(Editor’s Note: The following article was published on the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation’s Website, www.aiisf.org). Americans know Norman Mineta as the first Asian American in a presidential cabinet, when he was secretary of commerce under President Bill Clinton, secretary of transportation under George Bush, where he took decisive action after the attacks of 9/11, […]
NIKKEI ANGEL ISLAND CHRONICLES: The Angel Island story of Kane Mineta, Norman Mineta’s mother
September 27, 2018 by Leave a Comment
NIKKEI ANGEL ISLAND CHRONICLES: George Hishida: A Life in Photography Interrupted by World War II
September 29, 2016 by Leave a Comment
George Mioya Hishida immigrated to the United States from Fukushima, Japan in 1913 and developed a thriving photography business in Fresno. Unfortunately, reports from a misguided informant resulted in his arrest and incarceration away from his family for over a year during World War II. This story includes a copy of a rare letter he […]
NIKKEI ANGEL ISLAND CHRONICLES: Chie Takeshita: Success and tragedy
September 15, 2016 by Leave a Comment
“It was really a feeling of wow, this is America! It’s so beautiful with flowers everywhere. Then the shock of that room…” — Chie Takeshita Chie Takeshita was born in Oakland, California, on October 27, 1911 to Reisaka and Hiro Yazaki. She was the oldest of three girls and one boy in the family. She […]
NIKKEI ANGEL ISLAND CHRONICLES: The Shigenaga brothers’ detention on Angel Island and the continent during WWII
January 1, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Brothers Kakuro and Shigeo Shigenaga were both detained on Angel Island in 1942, arrested during a time of racial hysteria when many Japanese immigrants were captured by the FBI for fears they would engage in anti-American actions. They took different routes from Hawai‘i to the Department of Justice detention camps in Santa Fe, N.M., but […]
NIKKEI ANGEL ISLAND CHRONICLES: Nikkei family makes historic visit to see ancestor’s inscription on Angel Island
September 3, 2015 by Leave a Comment
「廣島縣安佐郡川內村町溫井ミヤモト 四十五年」 “Miyamoto Nukui Community, Kawauchi Village, Asa District, Hiroshima Prefecture 45th Year” The characters above are carved on a wall on the second floor of the former Angel Island immigration station. On Aug. 7, a group of 16 descendants of Masaru Miyamoto gathered on Angel Island with San Francisco State University Professor Charles Egan to […]
NIKKEI ANGEL ISLAND CHRONICLES: Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans on Angel Island
January 1, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The Oct. 4, 2014 Nikkei Angel Island Pilgrimage — presented by the Nichi Bei Foundation in partnership with the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation and National Japanese American Historical Society — sparked a lot of interest among Japanese Americans in their potential Angel Island roots, either immigrant ancestors or those who may have been briefly […]
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