PREFACE

June 14, 2014

There is a rule that the grandchildren of immigrants seek to find what their parents, the children of immigrants, seek to forget. In the case of the Japanese who first immigrated to the United States (the Issei), their children (the Nisei) had double reasons for wishing to forget their Japanese heritage. Not only did they wish to be accepted as Americans as all children of immigrants do, they also sought to put the memory of the relocation camps of World War II behind them. As one of the Sansei, born after the War, I was typical of the grandchildren of immigrants. I was proud of my heritage, especially on learning that I was a descendant of a samurai. I was also eager to learn as much as I could about our family history and name.

I have made an effort to teach my own children something of our family and they have always been very interested in learning about their ancestors. It is their interest that encouraged me to write this. The Tokuno family has spread far and wide and I have cousins I have not seen in decades. What we still have is the common bond of our family. I would hope that this book about the family’s history will be a significant contribution to the understanding we all need to have of our roots.

I wrote a hard copy version of this on the centennial anniversary year of the date (1899) when Tokuno Bunda arrived in the United States. Anyone of Japanese American ancestry should be very proud of what the Issei and the Nisei were able to accomplish in the first half of the 20^th century. Not only did they overcome the hardships that all pioneers face, such as hunger, poverty, hard work, and difficult living conditions. They had to face a much more dangerous problem: racism. That they made a major contribution to overcoming racism against all Japanese Americans, all Asian Americans, even all minorities is reason enough to be proud. They also helped all of us to become what we are today and that puts us eternally in their debt.

Thanks go to my uncle, Tsuneyoshi Tokuno and my Aunt, Haru Fukushima, for providing me with most of the information about the older roots of the Tokuno family. Additional information was provided by my father, Shiro Tokuno; my uncles, Tim Tokuno and Roy Ko; my aunts, Tey Oji, Lucille Tokuno, and Mary Tokuno; and my cousin, Albert Tokuno. Reference works used are cited in the last entry.

The plan of this blog is to cover the Tokuno family history from its roots in Japan, through settlement in the United States, the troubles of World War II, and the story of the nisei’s families until about 1965. A unified history is given in the first three entries covering the period roughly through World War II when the nisei began to go their own ways. The next seven entries cover each of the Tokuno nisei in turn, oldest to youngest, from their birth through the development of their families, with a small section about some of their accomplishments up to 1999. I hope that this blog will be of interest to historians, genealogists, or anyone who wishes to learn more about the Japanese American experience in the 20th century.

A note about the language: For all persons born in Japan, this history will give the family names last as it is done in Japan. For all persons born in the United States or their children, the family names will come last. For some of the Nisei, the names will change from the Japanese names given to them by their parents to the “Americanized” names they adopted as they grew up. Japanese words, when first introduced, are given in italics with a definition.

From Samurai

From Samurai

June 15, 2014

The Tokuno family is descended from samurai. As many readers might not know a lot about the samurai, here is a brief background. The samurai were the warrior class of Japan dating back over 1000 years. They were much like the knights in armor who rode around Europe in the Middle Ages. The Samurai were skilled in the use of weapons such as the bow and arrow, swords, and spears. Most of them owned property. In fact, the class started out as farmers who worked under a lord and fought on his side to protect common interests. Eventually, most lords were also included in the samurai class and the top generals became the “Shogun” who effectively ruled Japan until 1868. They were able to push the Emperor of Japan into a merely ceremonial role with no real authority.

The samurai were distinguished by their code of honor and sense of duty. Failure was not permitted and if they did anything to disgrace themselves, their lord or their family, they were expected to commit seppuku, a ritual suicide more generally known as hara-kiri. On the battlefield, they were expected to be courageous and ruthless, showing no mercy and expecting none. It was not just the men who were samurai. Any member of the family was obligated to act with the same code of honor as the warriors themselves. If the samurai brought dishonor upon himself and he had a wife and children, it was not unusual for him to kill his children and for the wife to kill herself as well. At the same time, the samurai were patrons of the arts who developed a sense of the finer things in life, such as music, calligraphy, the proper conduct of the tea ceremony, and “Haiku” and other forms of Japanese poetry.

Not all samurai were the same. There were different classes or levels of samurai. Some were fairly poor and had no lord to serve. These samurai were called “ronin” and they would wander around the country offering their services for pay to whomever could use them. On the other end of Japanese society, as already mentioned, were some of the most powerful men in Japan, the Shogun and those who wanted to be Shogun. Between these extremes were samurai who were lords of various ranks and power, those who were officers under these lords, and finally the majority of the samurai who were the “foot soldiers” of the lords’ armies.

It was the struggle to gain control of the Japanese empire that made for some of the most colorful history of Japan from the 1100’s up until 1600 or so. Among the most powerful clans during this period were the Fujiwara, who were able to marry into the emperor’s family and gain power that way. The Minamoto and Taira were also powerful families, arch rivals who by custom were the only ones who had any right to the title of Shogun. These families waged war on each other, combining the other samurai families in various alliances to fight civil wars through much of the ancient times. Many legends, stories, and plays in Japanese arts and literature are based on the exploits of heroic samurai doing battle for their lords.

One of the great leaders of Japan was Tokugawa Ieyasu. In 1600, at the battle of Sekigahara, he gained control of the country and named himself Shogun in 1603, beginning a period of relative peace and prosperity that lasted 250 years. His grandson was the one who imposed the policy of isolation, prohibiting foreigners from visiting Japan or the Japanese from leaving the country. This was due to a concern for the islands being contaminated by outside influences, such as Christianity. The rule of the samurai came to an end in the middle of the 19th century. In 1853, the United States sent a fleet to Japan to “open” it to the rest of the world. Up to that point, Japan’s isolationist policy had been rigidly held. Now the Japanese quickly realized the superiority of the American weaponry and machinery in comparison to their medieval swords and arrows. After signing a trade treaty with United States in 1854, Japan began a rapid absorption of ideas about industrialization and other aspects of modern Western culture.

These changes helped create an end to the power of the samurai in Japan. A new young Emperor, Meiji, had ascended to the Chrysanthemum throne and the last strong Tokugawa leader, Ii Naosuke, was assassinated in 1860. After a short struggle, the shogunate was dissolved, a “peasant army” of conscripted non-samurai was created, and the samurai lost their position of privilege in Japan forever. By March of 1876, the samurai lost their right to bear swords, a last symbol of their status, but a small group of them did not go without a fight. The Satsuma Rebellion was led by a samurai named Takamori Saigo from the island of Kyushu. The rebellion had its turning point in the city of Kumamoto, the Tokuno home city, when Saigo’s forces were delayed by their siege of Kumamoto castle. It would be interesting to find out whether any of our relatives were involved and on which side. The brave defense of the castle resulted in the last stand of the samurai in the city of Kagoshima. There a force of the government’s army defeated Saigo’s forces in September of 1877. The Emperor was now in full control of Japan and began the modernization of that country that was to make it a world power in the 20th century. The samurai were to become a part of history and Japanese movies.

Coming to America

Coming to America

June 16, 2014

So how did the family become samurai? Unfortunately, there is no information about that, but the history of the family can be traced back to over 800 years ago. There is a story purported to be of our ancestor, Sano Genzaemon Tsuneo. This story has been made into both a Kabuki and a Noh play. Sano was a samurai, who was a member of the powerful Fujiwara clan and whose family ties were linked very closely with the Emperor’s family. He was very loyal to the Minamoto family, one of the elite families who were able to carry the title of “Shogun.”

