country that are airing Our American Family: The Furutas, please go to http://www.ouramericanfamilytv.com/air-dates/

   To view the PREVIEW of Our American Family: The Furutas, go to  http://www.ouramericanfamilytv.com/

All rights reserved.  No part of the Historic Wintersburg blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima. 

Today, Our American Family: The Furutas of Historic Wintersburg airing nationally on PBS!

Right here!  Just scroll down to our April 27, 2015, post for more information and links to the stations, air dates and times across the country.  The producers' website will post new stations being listed each week.

This 30-minute program is for the entire family.  Learn more about the Japanese pioneers who helped settle the American West, in particular, Orange County, California.  This story moves the heart and explains the rarity and significance of Historic Wintersburg.

Our American Family: The Furutas of Historic Wintersburg on PBS nationwide in May 2015

ABOVE: Yukiko Yajima Furuta, circa 1913, at the Cole Ranch in Wintersburg Village within a year after her arrival in America and 13 years after Charles Furuta's his arrival.  The Cole Ranch---where Charles Mitsuji Furuta found work---was located where Huntington Beach's Ocean View High School is today at Warner Avenue and Gothard Street.  At the time this photograph was taken, California had passed the Alien Land Law which would have prohibited them from owning their farm purchased five years earlier.  The Furutas had yet to face the local impact of World War I, the Spanish Flu, the earthquake of 1933, and the forced evacuation from their land in 1942. (Photograph courtesy of the Furuta family) © All rights reserved.

      "I think nothing would please him more than to know that his family would be a family chosen to be featured in Our American Family."

          ~ Norm Furuta, Our American Family: The Furutas, speaking of his grandfather, Charles Mitsuji Furuta, Japanese pioneer who worked to gain his American citizenship for more than half a century.

   In May 2015, the story of Historic Wintersburg's Furuta family--relayed in the book, Historic Wintersburg in Huntington Beach--will be seen in homes across the country on public television.  

   A two-year effort with research and assistance from Historic Wintersburg, Our American Family: The Furutas will share the first-person history of Japanese pioneers who helped settle Orange County, California.  Nationally, May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

LEFT: The camera belonging to Charles Furuta, with which he photographed many of the images used in the book, Historic Wintersburg in Huntington Beach, and in the PBS program, Our American Family: The Furutas.  The camera, purchased circa 1912, survived the family's forced evacuation and confinement during World War II. (Photograph, M. Urashima, October 2013)
© All rights reserved.

Our American Family: The Furutas begins with an introduction to the family with a voice-over by Etsuko Furuta, a Nisei.  Etsuko--one of the daughters of Charles and Yukiko--was born on the Furuta farm in Wintersburg Village and attended Huntington Beach High School.  Etsuko has been interviewed for Historic Wintersburg and the Our American Family producers flew to San Jose to interview her for the PBS program.

   As the audio quality of Yukiko Furuta's 1982 oral history was poor for television purposes, Yukiko's words are given voice by award-winning actress Takayo Tsubouchi Fischer (The Pursuit of Happyness, Moneyball, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Memoirs of a Geisha).  

RIGHT: Actress Takayo Fischer graciously and without hesitation donated her time and talent to Our American Family: The Furutas, providing the narration from excerpts of Yukiko Furuta's 1982 oral history.  Special thanks to Academy-Award® winning actor Chris Tashima, who arranged for the introduction for Historic Wintersburg with Takayo Fischer. (Photograph courtesy of IMDb.com)

    Also interviewed for the program are Martha Furuta, the wife of Charles and Yukiko's son, Raymond, and their three sons, Ken, Dave and Norman, as well as Charles and Yukiko's great grandson, Michael Furuta.  The program's producers deliberately allow the history to be told solely by Furuta family members, with no other narration.  The result is the history of an American family, in their own words and from their personal perspective.

   With hours of footage filmed at the Historic Wintersburg property and on one-on-one oral history interviews, the editing process to condense the story into a 30-minute program was not an easy task.  

LEFT: The annual Manzanar Pilgrimage at Manzanar National Historic Site, nine miles north of Lone Pine, California, off Highway 395.  Manzanar was the first of the confinement camps.  Etsuko Furuta's fiance, Dan Fukushima--a Fullerton College alumni--was taken to Manzanar.  He later was permitted to join Etsuko in Arizona and they were married inside Poston by Reverend Sohei Kowta from the Wintersburg Mission.  The majority of the congregation of the Wintersburg Mission was confined at Poston, others at Gila River, Arizona. (Photograph, M. Urashima, April 25, 2015) © All rights reserved.

   Research relating to the forced evacuation and confinement of Japanese Americans during World War II--part of the Furuta family story--connects the history with places of American confinement at the Colorado River Relocation Center at Poston, Arizona, the Tuna Canyon Detention Station in Los Angeles (Tajunga), the military detention station for those classified as enemy aliens at Lordsburg, New Mexico, and Manzanar.  

   The effort to accurately re-tell that chapter of American history is difficult due to its monumental importance.  The Furuta family's account is uplifting and will leave viewers wanting to know more.

RIGHT:  Toshiko and Raymond Furuta, with their cousin, Sumi Akiyama (far right) on the Cole Ranch in Wintersburg Village.  Sumi Akiyama was the daughter of Yukiko Furuta's sister, Masuko, and Henry Kiyomi Akiyama.  Both the Furutas and Akiyamas were goldfish farmers, the first pond on the Furuta farm at Historic Wintersburg.  Sumi Akiyama married Judge John Aiso, who became the highest ranking Japanese American in the U.S. military and head instructor for the Military Intelligence Service language school during World War II.  A street in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, California. is named after Judge John Aiso. (Photograph courtesy of the Furuta family) © All rights reserved.

LEFT:  Alaska public television, KUAC, begins airing Our American Family: The Furutas on May 3.

As of May 6, 2015, the majority of the country's PBS stations are airing Our American Family: The Furutas.  The COMPLETE LISTING OF STATIONS--which will be updated weekly as more stations list programs--is at http://www.ouramericanfamilytv.com/air-dates/  To view the PREVIEW of Our American Family: The Furutas, go to http://www.ouramericanfamilytv.com/

Highlighted in green are the states whose PBS stations are currently showing listings for Our American Family: The Furutas starting at the end of April through the first week of May 2015.  Southern California's KOCE will be airing the program on May 3 and 4.  More stations and air dates will be listed each week.  Check for your local public television station, date and time of airing at http://www.ouramericanfamilytv.com/air-dates/

© All rights reserved.  No part of the Historic Wintersburg blog may be reproduced or duplicated without prior written permission from the author and publisher, M. Adams Urashima