Wally Kaname Yonamine

Wally Kaname Yonamine is a multi-sport professional. Yonamine became the first Asian to play professional football in the United States (he played in the National Football League) and became the first American to play professional baseball in Japan after World War II. However, though he accomplished these great feats, Yonamine faced a lot of adversity, scorn, and obstacles. Because of World War II and the animosity between Americans and the Japanese that came as a result of the war, Yonamine, as a Japanese American, had to adapt to unfamiliar cultures and overcome prejudice against his ancestry in both the Japanese and American
environments/societies.


Yonamine was born on June 24, 1925 in Maui, Hawaii on a poor sugar plantation to Japanese immigrants. After moving to Oahu and leading his high school (Farrington High School) to its first Honolulu city football championship, Yonamine got his first public acclamation as an athlete in 1944. Eventually he was signed by the San Francisco 49ers in 1947 as a running back and became the first ethnic Japanese to play football professionally. However, after being in the NFL for a few years, an injury forced him to end his football career. Thus, unable to play football, Wally Yonamine turned to baseball instead and later became the man that changed Japanese baseball forever.

While playing baseball for the San Francisco Seal’s, the manager urged him to consider playing professional baseball in Japan. In 1951, the Yomiuri Giants signed Yonamine as an outfielder, and he became the first American to play baseball in postwar Japan. He became known as the “Jackie Robinson” of Japanese baseball (Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play Major League Baseball in the states and broke the barrier of having whites only playing baseball). Applying his football skills/mentality to baseball, Yonamine quickly became one of the most dominant players in the league. He would play hard and with immense intensity by stealing bases, running aggressively, doing hard slides, and by knocking down opponents. His tactics changed the way the Japanese would play baseball forever. Before Yonamine came to Japan, the Japanese had a more reserve mentality when it came to playing baseball. So when Yonamine arrived, the Japanese fans didn’t appreciate his hard-hitting tactics. They thought he was too abrasive and aggressive. The fans would hurl rocks and insults at him. However, Yonamine’s dominance proved far too great for the fans’ hatred of him to continue.
In his years as a player, Yonamine is considered to be the greatest leadoff hitter in Japanese baseball history. In his first year alone he had a batting average of .354 (anything above .300 is considered really good). In his career he won three batting championships and in 1957 he was named MVP (most valuable player). After retiring as a player, despite troubles of adapting to Japanese culture, Yonamine stayed in Japan for many years serving as a coach and manager. As a coach, he was responsible for changing how Japanese baseball was played. He taught his players the “American way” (American practices of baseball) such as hard sliding, running out bunts and grounders (hustling), and diving for balls. He taught his players how to be aggressive and assertive.

In 1994, Wally Yonamine was elected to the Japanese Hall of Fame. Even through his old age, Yonamine continued to be a role model. He made contributions to Japanese and American foreign relations. He will forever be a key figure in Asian American history. As both an American and Japanese man, Yonamine was able to make an impact in both countries/societies. In America, Yonamine was able to show his skills in football despite being Asian, and in Japan, he was able to his greatness in baseball through his American knowledge.




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http://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/profiles/26/

http://eastwindupchronicle.com/baseball-japan/wally-yonamine/

http://wallyyonamine.com/

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Denise Lee

Forgotten Heroes: The 442nd RCT and 100th Battalion

In recent years the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team and the 100^th Battalion have finally received some of recognition they deserve as heroes of World War II. The 442^nd was an a unit comprised completely of Asian Americans, mostly Japanese Americans from Hawaii. The unit is the most highly decorated regiment in history.

On February 1, 1943, following the successful training of the 100^th Battalion, permission was granted to form what became the 442^nd. In May of that year, training of the approximately 4000 troops took place at Camp Shelby in Mississippi. At first there was a lot of tension between the mainland (or kotonks for the “noise made by the coal which these "yardbirds" had had to shovel as members of housekeeping detachments at Army posts; others said it was the sound made by their heads when Island boys knocked them together”) and Hawaiian Japanese Americans (or buddhaheads that comes from “The Japanese word "buta" means pig, and "buddhahead" may be a corruption of "buta head," but it was generally thought that the term had been imported from Hawaii where it was applied to Japanese Buddhist priests who shaved their heads, and, by extension, to the Japanese residents generally”) because of various difference such as speaking barriers where Hawaiian Japanese tended to speak pidgin English while mainland Japanese would speak more traditional English. This fighting halted however after the Hawaiian boys visited one of the internment camps. Busses took the troops to visit both the Rohwer and Jerome camps. Suddenly the Hawaiian boys had a better understanding of what the mainlanders had been through and thus created a more united team. Katsugo Miho of the 522nd Field Artillery, 442^nd RCT said of the trip “the reception we got from the people in camp was simply astounding. Putting up a cheerful front to us. I don’t remember any of them crying to us or giving us a sad story. All of them were going out of their way to encourage us. When you reflect on it, it should have been the other way around. We should have been encouraging them.”