The title of the Noh play is “Hachi no Ki” or “Potted Trees,” translated roughly. The events in the play occurred during the Kamakura period, when even the shogun was not the true power in Japan. The power was held by a family, the Hoojoo clan, who were related to the shogun and ruled in his place. The shogun was now as much a figurehead as the emperor. Sano had been a member of the court of the Hoojoo regents and had spent much of his time cultivating the Japanese art form of Bonsai, which involved growing miniature trees and shrubs. He had been able to create a large collection of these bonsai plants and they were a treasure to him that was beyond counting. Some members of his family were able to cheat him out of his title, so as the play begins we find him and his wife living in relative poverty with only three of his precious bonsai trees remaining, a cherry, a plum and a pine.

One winter, a priest was traveling through Sano Genzaemon’s village during a particularly cold week. Now the priest was not well dressed nor did he act like someone who was important. He looked poor and bedraggled. He begged Sano for a bowl of rice gruel to eat. Not only did Sano feed the priest, but invited him to come into his house. There was not enough wood available to warm this priest, so Sano Genzaemon sacrificed his last three beautiful bonsai to keep the priest warm.

While they chatted, Sano mentioned his loyalty to the Minamoto clan in its perpetual struggle for control of Japan with their archrivals, the Taira. What Sano did not know was that this priest was Hoojoo Tokiyori, later (1246-1256) to become the regent of Japan. He was impressed with Sano’s generosity, honesty and loyalty to the Minamoto. Later, when active warfare broke out again and a battle was being fought, Sano rushed to the aid of the Minamoto. He fought throughout the campaign, joining the Minamoto and Hoojoo forces in Kamakura, where Hoojoo Tokiyori had established his headquarters. At the end of the bloody struggle, the Minamoto were victorious and Hoojoo Tokiyori saw to it that Sano was given the official name of “Genzaemon,” which means “guardian of the castle.”

There is no record of how the Tokuno name comes to us from the days of Sano Genzaemon, but there is a clue that the link between the modern Tokuno family and this legendary figure is real. This is based on a tradition of naming the first son of the first son after Sano Genzaemon Tsuneo. The first son’s given name must begin with the word “Tsune.” The character is (  ) and it translates roughly as “always” although the specific meaning would depend on what character it is combined with. It could come to mean something like “reliable” or “eternal.” The last male Tokuno to have this given first name was Tsuneyoshi Tokuno, who died in 1980. His son, Albert Tsuneyuki Tokuno, continued the tradition in his middle name for one more generation. Perhaps it will survive in some form in some future child.

The name “Tokuno” translates roughly into “Toku,” meaning “beneficial” or “virtuous,” and “No” meaning “field.” Combined, it is not something that translates well into English. The “Toku” is the same Japanese character as that of the Tokugawa clan, who ruled Japan as shoguns for over 250 years. The Japanese characters for "Tokuno" are: 徳野

As a child, I was told that the Tokuno family is the only one in existence. There may be other “Tokuno” families, but not with this same set of kanji. Since then, I have come across other “Tokunos.” Until the Meiji restoration, peasants were not allowed to have family names, they only went by the given names, which often meant nothing more than “oldest daughter” or “first son.” It is possible that people could have picked up the Tokuno name when they were allowed to add surnames. When I was in Kumamoto in 1978, I tried to find the kanji characters in the phone book, but there were none. I did see the kanji at a shrine in Wakayama, but there is no way to find if they are related to us or not. Until evidence to the contrary is found, we are the only Tokuno family descended from samurai.

There is also a family crest, or “mon” shown below. Only samurai were allowed to use such crests.

As noted before, the family was originally based in Kumamoto city in Kumamoto-ken on the island of Kyushu. They were vassals of the Hosokawa clan, the lords of Kumamoto. The first ancestor about whom we know anything was my great grandfather, Tokuno Tsunenobu (1846 - 1885). His father’s name was Kyuubei and his great-grandfather was Tsunenori. He had one brother who was reportedly killed by their mother because he was of poor character. If true, this was probably because he brought some type of dishonor to the family. As shocking as this may seem to us, remember that this type of killing was consistent with the samurai code of honor. It was not considered murder, but duty.

What we know of Tsunenobu comes largely from the inscription on his tomb in Kumamoto. He taught math at a college in Nagasaki. Nagasaki is across the Inland Sea from Kumamoto and his grandchildren remember hearing stories of him rowing to work across the inland sea. He was very serious, nearly single-minded, about the study of mathematics. There are no photographs of him and no surviving information about what kind of person he was, what he did besides teach, or even his wife’s name, although her family name was Maki. He was highly respected by his students, which was why they honored him with a large tombstone. Although Kumamoto was in the center of things when the samurai made their last stand on Kyushu, there is no way of knowing what side Tokuno Tsunenobu took in the Satsuma Rebellion or what difference it might have made in the family’s fortunes. We do know that he was raised to be a samurai, the last in the Tokuno family, but became a respected teacher. When he died, a gravestone was erected in his honor by his former students. It still stands in a cemetery in Kumamoto city. There are pictures of it and one can see the Kanji characters in those pictures. As of this writing, the words have not been translated into English.

Tokuno Tsunenobu had four children: In order of birth they were, Tsunetoshi, Bunda, a third child whose name is not known, and Shiro. Note that the first son had the traditional clan name beginning with “tsune,” and the names of the latter born sons basically mean second son, and fourth son. It is a mystery why the third child’s name is not known, but it was either a son who died young or a daughter. The family had a large holding of house and land, but when Tokuno Tsunenobu died, the widow mistakenly placed her trust in an unscrupulous family friend. He cheated them out of all their property, leaving her and her sons with nothing. In Japan at that time a “Hanko” was used to stamp a document to give the final authorization for any type of business transaction, just as we use signatures today in this country. The widow was somehow convinced to give the family Hanko to this so-called friend and he was able to gain the rights to the family estate. This echoed tragically what had happened to Sano Genzaemon. The fate of Tokuno Tsunenobu’s widow remains unknown, but it is likely that she died in poverty. There is also very little information as to what happened to Tsunetoshi and Mitsuo, although it is believed they may have died of tuberculosis.

The center of our story now switches to Tokuno Bunda (1874-1933), the second son, who was only 11 when his father died. Having survived to manhood, as a youth he joined the army for a time, possibly to seek a means of living. This must have been a humiliating necessity for someone who had been born the son of a samurai. Once in the Japanese army, he attended the non-commissioned officer's school. He was discharged in 1898 at his request and before the Russo-Japanese War began. He knew about the opportunities to be found in America and found a way to get here. Bunda and his younger brother, Shiro, came to the U. S. to find their fortunes in 1899. They found work in a cigarette factory in San Francisco, rolling cigarettes for $1 a day.

Both brothers were tough, hard drinking men who did not back down from fights. They had plenty of opportunities to get into brawls with men who did not take very kindly to these “Japs” with their funny looking eyes and saffron tinted skin. It was during some sort of brawl that Shiro was hit hard on his chest. He had been drinking and whether it was the blow or the alcohol that led to his getting tuberculosis, he became very sick with the disease. He was sent back to Japan where he died and is buried.

Bunda was now the lone owner of the Tokuno name and thousands of miles from home. In all photographs of him, he looks the same. His expressionless face is almost a stereotype for the “inscrutable” oriental. There is evidence that he was anything but emotionless, however. He wrote haiku, one so good that he had it framed and hung it on his wall where a friend, upon seeing it, praised it so much that Bunda gave the poem to him. It is very sad that none of these poems survive for any of his descendants to read. What else do we see in those photos? His striking feature was his handlebar mustache, framed by a rectangular face. He was of medium build and taller than the average Japanese, being about 5 feet, six inches tall. His eyes are bracketed by crow’s feet as if he had either laughed or squinted a lot in his short life.

