July 6, 2006

Interned Japanese-Americans receive high school diplomas 64 years later

Clara Ichkawa accepts a diploma on behalf of her late husband. Photos by Jeff Frazee

By Jeff Frazee
Times Staff

Seven Japanese-Americans confined in internment camps between 1942 and 1945 were finally awarded (some posthumously) their diplomas in a ceremony at San Jose High Academy’s 2006 graduation held June 14 in the Rose Garden.

The group missed their graduations because of their internment, but because of a new law and the thoughtful work of a tenth grade student, they received their diplomas 64 years later in the moving ceremony.

As part of San Jose High Academy’s International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Program, Trisha Yamaichi, a tenth grade student, was working on a research project, locating students who had missed their graduation from San Jose High Academy because of their detention in the Japanese internment camps.

After finding the students in old school yearbooks, Yamaichi’s grandparents helped her locate seven students: Tayeko Yoshihara, Frederic S. Morita, Sumiko Kurasaki, Kazuko Kogura, Ruth Inouye Fukuda, and the late Karl Kinaga and John Santo, represented by their wives.

A graduate moves his tassle from left to right with the rest of the 2006 grads encouraged by the cheers of his peers who received dipolmas on behalf of San Jose High Academy grads who could not attend the ceremony.

Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the internment of 110,000 Japanese-Americans. Many of the internees were children, including high school students attending San Jose High Academy with graduation dates between 1942 and 1945.

Assembly woman Sally Lieber introduced bill AB 871 in 2003, now a law, allowing educational institutions to award diplomas subsequent to the date of the students graduation, if the student was forcibly removed from the state during World War II. The seven students from San Jose High Academy located by Yamaichi were invited to walk with the graduating class of 2006 where they were awarded their diplomas, albeit 64 years later.

All of Yamaichi’s grandparents were interned in concentration camps, and her paternal grandfather, Jimi Yamaichi, leads trips to Tule Lake, Calif., where the largest internment camp was, every other year.

An IB diploma must be earned in six subjects, and is considered highly prestigious, equivalent to AP programs, but on a global standard.