Marilyn Takahashi
Camarillo, Calif., June 1, 2016 — Marilyn Takahashi Fordney of Agoura Hills was six-years old when strangers arrived at her family’s rented home in Los Angeles and started removing all of their belongings.
“I was sitting on the curb as they brought things out of the house and I couldn’t figure out what was happening,” said Fordney, now 79. “They were taking out furniture and discarding it.”
The year was 1942 and Fordney and her family were being forcibly removed to an internment camp for Japanese Americans.
After spending time in a camp, a famous Irish priest intervened and rescued her family, but 110,000 to 120,000 others of Japanese descent, 63 percent of them American citizens, were stripped of their belongings and held against their will during World War II.
The stories of these prisoners have been collected, archived and digitized thanks to a collaborative project among all 23 California State University libraries, including the John Spoor Broome Library at CSU Channel Islands (CI).
The California State University Japanese American Digitization (CSUJAD) project is now $260,000 stronger because of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The grant, which was awarded this spring, is in addition to a two-year $321,554 National Park Service grant awarded in June of 2015.
The two grants bring total funding for this project to $580,000, and have allowed thousands more personal stories like Fordney’s to be digitized.
“NEH grants bring the humanities to life for Americans by helping preserve valuable cultural resources, advancing research, and supporting films and exhibitions that communicate the lessons of history and culture to new audiences,” said NEH Chairman William D. Adams.
Fordney told her story to CI Archivist Evelyn Taylor, who has gathered oral histories from locals of Japanese ancestry. With support from CI’s Head of Unique Collections and Scholarly Communication Matthew Cook, Taylor has contributed oral histories and other artifacts to the project, which is being headed by Gregory Williams, CSU Dominguez Hills Director of Archives and Special Collections.
“The Japanese American Digitization Project will allow CSU archivists, including CI, to provide poignant and soulful insight by the way of oral histories, artifacts, exhibits, and lecturers regarding the lives of more than 100,000 men, women, and children who were interned in 10 camps in the most remote areas of seven western states during World War II,” Taylor said.
Fordney’s story, which took a different twist than many of the tales, is among three oral histories being contributed by CI, along with other artifacts.
After being taken from their home, Fordney’s sister, father and mother were taken to a distribution camp in Santa Anita to await transfer to an internment camp elsewhere in California.
However, Fordney’s mother gave birth to a little boy shortly before being placed in the distribution camp, which was a collection of rude tarpaper barracks. The food served to the prisoners was not consistent with the Japanese cultural diet, for example, watery oatmeal instead of rice and fish.
Fordney’s mother worried that her infant son wasn’t getting enough nutrition from his mother, so she stole milk in order to supplement his diet.
Fordney’s father was Japanese American, but Fordney’s mother was half Irish, half Japanese American, so she hoped her Irish roots would carry some weight as she drafted a letter to Irish-born Father Edward Flanagan asking for help.
Father Flanagan was the visionary founder of Boys Town in Nebraska, a story immortalized in the 1938 movie “Boys Town” starring Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney.
Flanagan arranged for the family to be released from the distribution camp, and put on a train to Nebraska.
“We went on the train for two or three days,” Fordney said. “Father Flanagan came at night to the train depot to meet us. I remember he had this big brown paper bag full of candy. We ended up living in a farmhouse on the very edge of Boys Town.”
The family stayed until 1947, when the war was over, but no one in Fordney’s family was ever the same, always looking over their shoulders, wondering if it could happen again.
When it is complete, all of the stories, photos, recordings, letters and other artifacts will be available to all through a portal set up by the CSUJAD.
To connect to the CSUJAD project, visit http://csujad.com.
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About California State University Channel Islands
CSU Channel Islands(CI) is the only four-year, public university in Ventura County and is known for its interdisciplinary, multicultural and international perspectives, and its emphasis on experiential and service learning. CI’s strong academic programs focus on business, sciences, liberal studies, teaching credentials, and innovative master’s degrees. Students benefit from individual attention, up-to-date technology, and classroom instruction augmented by outstanding faculty research. CI has been designated by the U.S. Department of Education as a Hispanic-Serving Institution and is committed to serving students of all backgrounds from the region and beyond. Connect with and learn more by visiting CI's Social Media.