It is interesting to speculate what might have been going through his mind as the sole heir of the Tokuno heritage. Did he think that he was obligated to make his fortune and return to Japan to marry? Did he think he should marry first and make his way as best he could in this new land? He must have had a great deal of pride in his name because what he told his children is now the only source of most of the information that we have about his parents and brothers. Whatever his thoughts, there is no record of what Bunda did around the turn of that century. He did find himself getting away from the city of San Francisco and into the Central Valley of California where he found some employment on the W. R. Hearst ranch. (William Randolph Hearst was a wealthy newspaperman who founded the San Francisco Chronicle.) Census records show that he was in Butte County, California, in 1900. He befriended other Japanese immigrants whom he met or knew from his army days, such as Karakawa Tetsuji, for whom he was to later name his second son.

While he had been in San Francisco, Bunda met Tajiri Usako, who owned a hotel there, and was shown a picture of Tajiri’s sister, Suye. She was the daughter of a merchant and hotel owner in Kumamoto, so her family was very well to do. It is likely that she lived a relatively soft, city life as a child. Pictures that exist of the young Tajiri Suye (1887-1956) show a pretty young woman who has a look of great calmness about her. That look and her unburdened childhood belied a quiet strength that would allow her to go to a foreign land and raise seven children. Around 1905, perhaps inspired by that picture, Bunda returned to Japan and married Suye. According to my Aunt, Haru Fukushima, he had been a soldier in the Russo-Japanese War, which took place in 1904 and 1905, and broke his wrist in the fighting in Korea. He either re-enlisted or was drafted back into the army after returning from the United States. After he broke his wrist he could not fight so he was discharged and was free to go back to the United States if he wanted. He did. He and Suye made the return trip to the United States in July of 1907.

Their first child, a son, was named Tsuneyoshi to continue the naming tradition of the Sano clan. He was born in November 1907, meaning that Suye endured the lengthy crossing of the Pacific Ocean while pregnant with her son. It was around 1908 that Bunda found himself back among the red hills of the northern Central Valley of California, just south of Oroville. He became re-employed at the Hearst ranch and there, a second child and the first daughter, Haru was born in 1910.

What did the young family do to earn a living in those early years? As most immigrants from Japan, Bunda almost certainly worked very hard. Suye helped by maintaining a spare lifestyle so they could save their money, for Bunda had a dream. He wanted to buy land and return to Japan a wealthy man with a big family. It was not going to be easy. In 1913, the State of California’s Webb-Heney Act made it impossible for a Japanese alien to own land. This was a purely racist act intended to discriminate against what many people thought was an inferior race. It was still true, however, that anyone born in this country was a citizen by right, so little Tsuneyoshi was legally the first American Tokuno and he could buy land. (Later another act made even this impossible and by 1924, no Japanese could become a citizen or even enter the United States.) It is almost certain that Bunda planned to make his son the owner of the kind of land that had been taken from his mother in Kumamoto. But it would take lots of money.

By 1912, Bunda had accumulated enough savings to buy a house and 5 acres of land in the tiny community of Palermo, California, just a few miles south of Oroville. Phoebe Hearst, the wife of William Randolph Hearst, wanted to develop Palermo into a resort area because of its similarity to southern Italy. (The original Palermo is a town in Italy.) The palm trees that still line Railroad Avenue, the old Hearst mansion south of Palermo, and the ditch bringing water from the hills are signs of her efforts. No one knows why the project was never finished. Bunda, however made good use of his new land in Palermo as a base of operations for contracted labor, labor provided by men whom he knew to be hard, reliable workers: the Japanese. Although he had to purchase this land in the names of his son and daughter, it was now Tokuno land and they lived in a Tokuno house for the first time in decades.

Bunda continued to contract labor, but in the 1920s, he began to plant his own crops, such as strawberries and persimmon trees. He also planted olive trees, which still stand on the property. He was establishing himself and his family in the rich farm land of Northern California’s breadbasket. Some of these crops were part of the Nisei’s pioneering effort in agriculture. They were told that strawberries, for example, were never going to be a successful crop because they required too much labor. Bunda and many other Nisei made such claims seem hollow by producing rich, tasty crops of strawberries through their hard work and innovative farming methods.

There were not a lot of Japanese Americans in that area, especially any whose children owned property. In 1900, census numbers showed 330 Japanese immigrant laborers in Butte County. Many of them did not marry and start families, but many of these men formed the core of the Japanese American community who eventually settled in the area. A small number of Japanese families settled in the Oroville area. The Ono family ran a dry cleaning store in town and Mr. Sakuma was a barber. There were also the Uchidas and the Kudos; not so many families that they formed any kind of major threat to the non-Japanese, but enough so that the Tokuno family was not in complete isolation. There were a number of other Japanese families scattered throughout Butte County and neighboring areas, but they did not spend much time together on a regular basis, distance and cost being major obstacles in those days. Besides, while trying to start a living for themselves, there was plenty to do around the house.

The original house stood well back from the road. It had been built before the Tokuno family moved into it. It was a standard farm house with four rooms: a small kitchen, a large living/dining room and two bedrooms. There was also an attic. There was no indoor plumbing originally, so people had to use out houses for toilets, and baths were drawn from well water heated on the stove. Later, they built a furo, or Japanese bath, just outside. There was a large tank used for water storage; water from the well was pumped up to the tank for use at all hours.

The outhouses were located over large holes in the ground that had to be re-dug every few years. The men would dig holes about 5 feet deep, then bring out gold pans before they moved the toilets over the holes. Remember that this was gold country. If there was a lot of gravel in the area, there was a good chance they could find some gold by adding water to the gravel in the pan and letting the heavier gold settle to the bottom. They never struck it rich. Years before, Bunda had been asked to sell the orchard so they could dredge it for gold, but he refused, believing that what he was doing was more valuable than gold. Of course, he was right. Still, the gold seekers dredged right up to his fence.

Over the following years, the house began to fill with children. The second son was named Tetsuji (1914-1996) after Bunda‘s old war buddy. Yuzo was born two years later, followed by the fourth son, Shiro, named after his late uncle, in 1918. As the younger children filled the house, the older boys had to sleep with the workers. Two daughters completed the family: Tey, born in 1920, and Alyce (1922-1994). The children ate with the workers, for at heart, Bunda was still a samurai and the father was like the lord of his domain. He ate before everyone else and in the privacy of the house, where Suye would cook for him special dishes of Okazu, sort of a Japanese stew. It had meat in it! The children often got only rice gruel with Japanese pickles purchased from the Japanese stores in Marysville, 20 miles to the south.

Dinner was usually a formal event and Bunda insisted that only Japanese be spoken at the table. He spoke very little English himself and when he spoke to his children he expected them to understand him in his native language. The older children had to learn to read and write English exclusively at school since they were not exposed to it at home. They also learned it from their friends and neighbors, who not only taught them English, but gave some of them American names. Tsuneyoshi became “Tony” and Tetsuji became “Ted,” probably because these names sounded like their given names. Yuzo, however, became “Tim.” Although Shiro picked up the nickname of “Sheik,” after a popular movie figure of that time, he continued to use his given name.

Bunda was a very strict father. Tim relates how when he first started school, Bunda told his teacher that he should spank his son if he misbehaved, but to be sure to send a note home, so Bunda could spank him again. He wanted his sons to be tough. He would have them put on boxing gloves and he would referee matches between the boys. If one of them got a bloody nose or got hurt and wanted to quit, he would tell them, “You’re a man now! Men don’t quit. Go at it again.”