Following their training, the 442^nd was was shipped off to Europe where they participated in several missions. They helped to rescue the “lost Battalion” in France, suffering over 800 casualties (including 121 fatalities) to save a mere 211 of their white counterparts. They also were the first to reach the Dachau concentration camp and help to release those who were imprisoned within the fences. The following year the 442^nd returned home and was recognized by President Truman where he said “You fought not only the enemy, but you fought prejudice-and you have won.”

Truman's words may have been powerful, but they were only partially true. The fact was that following their return home, despite all of their heroic efforts, they were still discriminated against as members of the 442^nd were given honors far less then what they had deserved, if given at all. Only one medal of Honor was initially awarded to the members of the 442^nd. It took until the year 2000 when 20 additional Japanese Americans were awarded the Medal of Honor, many of whom posthumously. Also in 1999, the Go For Broke National Education Center honored the Japanese Americans who served during World War II with a monument in Little Tokyo, Los Angels. “Go For Broke” refers to the 442^nd's motto that comes from a pidgin phase that basically means to risk it all typically while gambling.

Also recently, Hollywood has tried to bring the story of the 442^nd to a larger American audience. Plays, documentaries, television and several movies have been made to tell the stories of these brave men. A recent adaptation is titled Only the Brave (2005) and follows the stories of several different men from prior to the war, through their time of service, to ultimately their return home (for some).

The 442^nd did many things that relate to the greater Asian American community. Perhaps most importantly, they stood up and fought for a country that had not been the most welcoming to them. They fought and tried to prove that Japanese and Asian Americans were in fact American and that deserved to be treated as such. Its is great to finally see that they are starting to be remembered for all that they have done.

Jerry Knaack

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_%28United_States%29

http://www.goforbroke.org/history/history_historical.asp

http://nisei.hawaii.edu/page/442

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:RP3d3yhYgYQJ:www.ajawarvets.org/campaigns/campaign_01_introduction.cfm+kotonks&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

NBA Legend: Wat Misaka

5'7”, 150 pounds, Japanese American. Wataru (Wat) Misaka doesn't sound like a man destined to change the face of professional basketball. In a sport dominated by height and non-Asians, it's hard to believe that such a man could have any success. And in fact, playing a mere three games and scoring seven points would indicate that he did not have any success. But his career isn't remembered for how many points he scored, it is remembered because he did play.

Wat Misaka was born in Ogden, Utah in 1923 Wat grew up playing basketball and eventually got the chance to play for the University of Utah. In 1944 he helped his team to capture the NCAA Championship. He then left school for two years to serve in the military. Upon his return he was able to rejoin the team, this time helping the team to the 1947 NIT championship. His play in front of the New York crowd at Madison Square Garden led to New York basketball fans wanting more. So much so that he was selected by the New York Knicks with their first pick in that year's draft. Later that year he got to play in three games, his only three games before being cut from the team. But in those three games, he did something no other person had been able to do. He broke the color barrier in the NBA (at the time it was the Basketball Association of America or BAA).

This accomplishment in itself would be enough to make Wat a legend, but that was not the entire story. Because he lived in Utah, he was able to avoid interment during World War II. But his success was not unnoticed by those in the camps. His success on the nation's biggest stage for basketball served as an inspiration for the Japanese Americans, especially for those at at near by Topaz. Though he did not have the same effect as his baseball counterpart Jackie Robinson who broke the MLB color barrier earlier in the year, Wat is still a significant part of both Asian American and NBA history. This past year a documentary was released outlining his story entitled “Transcending: The Wat Misaka Story” and has been making its rounds in the Japanese American and Asian American communities. It has also helped to gather support that lead to Wat's induction in to the NBA Legends of Basketball Association at the 2009 All-Star game. And so Wat Misaka may not be be a household name, but he opened the door for people of color into the NBA and inspired a community on his way to becoming a true legend of the game of basketball.

Jerry Knaack

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/sports/basketball/11vecsey.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wataru_Misaka

http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/7280/Transcending_The_Wat_Misaka_Story_public_screening_to_be_held_Friday

http://www.watmisaka.com/synopsis.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4nVa_NmcPc

Executive Order 9066 & Jazz

Shortly after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and during the Second World War, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the United States Presidential Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. It ordered all Japanese Americans to internment camps because many were assumed spies. By 1943, tens of thousands (approximately 120,000) Japanese Americans were held in internment camps and most of them were American-born citizens. They were forced to leave everything behind, including their homes, work, and belongings, and move to an excluded place. American’s anti-Japanese bias and extreme hysteria over rumors of Japanese attacks and espionage led to this hasty decision by the U.S. government. Although it violated the constitutional rights, U.S. put American-born Japanese Americans into internment camps without any question.


