Evelyn Kirimura

Born Evelyn Teiko Kirimura in Cheyenne, Wyoming, to restaurant-worker parents, she grew up in Denver and was editor of her high school yearbook. ^[1] While a teen, she won an award in a writing contest, and in early 1937 her short story "Blind Are We" was published in the Shin Sekai Asahi Shimbun . ^[2] The San Francisco newspaper printed more of her stories in the following months. Many featured romantic themes and vibrant dialogue. One imagined "the utter misery of Japanese parents facing the problem of finding happiness for their American-born and raised children." ^[3]

Later in 1937 Kirimura moved to San Francisco and was hired as a society writer at the Shin Sekai Asahi . ^[4] Her journalism had a personal style, and she mentioned herself and her opinions in articles. A profile of a "beautiful Nisei" shop employee included Kirimura making "hasty scribblings in my notebook. The enigmatic notes would trouble me later on." ^[5]

Kirimura's voice as a writer was most evident in her 129 columns for the paper. They appeared weekly, first under the title "Jam Session" and, after a reader contest, "Back Fence." Kirimura's columns were direct, conversational, and often humorous. She shared observations about everyday human interactions, the weather, films and plays she had seen, and her personal quirks. She described her nightmares, wondering "since we live right, we can't see why we have such dreams." ^[6] In 1938, Kirimura's mother, Tsuuko Ashizawa, and two much-younger sisters came to live with her. ^[7] This led to misadventures. "In a moment of weakness, we consented to take along the two kid sisters while we hunted for a pair of gloves," Kirimura wrote about a shopping trip along a crowded Market Street. "One would always dash off while our attention happened to be occupied with the other. ... Tottering to home grounds, just 40 years older in the four hours we had been out, we hit the ceiling, silently and weakly." ^[8]

Kirimura also addressed serious matters affecting the Nikkei community, including housing discrimination and school segregation. About the latter, she commented that "local residents become immune to the condition, but with each crop of visitors or newcomers, fresh feeling is aroused by their sense of injustice. ... When they come to California and see the actual process of segregating the Orientals, they are quite horror stricken and rightly so." ^[9]

In 1939, Kirimura was named the first female editor of the Japanese American Citizens League publication Pacific Citizen while continuing her role at the Shin Sekai Asahi . "I worked until 2:30 (p.m.) to get the New World-Sun printed, then I'd go to the Pacific Citizen ," she recalled, and the extra income supported her mother and sisters. ^[10] Kirimura was credited with bringing stability to the paper, which had published sporadically, and increasing circulation. Kirimura's name appeared on the masthead and on an editorial thanking readers for their support, but otherwise she remained behind the scenes. ^[11] Unsigned editorials exhorted chapters to submit dues to support the paper. Pacific Citizen's content at this time included JACL news and events, articles on citizenship, and a legal advice column. The April 1941 issue printed Mike Masaoka 's " Japanese American Creed " under an editor's note stating, "By such expressions will Nisei be known." ^[12] Kirimura's role at the paper ended with the March 1942 issue and her forced removal.

Incarcerated at Tanforan with her mother and sisters, Kirimura was listed as an associate editor in early issues of the Tanforan Totalizer . Her role at the newspaper is unclear. No items appeared under her name or initials, but some feature content resembled her work for the Shin Sekai Asahi . Arriving at Topaz in September 1942, Kirimura was part of a team of early editors of the Topaz Times , and in November she was appointed editor-in-chief. ^[13] She was replaced as editor without explanation a few months later—the Topaz Times had a high turnover—but she continued to write regular columns. Kirimura wrote dozens under the titles "Food Fancies" and "To the (Wo)Men." The former featured recipes for dishes like corn chowder, tuna casserole, and spaghetti, rather than Japanese foods. "To the (Wo)Men" reprised her earlier writing style, musing about mess hall etiquette, laundry-room gossip, and clothing preferences of young women. The lack of privacy rankled. "From the moment we step out of our doors ... we are a part of the life which formerly was our private affair," she wrote in 1943. "Brushing our teeth, washing dishes, taking a shower, laundering our clothes, are all done in unison, just like a chorus line." ^[14] In 1944, Kirimura was an editor of the arts magazine All Aboard , to which she contributed an article on resettlement and a whimsical short story about gremlins causing mischief at Topaz.

Kirimura was also employed in the camp's War Relocation Authority Reports Office. Working alongside former Shin Sekai Asahi colleague Henri Takahashi, she conducted a relocation survey of people released from Topaz, asking about jobs and housing. As people volunteered to harvest crops, Kirimura authored a report about conditions at a Provo, Utah, camp. She described spartan accommodations (tents, cots, and straw mattresses) as well as "differences of interpretation of wages" and "a glaring lack [of] cooking facilities." ^[15] Kirimura also researched and compiled an exhaustive study of the Topaz hospital and health services. The report documented intense professional rivalries between Caucasian staff and Nikkei physicians, who endured "long hours [of] overtime due to a sense of moral obligation to their own people." ^[16]

In 1944, Kirimura, her mother, and sisters left Topaz for Cheyenne. ^[17] She wanted to continue her career in journalism but later said that "the feelings at that time was [sic] very anti-Japanese." ^[18] In 1946, she married watchmaker Joseph Okamoto, a Sacramento native who had been incarcerated at Tule Lake , and they raised three sons. She maintained her interest in writing about the Nikkei experience. In 1958 Pacific Citizen published a long feature article about the Japanese American community in Cheyenne that listed numerous families, their origins, and their professions. The Issei "showed a courageous and diligent spirit" as they worked mostly manual jobs, and their Nisei children pursued careers such as pharmacists, lawyers, and retailers. She did not mention her father but noted that her mother had arrived in Cheyenne in 1906. ^[19] In 1970, she told the Caspar Star-Tribune that she was compiling a history for the JACL about Japanese Americans in Wyoming, but it is unclear if the project came to fruition. ^[20]

Her death in 2005 in Cheyenne warranted only four lines on Pacific Citizen's obituary page, but in less than a decade of her early life she had demonstrated creative talent, defied traditional cultural and gender roles, and left a record as a prolific writer and pioneering journalist. ^[21]

"Evelyn T. Okamoto." Wyoming Tribune Eagle , February 12, 2005.

Hiura, Barbara. "Ex-Journalist Recalls Days at Prewar Newspaper." Hokubei Mainichi , October 20, 1993.

Okamoto, Evelyn. " The Japanese of Cheyenne ." Pacific Citizen , December 19, 1958, B4, B6.