According to his eldest daughter, Haru, Bunda was a “country gentleman,” who never got directly involved in labor, aside from picking light crops such as peppers and beans. Instead, it was his custom to take a nap each day in the early afternoon, sleeping for an hour or so when the sun was at its hottest during the torrid summers in the valley. When he was awake, though, he did work that mattered, planning his next venture, accounting for his laborers' hours, or figuring the family budget. It is also not hard to imagine him proudly watching his children in the fields picking strawberries, gathering olives, or harvesting tomatoes. It was very hot, hard work, yet all his sons would one day grow to own their own farms and watch their own sons proudly as they learned to work the soil to produce food for the tables of California.

Suye, on the other hand, worked very hard, taking care of all of her children, as well as doing all the cooking and much of the cleaning for the laborers they contracted to other farmers. When they were working on the Hearst ranch, Suye used to make miso soup in a big washtub enough to feed all 100 men their breakfast. In doing such hard work, she was similar to many young issei women, who came to this country as picture brides. They would be sent pictures of their prospective husbands in America, along with stories of the easy life in the prosperous young country. When they arrived in the United States, they usually found themselves with husbands who had lied about their economic situation and even sent pictures of themselves when they were much younger to encourage the women to make the long boat trip across the Pacific. Even though Suye had not been deceived in this way, her early life had not prepared her for the hard work of a farmer’s wife, yet she did it.

When they first bought the land, there were many rocks on it and Suye helped to clear the smaller ones, loading them into her apron and struggling to get to the edge of the field where she would drop them into the neighboring property. As it happened, Bunda wound up buying the neighbor’s property, so poor Suye would have to go through the same laborious process all over again. Apparently this happened more than once at which point Suye might have humbly asked if Bunda planned to continue to expand his holdings. When the land was planted to orchards, those rocks she hauled were use to control the water flow in the irrigation ditches.

All of the older children knew what it was like to go to bed exhausted from having worked in the fields all day. Life was not all drudgery, though. Sunday was always a day of rest. Occasionally, on Sundays, Bunda would take them out to the banks of the Feather River, fishing poles in hand, to try to catch some of the perch or bass that thrived in the clean streams of Northern California in those days. They would pack a picnic lunch and eat on the riverbank, the children dangling their skinny brown legs in the cool water as they nibbled on musubi and takuan. About once a year they would go south to the big city of Sacramento and would occasionally pose for a family portrait. In those photographs that have come down to us, they certainly appear to be a happy and well to do family. There is a look of serene satisfaction on all faces except that of Bunda, who--as noted earlier--looked as inscrutable as any legendary samurai warrior had ever been. Life in those days was very different, especially life on a farm. Tony’s diary tells about how they did not buy new shoes. When shoes got worn, they were repaired at home using a shoe stand, leather, and nails. There was no television, of course, so entertainment had to be outside of the home. The major event was going to the “picture shows” in Oroville. Tony noted that sometimes they would put in a hard day’s work picking strawberries, peaches and plums nearer to town so they could see the movies afterwards. Once in a while the whole family would go to a special event, such as the time in September of 1923 they drove to Chico to see the circus.

Still very much Japanese, the Tokuno family observed the various celebrations of their motherland. New Year’s Day was always a major event, far exceeding Christmas as the most important holiday. A day or two before, the men would perform “mochitsuki” pounding the sweet rice to make mochi cakes. On January 1^st, the Japanese families in the community would visit one another to wish everyone a happy New Year. By the middle of the 1920s, several families were involved: the Onos, Sakumas, Uchidas, and Kudos already mentioned; but there were also the Kimuras, Mishimas, Inouyes, Tokuyamas, and Tominagas. Besides that holiday, they also observed other Japanese occasions, such as hanamatsuri, the cherry blossom festival, and the bon-odori, the Japanese festival to honor their ancestors.

The contract laborers came and went, mostly anonymous single men, seeking their fortunes. Eventually, the Japanese were replaced by Filipino workers, and even later, Mexicans. At the peak of the harvest there were as many as 80 men living in shacks behind the house. At one point, Bunda owned three different camps, one at their homestead and two others supervised by his trusted comrades, Mr. Agima and Mr. Fujiwara. One of the laborers was Yonesuke Ide, or Ideochan as he came to be known. He was more like a member of the family than a laborer as his friendship with Bunda was long standing. In the early 20s, Ide was living in the Bay Area and Bunda stopped by to ask him what he was doing. Ide said, “Not much,” so Bunda asked him to come to Palermo to help out. He slept in the main house and often shared a bed with one of the boys. He worked hard, never spoke much, and would sit in a corner of the room rolling cigarettes out of Bull Durham tobacco. He became like an uncle to the boys and, later, almost a grandfather to Tony’s children. In some ways he took better care of the children than Bunda did.

The family prospered in their little corner of the fertile Valley. They were not only accepted but well liked by most of their “hakujin” (Caucasian) neighbors. As was true for the times, there were people in the community who did not like the “Japs” and would call the children derogatory names, but there were very few cases where there was much discrimination.  This was in distinct contrast to what happened in many other communities in the West.

As with almost all of the Japanese immigrants who came to California, it was Bunda’s dream to return to his native land once his fortune was assured, wife and children at hand. As with most who achieved the dream of family, he began to realize that his children were better served by staying in America, where they were now citizens, speaking the language of the hakujin despite his strictures. He and Suye came to believe that they were raising solid Americans who would soon prosper and contribute to this country which could give them so many blessings. As the children grew, it became obvious to their parents that true success in this country was going to be dependent upon one thing: education. After all, Bunda’s father had been a teacher. Each son and each daughter completed high school in good time. It was very rare in those days for young people to go to college, as it was a privilege that was affordable only to the wealthy. The fact that most of them were able to go to college is part of the continuing story of the value of hard work and persistence among the nisei. They would need all of that as they soon were to face a major obstacle to their success in the United States of America.

The War Years

The War Years

June 17, 2014 

In 1933, the first of the children married. Haru had met a young Japanese national named Fukushima Kozo and they married on June 18, 1933. The joy of this union was soon overshadowed by the death of Bunda. It was only three days after Haru’s wedding when Bunda was talking to Suye as he laid down to take his usual nap. He asked her for a glass of water. Suye, knowing his love of alcohol, especially sake (rice wine), asked him if he would prefer sake. He said, no he was thirsty for water, so she dutifully brought him a glass. He drank it, then rolled over to sleep, gave a slight moan, then passed quietly away of a heart attack. He was laid to rest in the Oroville cemetery, which was to become the site of the family plot, just a few miles north of the farm that Bunda had worked so hard to secure for his family.

Bunda’s untimely death meant that responsibility for the farm and the labor camp fell upon his still relatively young widow—she was only 46-- and his eldest son, who was by then 26 and more than up to the duties he would have to carry. Tony was a full American citizen who had become used to leading his brothers and sisters into the uncharted paths of the nisei life. He took on the task with industry, doing all that his father had done before him: planning the crops, contracting the workers, and managing the finances. Eventually he remodeled the house so that the kitchen was more modern and spacious, adding an indoor bathroom, and extra bedrooms. At the time of his father’s death, he was engaged to Michiko (Mary) Uyeno. The wedding was postponed for a year out of respect for his father’s passing. This was customary. They had already postponed it one year because of the death of Mary’s father. The following year, on December 2, 1934 they finally married and a third generation of sansei was begun soon after.

The passing of the homestead to Tony marked the beginning of a transition for the Tokuno family as Suye took the role of matriarch and the children began to leave to seek their fortunes in the larger world. At the time of Tony’s wedding, Haru had already married and left for Los Angeles, later moving to Japan with her husband. Ted was still single and carefree at the age of 20. Tim went away to college as a freshman at Chico State, then later at Sacramento City College, where Shiro would follow in three years. It was only a matter of time before the two youngest girls also left the nest. Suye even felt relaxed enough about their fortunes that she made a trip to Japan in September of 1938 to see Haru, bringing back a bike for her first grandson, Albert. The future seemed to be lit before them in bright prosperity. That brightness was about to be dimmed by the shadows of war.