In the internment camps, Japanese Americans lived in harsh conditions including the “persistent stench of horse smells, the windowless stalls, and barbed wire fences.” Japanese Americans were simply punished for being “Japanese” and the psychological impact of being in captive because of their racial origin was appalling to all Japanese.

Living in over-crowded conditions, some Japanese Americans learned to make their own music, using whatever they had. In spite of chaos and psychological illness, Japanese American bands in internment camps continued playing and creating music because it distracted them from all the troubles and brought out pleasure. Using saxophones, trumpets, and other available instruments, they played jazz for dance nights, proms, graduations, and special ceremonies. Many were self-taught musicians and DJs who learned how to play music just to escape from despair and to unite fellow Japanese Americans. Music was something that gave them hope to survive and continue on. It was a way to express their identity as Americans. In order to prove how American they were, they sent their sons to fight for U.S. in wars and pledged allegiance to America.


Because Asian Americans were stereotyped as passive, reserved, quiet, and model minority, they were seen unfit with jazz, which is active, loud, creative, and emotional. However, they created the “Asian American Jazz” using Asian American contents in the lyrics, having political messages, and having Asian characteristics and sounds.

Executive Order 9066 was rescinded on February 19, 1976 by President Gerald Ford. Later, it was concluded that the imprisonment of Japanese Americans was based on “racial prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” The U.S. government paid $20,000 to each of the survivors and gave a public education fund to help ensure that this would never happen again. Japanese American Jazz continued to be popular and more people joined in to create songs, poetry, words, and music that told the story of Japanese American internment.

Insun Cheon.

Betty Boop's Hula

Hawaiian Hula

Although hula performance was actually a spiritual and religious ceremony, it became an entertaining dance form that expresses Hawaiian soul and history. Its origin is not exact, but Hawaiians think that it came from a Hawaiian god. Hawaii was a land that went through several hardships because of foreign containments and suppressions. However, despite all the difficulties living under colonizers, Hawaiians learned to cope with them by dancing hula and thus, promoted Hawaiian culture. When the Christian missionaries came to Hawaii, they condemned hula’s strong sexual and spiritual content because they believed that their God was the only one to worship. Therefore, hula was banned from Hawaii for a long time until tourists began to be interested in Hawaiian performances.

When the United States overthrew the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 and annexed Hawaii in 1900, the tourist industries began to populate and many tourists from all around the world began to come in. Because of Hawaii’s friendly and comforting nature, Americans who came to visit were mesmerized by the utopian environment that was so different from United States’ busy, materialistic, and stressful atmosphere. Working to promote Hawaii’s charms on U.S. continent, Hawaiian performers gained popularity and fortune. The women hula dancers competed each other for the “hula queen” title for several months and the chosen ones received a chance of stardom and fortune in the U.S. For them, hula was a promise of fame and glamour that is not guaranteed in Hawaii.

Hula became so popular and sexualized that the infamous cartoon character, Betty Boop, dances hula in the cartoon, Betty Boop’s Bamboo Isle. Before Betty Boop comes out to dance, there is a short live action performance of the Royal Samoans playing Hawaiian music and a Hawaiian woman who dances hula. After the live footage, the scene changes to a cartoon form where Bimbo, Betty Boop’s boyfriend, plays ukulele, a Hawaiian instrument, and crashes into a tropical island assumed as Hawaii. Bimbo meets the sexual icon Betty Boop, who is dark-skinned and wears the traditional Hawaiian dress. Her skin is darker than her usual color in this cartoon because she is portrayed as a Hawaiian woman. After having some trouble with the natives, Bimbo sees Betty’s beautiful and sexual hula dance. Here, Betty’s hula performance was very similar to that of the hula woman dancer in the beginning because the studio used the rotoscope technique for realistic animation. Hula clearly has influenced America significantly just by looking at these cartoons that transformed their cartoon characters into Hawaiian dancers.

Walmart and many other American stores continue to celebrate Hawaiian-related things by selling hula action figures. They made Hawaii and hula into commodities in some way. Hawaiian-style clothing that has a lot of flower patterns and bright colors are very popular in American culture until the present day.

All of these encounters between Hawaiians and American tourists cause an intimate relationship that makes both inseparable and dependent on each other. By consuming Hawaiian performances, Americans are able to relax themselves from the harsh urban life and industrial capitalism; in return, Hawaiians earn fame, money, glamour, middle-class life, and U.S. acceptance.

Hula was not simply a dance form because it represented so many things that cannot be expressed with one meaning. It was a bridge that connected Hawaii and the U.S. continent.

Insun Cheon.