Record 13/17 |
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Description
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| Saburo (Sam, Sr.) Kito Family by Sam Kito, Jr. My father, Saburo Kito, (Sam, Sr.) came from Osaka in the early 1900s to Petersburg. There he met my mother, Amelia (Okegawa), whose mother was Tlingit and father was Japanese. Both my mother and father worked for Kaylor Dahl and the Knute Thompson canneries. There was a large community of Japanese families besides ours in Petersburg: Kawashima, Ozawa, Kaino, Komatsubara, Ohashi and Oyama. On my father's side, there was our family and his brother, Tom Kito, and his wife, Lucy, and their children. On my mother's side, there was her father, Harry Okegawa, and her brother George, and his wife, Irene, and their children. After Pearl Harbor, I was only five years old when we were evacuated from Petersburg along with Barbara (3) and John (1), my family, my mother's family, and my Uncle Tom. His wife, Lucy, had the option of staying with their children because she was Tlingit. Although my mother, who was pregnant, also had the option of staying, she decided to go thinking my father would be with us. I can barely remember going away on a ship to Seattle. In Seattle, we went to Camp Harmony at the Puyallup Fairgrounds and it was there that my brother, Harry, was born. All the men in my family were separated from us and sent to camp in Santa Fe along with the other Alaskan men who came from Japan. The families were all sent to Minidoka. We didn't see our father for about three years. I can't remember too much about camp, but I do remember I had a friend, Kenny Arai, who died there of a brain tumor. I learned from reading the book Minidoka Interlude that our family lived in a barrack in Block 24. Six families lived in separate rooms in each barrack. My mother, myself, Barbara, John and Harry are in the block picture showing everyone in our block. After the war, my father worked at Anderson Dam near Jerome, Idaho. From there, my family moved to Juneau around 1946 for about two years. I went to the public schools, but was able to play with the St. Anne Cardinals basketball team even though we weren't Catholics. Some of my classmates were Don Abel, Johnny Ebona, and David Hollingsworth. My mother worked at the City Cafe and my father worked at the Juneau Cold Storage for Elton Engstrom. When we moved back to Petersburg, we were met by our good friends, John and Ann Kolstrand, who had taken care of our property for us. Our family grew with the addition of Carol and Amelia Jane. I stayed in Petersburg until I graduated from high school, joined the service and went to school to become a communications specialist. I ended up working at a NASA satellite tracking station in Fairbanks where I became active in the Fairbanks Native Association and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). I don't remember my parents talking about Minidoka except to say, "It was a tough time." My youngest daughter, Hope, read about the Minidoka Pilgrimages and said she wanted to go, so we went in 2003. It was very hot there. We saw the barracks, the few standing landmarks and the barren land which is now a National Historic Monument. She's glad we went there together and now we both know what it was like. Image Captions (All images courtesy of the Kito family.): Kito Extended Family in Juneau after Returning from Minidoka, 1946. From left to right, 2nd row: John Kito, Barbara Kito. Harry Kito sitting on far right of front row. H. Okegawa's Family, 1930. Amelia (Okegawa) Kito standing with glasses. Sam Kito, Jr. standing next to pot belly stove on a Minidoka Pilgrimage, 2003 Hope Kito standing in barrack doorway on a Minidoka Pilgrimage, 2003 |
Saburo (Sam, Sr.) Kito Panel
-The Empty Chair: The Forced Removal and Relocation of Juneau's Japanese, 1941-1951
-Permission to use this image may be obtained by contacting museum staff.
All images are the property of the Juneau-Douglas City Museum. No image may be copied, downloaded or reproduced without the express permission of the Juneau-Douglas City Museum.
All images are the property of the Juneau-Douglas City Museum. No image may be copied, downloaded or reproduced without the express permission of the Juneau-Douglas City Museum.