News of that time was ominous as the world became more and more troubled over the belligerence of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The hostile actions of these nations against their neighbors soon placed most of the world into the most catastrophic war that has ever been fought. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The next day the United States of America declared war on Japan. In California, where there had always been overt racism against Americans of Japanese ancestry, the outcry after the attack was frightening. While part of this was due to a genuine fear that the Japanese might attack and the Japanese Americans might help them, most of it was caused by the stereotyped belief that the Japanese were naturally sneaky and could not be trusted--that they would never be true “Americans.”

Tony and Ted, the only Tokuno Nisei who were still living in Palermo, had gone fishing on the morning of December 7. Mary was at home doing the ironing when she heard news of the attack on the radio. Her usual calm demeanor was broken temporarily by lines of worry as to what this could mean for the Tokuno family. Tony and Ted already had some sense of this, for that morning, as they were fishing, they were stopped by the deputy sheriff’s men, who confiscated their knives, hooks and rods. It must have suddenly become a crime to own such things if you were a Japanese American, because they were put into jail for one night, until their friends were able to get them out. A few weeks later, they were also required to turn in their radio and cameras.

They did not have to wait long to see what their fellow Americans thought. An editorial from the Los Angeles in 1942 captured the mood:

“A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched. A leopard’s spots are the same and its disposition is the same wherever it is whelped. So a Japanese-American, born of Japanese parents, nurtured upon Japanese traditions, living in a transplanted Japanese atmosphere and thoroughly inoculated with Japanese thoughts, Japanese ideas and Japanese ideals, notwithstanding his nominal brand of accidental citizenship, almost inevitably and with the rarest of exceptions grows up to be a Japanese, not an American in his thoughts, in his ideas, and in his ideals, and himself is a potential and menacing, if not an actual, danger to our country unless properly supervised, controlled and, as it were, hamstrung.”

As if in response to the suggestion of this editorial and certainly in response to the general belief of many Americans, it was not long into 1942 that the President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. This meant that the U. S. Government declared all persons of Japanese descent living on the West Coast to be a threat to national security. They were ordered to leave or face mass evacuation and internment, or what the government called “relocation.” Note that most of these people--all of the Nisei and their children--were American citizens with the rights of due process guaranteed to them under the constitution. This meant they legally could not be imprisoned without a trial, they could not be tried without knowing what crime they were accused of committing, and they had right to be tried by their peers. None of this mattered. Although they had done nothing wrong, were not charged with any crime and were given no trial, they were being imprisoned in complete violation of the U. S. Constitution.

When the Executive Order first came out in February, it appeared that the Tokuno family would not be affected. The government established a high security area and any Japanese-Americans, whether citizens or aliens, who lived within the boundaries of that area would be forced to leave. Any person of Japanese ancestry could be shot if they remained in that area after the evacuation had been completed. At first, Palermo was outside of those boundaries. Even outside of the area heavy restrictions were placed on Japanese Americans. There was a curfew of 8:00 p.m. and no one was allowed to leave the area within a 25 mile radius of their home. Shiro was trying to finish college at the University of California and Alyce was completing a two year degree at Yuba College. Neither of them could leave Palermo to attend their graduation ceremonies. Then, in June, the order was changed to include all of California, Washington, and Oregon. The family would have to move within a month.

It was a gloomy time. The outbreak of war had caused all of the Tokuno family savings, which had been deposited in Japanese banks, to be lost. Now they were faced with having to leave many of their possessions behind. They would have to leave the land and house Bunda had built and in which they had lived for 30 years. Many of their fellow Japanese Americans were to lose all of their property because of this “relocation.” Suye was very concerned about the family. Those still in Palermo faced great hardships and potential losses. Tony and Mary had three young sons, Albert (born October 16, 1935), Douglas Bunda (born July 22, 1938) and Edmond Mitsuo (born July 23, 1940). But half of her children were not with her. Eldest daughter, Haru, was in Japan where the family had lost contact with her. Tim had joined the army. Tey, who had just married Henry Imaoka despite the uncertainty of the times, was not with the family.

They had very little time to do everything that needed to be done before they were evacuated. It was fortunate that they had become good friends with their neighbors, who turned out to be loyal and stood by them in this time of need. The Weidmans, Spencers, and Hendersons, among others, all agreed to look after the house and farm for the Tokuno family, safeguarding it for the uncertain future. The Spencers leased the land and the house and Charles Weidman was the one who drove the family to the bus station in Oroville for their trip away from home. True Spencer agreed to take care of the olive orchards and Frank Henderson of the persimmon trees. Still, Tony had to try to sell all of their farm equipment since he had no idea when they might return, if ever. Needless to say, he did not get a very good price for any of it, but it was better than leaving it to rust to worthlessness.

In July 1942, the family was sent by train to Tule Lake, far in the northeastern mountains of California. Ten of them made the trip: Suye and her children, Tony, Ted, Shiro, and Alyce; Tony’s family consisting of his wife and three sons; and Ideochan. The rules dictated that they could only take “what can be carried in two hands.” Lacking suitcases, Mary fashioned duffel bags out of old mattress covers so they could carry their belongings. They had to catch a Greyhound bus from Oroville to Chico, where they boarded a Southern Pacific train for camp, the trains windows blinded so they could not see the passing scenery. Ironically, the train to Tule Lake passed through Weed, in northern California. Doug’s future wife, Carmen, lived there as a young girl and she remembered her mother telling her not to associate with the passenger’s on the train because they were “bad” people.

They found themselves in a desolate location in what was, geographically, high mountain desert country. A facility had hastily been built there by the Army. These were referred to as relocation “camps,” but were in most ways actually prisons. High fences, filled with barbed wire surrounded all of them. Soldiers stood guard 24 hours a day and some of them manned guard towers complete with searchlights and machine guns. There were a total of ten camps, generally located on uninhabitable federal lands, such as deserts or swamps, scattered throughout the west and deep in the nation’s interior. At the peak of this “War Relocation Authority program,” each camp held from 8000 to 20,000 internees. Tule Lake was typical of such camps. The walls of each barracks building was made of boards only an inch thick and covered with black tar paper. Later, before winter, the inside walls were covered with sheet rock. It was poor insulation for the bitter cold of Northern California winters at an elevation of 4000 feet, with the icy wind rampaging through any cracks. In the summer it was supressingly hot and the dirt and dust pushing through those same thin walls made cleanliness next to impossible. The camp was built on a dry lakebed with no vegetation to keep the dust from blowing. (Later, the women found that could go out and collect seashells out of which they made jewelry.)

Each building was divided into five rooms, each one about 16’ x 20’ or the size of a large living room. The Tokuno family was given two rooms, Tony’s family of five occupied one (Barracks 4405B) and Suye, her other three offspring, and Ideochan occupied the other (4405A). Each room was barely large enough for five beds to fit. The beds were steel cots covered with straw filled mattresses. The women hung blankets so they could divide the space for privacy. They could cook their own food on a pot bellied coal stove or eat in the camp mess, just like soldiers did. The latrines were also communal, as in the army, so there was little privacy for bathing or other functions.

At this disgraceful time in our nation’s history, the Japanese Americans as a whole distinguished themselves by their dignity and honorable behavior. Almost all of them resisted the urge to become bitter or hateful. Instead they became determined to prove that they were real Americans. Many of the men volunteered to serve in the U. S. army.

Unfortunately, the camp at Tule Lake became the site for the one reactionary movement in any of the camps. This movement was triggered by a demand of the U. S. government. To assure their loyalty, the government had asked the Japanese-Americans to sign a loyalty oath consisting of several questions. Two questions were what created controversy in all camps. One asked: “Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United State on combat duty, when ordered?” The other asked: “Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United States of America and faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack by foreign or domestic forces, and forswear any form of allegiance to the Japanese Emperor or any other foreign government, power or organization?” Both questions were insulting to the young men and women who were, by constitutional birthright, citizens of the United States. To answer “no” to both questions was one way of showing one’s anger over the insult. It was also a step toward being sent back to Japan. In most camps to answer “no” to both questions was a minority action and these men were named “No-No Boys.” A large block of the Nisei in Tule Lake answered this way, however. Many were expatriated to Japan, but not before the camp was split into two by these questions of loyalty.

The Tokuno family was among those who maintained their loyalty to America and became the target of criticism and verbal abuse from the other side. At camp meetings the internees heatedly debated the merits of the loyalty oath. One night, Suye made an impassioned speech urging her fellow Japanese Americans to remain loyal to the United States. This placed them clearly on one side of the issue. They were called “dogs,” “inu,” a serious insult among the Japanese, who are known for their politeness and courtesy. Tony, Ted, and Shiro began carrying pipes around the camp to make sure they were prepared for any “problems” that their resolute stand had created for them. After Alyce was seen filling out the loyalty oath, the family found chicken bones--a sign of insult and degradation--strung outside of their quarters.

Why did our family maintain such strong loyalties to America when so many of the other Japanese Americans in Tule Lake were in strong opposition to them? Partly, it was because of the samurai tradition of honor and loyalty. America, despite the camps, had earned their allegiance by giving them an opportunity to restore the family’s pride as successful landowners. It also helped that their friends and neighbors in Palermo had shown them how Americans could be capable of warmth, acceptance, and generosity.

When some of the internees rebelled openly, the camp was converted to a center for all those who were to be sent to Japan. Those loyal to America had to be sent elsewhere. The Tokuno family was sent to the camp in Topaz, Utah, along with 500 other internees. Eventually nearly 1500 were sent to Topaz from Tule Lake. The year was 1943. The date was September 7. This was a welcome move as Tony and Shiro had already left to work in the farms in Utah. Topaz was a much better camp. Not only were the animosities of Tule Lake left far behind, but they could come and go, since it was not located in the restricted zone of California. A pass was all they needed to go into the nearby town. By the time they arrived in Topaz, the second son, Ted, was already engaged to Lucille Tanaka, whom he had met in Tule Lake, and they wed in the camp in September 1944. Shiro joined the army in the footsteps of his older brother. Tim served in the famous 442nd Combat Battalion in Italy and Shiro served in the top secret Military Intelligence Service in the Philippines. By 1945, the Tokuno family was able to return to their home in Palermo and by that time, the story had become not one of the original family, but the family of Tony and Mary Tokuno.

Tsuneyoshi

Tsuneyoshi

June 18, 2014

As a very young boy, Tsuneyoshi Tokuno spoke only Japanese at home. When he first went to school in Palermo, he had a very difficult time learning in English, but he was eventually able to master it and helped teach his younger sister and brothers. There were no special programs to help the children of immigrants learn to speak English in those days, so poor little Tsuneyoshi had to struggle mightily in school where the other little children could not even pronounce his name. They called him “Tony,” because that is how his name sounded to them. He not only kept the name, but later legally changed his name to “Anthony Tsuneyoshi Tokuno.”

Tony grew to be a quiet young man, very dutiful to his responsibilities as the first born son. From 1922 through 1952, he kept a very careful diary in which he recorded his daily activities. On September 25, 1925, for example, he killed a rabbit after school and sold it for $4.37. There are frequent notations about killing ducks, shipping plums or pears, picking watermelons, and tanning rabbit skins that made it very clear that his youth was kept very busy learning his responsibilities on the farm. He was not only very industrious, but also very careful and methodical in his work.

Although he was very intelligent, he proved not to be a scholar, graduating from Oroville High School in 1926 and entering a lifelong career as a farmer. He declined to go to college even after his high school teachers encouraged him to pursue higher education. He did like to read, recording what he read in his diary. In 1930 he wrote that he had read 9 books, in 1931, 8 books, and so on, usually listing the titles. He also loved to fish and found time to do it even when he was interned in the relocation camps.

After finishing high school, he tried to see what else he might do away from home. He spent a brief period working for a grocery store in Oroville. In the fall of 1927 he went to Sacramento to work at Inaka’s Hardware Store. That lasted until January of 1928. By then, he was back to farming with his family, working the property of the Kister Ranch in 1929. It is clear from his diary that Tony loved the work on the farm, as hard as it was. This is probably why he came back after trying to do other things. There was always something to do around the farm. With his brothers, Tony would prepare the hot beds in February so that the tomatoes could get a head start and flourish by summer. They had to make their own barn for their animals; spray the crops with insect poisons, prune the trees, build sleds to haul tree stumps out of the fields, and even make their own boxes to pack the fruit. Tony took the lead on all of this as the eldest son. Soon he would start a family of his own.

Tony had been introduced to Michiko Uyeno, through the time honored tradition of Japanese arranged marriages. Usually, this means that a third party suggests a marriage to both sets of parents of the prospective bride and groom. In this case, the “go betweens” were the Karakawa family, who knew the Tokunos, and the Goda family from Marysville, who knew the Uyenos. Both sets of parents agreed to the match, so Tony and Michiko (whom we now know as “Mary”) were engaged. Two years after their engagement, they were married in December 1934, at Marysville Methodist Church. The reasons for the long engagement were explained in the last entry. It was also explained in the last entry that the Tony Tokuno family had three sons. The oldest, Albert Tsuneyuki, was given a Japanese name that carried on the Sano Clan tradition of using “Tsune” as the first part the eldest son’s name. It was a significant event in the family for Tony, a first born son, to have a first born son to carry on the family name.

When Bunda died in 1933, Tony wasted little time in filling his father’s shoes. Early in 1934, he began the major project of renovating the house. He leveled the floor throughout the house, expanded the kitchen and added shelves, put in indoor plumbing (to include a bathroom), and added a bedroom. It was only the first of several improvements necessary as his family began to grow. By 1935, Tony realized that the small plot of land around the house would soon be inadequate to support his family, even with the money they made from their contracted laborers. He began to spread his efforts further, leasing land nearby to grow other crops, such as melons, squash, tomatoes, and of course strawberries. He was quite successful and he and his younger brother Ted were kept very busy delivering truckloads of crops to the stores in Oroville, Quincy and other neighboring towns. They coined the name “Tokuno Brothers Farms” and painted the trucks with their sign.

In the winter months, they continued to hire contract laborers to pick their neighbors’ orange and olive trees. They made repairs to the various outbuildings and equipment they had to maintain for the farm. There was not much time for rest, but the winter allowed Tony to do a little fishing. In the winter of 1938, he also took time to do the some more remodeling of the house, extending the living room and adding a fireplace and two bedrooms.

With war and relocation, the brunt of the responsibility for the family fell on Tony. He made the best of it as recounted in the previous entry. Still, life in the camp was not to his liking at all. He, of all the sons of Bunda, was closest to the samurai tradition and did not wish to spend his days a virtual prisoner. At first he tried to find ways to busy himself. He built shelves for storing their clothes when they found no closets in their huts. He built screens so that they could divide the rooms and have some privacy. He even made a hat stand and some clothes hangers out of scraps of wood he found. Soon after their arrival in the camp, he found work as one of the camp “wardens,” spending some of his time assigned to guarding the front gate. Still, he did not like the dull routine and missed farming. He whiled away his time whittling on scrap wood that had been brought in for starting fires. He carved chopsticks out of pieces of ironwood that he found in the desert. A few of those pairs are still in use at the old homestead in Palermo.

The boys, being boys, thought the whole thing was quite an adventure. Albert remembers the local landscape: Castle Rock, a nearby mountain where the internees erected a cross and conducted Easter services in the spring; Abalone Mountain, so named because it looked like an abalone. They took little notice of the barbed wire and armed guards, playing soldier at the base of the guard towers and chatting with their keepers. There was also camp school and Albert attended the second grade there.

When the camp became divided between those loyal to the United States and the “No-No Boys”, Tony found the abuse he had to take from others intolerable. He stopped going to the mess hall, insisting that Mary bring him his food in their room. Badly needing to get away, he found that he could get work in farming if he was willing to go to Utah. In July of 1943, after 11 miserable months in Tule Lake, he went to Ogden to farm sugar beets. He stayed with his sister, Tey, and her husband. When the sugar beets had all been harvested, he had to work nights in a department store as a janitor. He could not get a job during the day because of problems with discrimination against him. This lasted a few more months until he could find work as a sharecropper in the nearby town of Kayville. He planted onions, potatoes and sugar beets. The farms were small, with some of the work still being done by horses. Tony’s landlord, though, had a big caterpillar tractor. This work not only provided some livelihood, but allowed him to avoid being drafted. He was not afraid to fight, but he needed to be with his young family. By March 1944, he could send for his wife and family to leave the camp and join him.

Mary brought two of her sons, Doug and Edmond, with her to Kayville. Doug, who was only five, took one look at the accommodations and wanted to go back to Topaz. The house was a converted chicken coop with no electricity. The bathroom was an outhouse that had two boards laid across an open pit. It was all too close to the hog pens with the smell and grunts of the pigs to keep them company night and day. The only good thing about it was a supply of burdock root that grew behind the hog pen and was considered a delicacy. They sent some of it back to Topaz. Albert had stayed behind with his grandmother and Ideochan so he could finish the 3rd grade in camp, but he joined them as soon as school was over. They stayed through the fall when all the crops were harvested. (Albert, being the primary heir to the family name, admits to being spoiled during this period. His grandmother would actually go to the mess hall and bring the meals to him.)

When Albert came to Kayville, he had to join Doug in helping with the work on the farm. They weeded, topped, gathered, and sacked the onions; helped load sugar beets; and helped store the potatoes. The potatoes were stored by placing them in large pits lined with straw and covered with dirt to keep them cool and preserve them for later sale. The crops were irrigated by a ditch that all the farmers had to share, even if it meant having to use the water in the middle of the night. Tony and Mary frequently had to go out at mid-night to irrigate, using miner’s carbide lamps atop their heads so they could use both hands to work.

The boys enjoyed much of this time, talking about who was stronger, Superman or George Orite (a family friend of large stature); eating grapes by squeezing them out of their skins and swallowing them whole (to avoid having to spit the seed out); or swimming in a nearby livestock watering tank. For the latter, they had to walk a mile on hot pavement in the summer. They had to stop often to cool their feet on the weed patches lining the road, but no price was too high for a cool dip.

Leaving Kayville behind them in the fall of 1944, Tony got a job working for Pacific Fruit Express in Ogden early the next year. He would bring home so many bananas that his sons got sick of them and wouldn’t be able to eat them again for years. They were able to take over the rental of Tey and Henry’s place that winter. It was a bit crowded at first, especially when Alyce came for a night or two. There were as many as nine people sharing the cottage. Tey and Henry soon moved to Minnesota where Henry was involved in army training. A fourth son, Timothy Shiro (named after his two uncles), was born in Ogden on January 4, 1945.

The summer of 1945 was a lot of fun for the three older boys. They made friends with the children in the neighborhood, most of whom were Mormons. Albert did not know what a Mormon was, so when he was asked if he was one, naturally, he said yes, going with the majority. He would join his friends in bike rides to the community swimming pool, a nice improvement over a watering tank. They also went to the Saturday matinees to see William Bendix in “The Hairy Ape,” or Lash LaRue serials. Movies in those days cost 5 cents with popcorn or candy or cola each costing a nickel. Tony once took Albert, Doug, and some of their friends fishing.  Someone caught a trout that was undersize, but decided to keep it anyway. A stranger came over and asked Tony if they’d had any luck. Tony suggested that they had had none, so Albert volunteered, “Oh yes, we caught one.” When he tried to find it, it had mysteriously disappeared. He later was told that the stranger was a game warden.

Meanwhile, Tony’s younger brother, Ted had moved his wife and young daughter, Teresa, to Mesa, Idaho. Tony was taking his family to visit them in August of 1945 when the news of the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima came over their car radio. As grim as the news was, the realized it meant they would soon be going home. By September, Executive Order 9066 was lifted and the Americans of Japanese ancestry were allowed to go where they wished. Many did not wish to return to the west coast and its bad memories, but Tony gathered his mother, Ideochan, and his family and returned to California.

Tony’s youngest brother, Shiro, had in-laws in Richmond whom the whole Tokuno family had gotten to know in Topaz: Maida Torayoshi, his wife and their three daughters The Maidas opened their house to the young family to stay with them for awhile in the month of September. Tony and Albert loaded up the pickup truck and headed for California on September 18, 1945. Two days later, the rest of the family followed by train. Even though they were back in California, Tony could not wait to be home. He had to see what the house in Palermo looked like, so he drove there one day late in September with his brother, Tim, who had just been discharged from the army. They notified the people renting the house of his intention to move his family back to their home in October. Soon after, he took his family there to get back to the land, despite the fact that they had to sleep in the barn. Albert even had to spend a few nights sleeping outside. Suye slept in a makeshift bed in the persimmon shed. Ideochan stayed in a small cabin. They had to cook on a wood stove. Still, they were lucky that their kind neighbors had taken good care of the house and land. Even with the owner sleeping in his barn, the renters did not leave until December. One wonders how long they would have stayed if they had not been pressured this way, but one also wonders at the tolerance that Tony had in letting them continue there for so long.

In the meantime, Tony took stock of what he had lost. He tried to get a number of guns, cameras, and radios that had been confiscated in 1941. Only a few small items were returned. The rest had somehow “disappeared.” In the last entry, it was mentioned that Tony had had to sell all his farm equipment very cheaply, but he also had taken a big loss on a new Oldsmobile. It was one of the first cars with an automatic transmission. Albert found his bike in the trash. This was the bike that Suye had brought back from Japan before the war, but it was beyond repair. The chain was not a size that was made in the U. S. The family also lost all of their savings that had been invested by Bunda in a Japanese bank. The Japanese government had confiscated all of it. With all those losses, the biggest loss was the lost opportunity to profit from their land during the war years. Farmers who had been able to stay had become wealthy selling their crops to the government at inflated wartime prices.

The Tokuno family was still more fortunate than most other Japanese-American families, many of whom lost houses and land; many of whom never came back to California because of those losses or bitterness against the “Golden State” over their treatment. Tony was able to return home and begin again. Tim stayed on to help his brother get the farming business going again. Although they had the trees thriving, they had to get loans to purchase all their farm equipment.

In the late summer of 1946, Tony’s little sister, Tey, came to stay with them briefly before she was to join her husband in Japan. She was to embark from Seattle with her two daughters in the fall. Tony drove them to Seattle and saw them away before starting the long lonely trek back to Palermo. He must have been very tired, because near the town of Shasta he got into an auto accident. He was not seriously hurt, but Tim had to go up and drive him back home from the hospital after he had recuperated.

Aside from that incident, life began to settle into a routine again as they revived their contract labor business as well as the farming of the land. By 1948, Tim had married and moved out, leaving Tony as the head of a clan that was spread throughout the West Coast and extended to Japan. The heart of the family was still in Palermo, where Suye still resided as the family matriarch, pleased at the explosion of grandchildren that enriched her life after the war.

Most of the labor they now hired consisted of Mexicans, including the Braceros, who were imported from Mexico seasonally. It was when a law was passed prohibiting the importation of such labor that the Tokuno family ceased to be involved in the contract labor business, but I still remember the sight and smell of the laborers quarters way behind the house. These quarters consisted of a simple shack with beds in them. A shower and outhouses were nearby nor far from a huge stand of bamboo trees reminiscent of Japan. Bunda must have planted them there.

Tony began to add truck crops to the land between 1946 and 1949: stake tomatoes, squash and cucumbers. These crops were grown on small, rented plots of land and required a lot of labor to make them productive. In his diary of 1952, Tony noted that he had over 120 acres planted and it is clear that they were farming other plots as well. It was a good thing Tony had so many sons. Donald Uyeno, the fifth and last son, was born on November 7, 1949. The older boys were put to work ripping large boards into stakes to sharpen and drive into the ground for the tomatoes to grow on. They would use cattail stalks to tie the tomato vines to the stakes.

Tony took on a partner, Prosper Patton and they raised rabbits and chickens in the back of their farm. They called that area the pasture, because they also kept a milk cow there. All the boys had to take turns milking the cow. The milk was mostly for their own use and they would drink it almost straight from the cow. I remember the taste as being overpoweringly strong.

Although the chickens were profitable, easy to care for and producing lots of eggs to sell, the rabbits were not. Too much work had to be put into feeding and watering the rabbits while the chickens just walked around pecking at their feed. They made a profit on the eggs and meat of the chickens, but this money was lost taking care of the rabbits. Not enough people wanted rabbit fur or rabbit meat. When the boys ate at Prosper’s place, though, they knew what to expect on the menu.

By the mid-1950s, memories of the war years were fading. In 1954, Suye decided to take a trip to Japan. After all, two of her daughters, Haru and Tey, were living there. Actually, it was more than just a trip, she planned to stay for two years. After all the years of hard work, she certainly deserved it. My last memory of her is seeing her standing by the railing of the ship waving good-bye before the ship left San Francisco harbor. While Suye was in Japan, Haru was able to return to the U. S. as her husband had found a job in Los Angeles. Suye herself was getting ready to return when that Christmas, as they were bidding guests a good night, Suye suddenly crumpled to the floor. A doctor misdiagnosed it a case of indigestion, but she had suffered a heart attack and died that night. They brought her body back to Palermo, and she was laid to rest next to her husband on one of the green hills near Oroville.

This meant that Mary was now the Tokuno family matriarch, a role she filled very well. She had always worked as hard as her mother-in-law tending to the house and family, as well as doing a lot of the farm chores. She was also the hostess to the family’s gatherings during the holidays. She kept a collage of photos of all of the Sansei from their childhood, reminding us all that Palermo was the root of the family tree even though the branches were spread all up and down the West Coast.

Just as the torch was passed from Suye to Mary, Albert, the oldest sansei was being prepared to take on the responsibility of leading the family. From 1947, at the age of 11, he had been responsible for taking care of the “furo,” the Japanese bath that was located in a small tin shed behind the house. Each day, he had to drain the old water from the previous night. This was not simply a matter of pulling out the plug. The tub was made of thick redwood boards with a metal bottom. It was 2 feet deep, 5 feet long, 4 feet wide and heavy. Inside the tub were two wooden racks seemingly to protect the bathers’ feet from touching the hot metal bottom. (Actually, the metal was not that hot. The racks were there to keep the metal from getting bent out of shape by the weight of the bathers.) He would have to empty all the water, take out the racks, clean them, then scrub the sides of the tub. Then he would rinse the tub and refill it with clean water. Next, he would start a fire under the tub with some newspaper and small olive branches, keeping the fire going with old scrap wood until the bath got good and hot.

By the time he had graduated from high school, Albert was given more of a say in the operation of the farm. Albert was not satisfied with the kind of crops they were growing. They required so much labor, even from the women. He wanted to see if they could profit from crops that were more mechanized. Taking his son’s advice, Tony was able to obtain cannery contracts from the Campbell Soup and Del Monte companies for their tomatoes. Later, he obtained contracts from Holly sugar for sugar beets and the Robinson Seed Company for vegetable seed crops. These crops did not require the kind of care that produce for the market required, so they could be cared for by machines. By 1958, they had 150 acres of canning tomatoes, 100 acres of sugar beets, and 50 acres of seed crops. Ironically, one of the leased lands was the Hearst Ranch, where Bunda had began his farming career fifty years earlier and Haru had been born. Tony was also leasing 200 acres of olive trees. He continued to contract labor, for example, in the winter months, he arranged for men to pick and haul navel oranges.

His sons all pitched in, for by the late 1950s, all but Don, who was too young yet, could handle heavy work. In 1958, Albert had started a venture with his Uncle, Henry Imaoka, to buy land, plant orchards and sell it. Henry had contacts in Japan who were interested in financing the idea, but he died before they could complete the deal. Albert then had to decide where his future laid. He had a good head for business, so he decided to go to college at Chico State College and study business administration. Although he considered the possibility of trying to raise two families in Palermo, he realized it would require too much risk. When he completed his degree in 1962, he took a job with the State of California’s Department of Employment. Albert married on April 22, 1965 and settled into a suburban life in Sacramento with his wife Yoshi and their daughter, Kelly. His brothers all followed suit, even though all of them continued to dabble in farming to some extent.

Doug went to the University of California at Davis for a while and eventually began to work for the State. He married his wife, Carmen, in 1963 and they had two sons, Mark and James, and a daughter, Robin. Edmond graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in social work, married in 1967 and had a son, Tony, and a daughter, Lynn, with his wife, Jean. He and his brother, Tim, both died tragic deaths by heart attacks in 1994. Tim was survived by his wife of 28 years, Helen, and their two sons, Tom and Mitchell, and a daughter, Dawn. Don married in 1969 and pursued a career in construction. He and his wife, Debbie, have a son, Lance.

Tony became involved in a lot of civic activities, setting a pattern that all of his brothers would follow. He volunteered his time for the Butte County Citrus Association for 21 years. He was Farm Bureau Chairman for the Oroville United Center and Butte County Third Vice-President. He was also on the Selective Service Board and the Butte County Agricultural Stabilization Conversation Board. Mary was also active in the PTA and as a den mother. The community recognized the contributions of the Tony Tokuno family in 1997 when they made Mary one of the two Grand Marshalls of the Palermo Field Day Parade.

As he got closer to retirement age, Tony found more time to pursue the one thing he most loved next to farming, fishing. His trips to him to places like Baja California in Mexico and the Campbell River area in Canada. However, farmers never retire and like all of his brother, Tony was never going to give up his first love which placed him close to the good earth of California that had been so kind to the Tokuno family over the years. At the time of his death, Tony had become a grandfather many times over. He died the kind of death any farmer would wish for, while working in his field on July 11, 1980. When he did not come, Mary went out to look for him and found him dead of a heart attack, his shovel still close at hand. Mary continues to live in Palermo, carefully tending the family home into the next century. Who will continue to care for the old homestead? Perhaps it is worth asking that it be preserved as a historical monument, for the family was certainly one of the pioneers of the valley.