Thomas T. Yatabe

Thomas Tamotsu Yatabe was born on May 3, 1896, in San Francisco, California. The son of Kozo Yatabe, a shoemaker, and his wife Rui, Tamotsu was the oldest of the five Yatabe children. The family resided on Church Street in San Francisco, while Kozo opened a shoe store in Petaluma in 1906.

Several key events in his childhood influenced Yatabe's future political activism. In 1901, San Francisco mayor Eugene Schmitz campaigned for the removal of children of Asian ancestry from city schools. Schmitz vocally supported anti-Japanese sentiment in the city, and in 1906 the San Francisco school board ordered Yatabe and other ethnic Japanese to attend segregated "oriental" schools in the Chinatown district.

In December 1906, the Oakland Tribune listed Yatabe as a second-grade student at Marshall Primary School, along with other Japanese American students in San Francisco. Yatabe's parents, along with other Japanese American families, resisted the segregation order and tutored their own children. These events would spark a diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and Japan. In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt persuaded the school board to rescind its segregation policy on the promise that he would limit further Japanese immigration. The result was the so-called " Gentlemen's Agreement ," an informal treaty through which Japan agreed to end labor immigration against a pledge of equal treatment for existing immigrants. ^[1]

After graduating high school in 1914, Yatabe enrolled in dental school. As a new graduate Yatabe found it difficult to secure clients in San Francisco. Yatabe described the early barriers of racism he and other Nisei faced as the group's greatest handicap:

We realized that our biggest drawback was that it sort of created a mental block in the minds of a lot of fellow Americans. We needed something to counteract this, to 'educate' and to get across to the American public that we were loyal American citizens." ^[2]

In 1918, Yatabe and several Nisei professionals met in Fresno to form the American Loyalty League after a lunch meeting where they discussed the discrimination they faced. As Bill Hosokawa detailed in Nisei: The Quiet Americans , the group decided to organize speaking tours that would encourage the Nisei to take advantage of their citizenship and fight back against discrimination through political engagement.

Between 1920 and 1929, Yatabe organized events with the American Loyalty League to increase membership. In 1929, Yatabe joined with other Issei community leaders in Seattle to form the Japanese American Citizens League .

Because of his instrumental role in forming the organization Yatabe served as national president from 1934 to 1936. He presided over the expansion of the organization and hosting the JACL convention in Fresno in September 1935. As president, Yatabe regularly wrote articles for the Japanese American newspapers in California and James Sakamoto 's Seattle newspaper The Japanese American Courier , where he called upon the Nisei to engage in local politics.

Yatabe also backed a lobbying initiative in Congress for a bill allowing World War I veterans of Asian ancestry to bypass immigration restrictions and acquire citizenship. The law, enacted as the Nye-Lea Act of 1935, granted veterans such as Tokutaro Slocum U.S. citizenship. The campaign would serve as a model for future lobbying efforts by the JACL.

At the Fresno Assembly Center, Yatabe worked as part of the medical staff as a dentist alongside Fresno dentist Fusaji Inada (the father of poet Lawson Inada). ^[3] In June 1942, the camp administrators assigned Yatabe to lead the General Counsel, an inmate government body. The WCCA hoped to use the body as a means for pressuring inmates to conform to camp policies. When the WCCA banned inmate self-government in August 1942, Yatabe and fellow JACL leader Johnson Kebo were elected to an advisory board in August. ^[4]

In September 1942, Yatabe and other inmates at Fresno were sent to Jerome concentration camp in Arkansas. At Jerome, he continued his work as a dentist alongside Inada.

At Jerome, Yatabe was one of several JACL leaders involved in camp politics. His position at Jerome also drew significant criticism from the camp population. In December 1942, at a town hall, inmates interrogated Yatabe on whether the JACL was planning to reinstate Nisei into the selective service. Yatabe denied any such rumors as true. When the WRA formally announced registration in February 1943, a group of Kibei vocalized their discontent with the order to register, arguing that they had suffered enough from being unlawfully incarcerated. Members of the JACL leadership, including Yatabe, told the group that they would win recognition for the Nisei as loyal Americans by serving in the military. The deadline for registration was set at March 6, with anyone who failed to do so would face jailtime up to 90 days. ^[5]

On the morning of March 6, 1943, Yatabe was working at the Jerome hospital when he was approached by a man asking to speak to him. When he stepped out of his office to a corridor, he was surrounded by a group of men and beaten severely. The men beat Yatabe in response to his outspoken support of registration. In a police report describing the incident, the men involved in the beating wore army overcoats, leading the internal security to believe that the assailants were Nisei from Hawai`i, as the coats were only given to the Hawai`i group while in San Francisco during their transfer to the camp. No suspects were arrested as Yatabe was unable to identify his assailants. On the same day, a group of men also beat Reverend John Yamazaki in his barracks. ^[6]

Shortly after the beating incident, Yatabe left Jerome permanently in March 1943. He then traveled to Chicago, where he established a private practice and helped to establish a JACL chapter in the city. He lived at 406 S. Homan Ave. near Garfield Park.

In Chicago, Yatabe involved himself in promoting resettlement among Japanese Americans in the camps. He worked with Ernest Takahashi, a fellow resettler, on a plan for "Nisei integration in the city of Chicago." In their plan submitted to the WRA, Yatabe and Takahashi argued that Nisei needed to join city and religious organizations and eschew forming any organizations associated with the prewar community. The report also argued that the JACL should only be involved in public relations activities to avoid drawing attention from "Jap baiters." The end goal of the project would be to encourage integration and "assimilation" into Chicago. As part of his involvement in Chicago, Yatabe worked with the Chicago Brethren Hostel to provide housing and support for incoming resettlers. ^[7]

Yatabe worked closely with Elmer Shirrell , the WRA's resettlement officer, on promoting resettlement in the city. Shirrell, who met frequently with JACL leaders and nisei writers, often solicited feedback from Yatabe. In one meeting documented by Tamotsu Shibutani , Shirrell asked Shibutani, Charles Kikuchi , and Yatabe for criticism on what the WRA was doing wrong with resettlement. Shibutani and Kikuchi wanted to criticize the WRA for failing to meet the needs of resettling Nisei, but also knew that doing so would only anger Shirrell. Rather, the two opted to "go easy" on Shirrell. Yatabe, in Shibutani's view, refused to criticize Shirrell in order to maintain the relationship the JACL cultivated with the WRA.

In their discussion, Yatabe admitted that he did not know how to solve the problems of the younger generation. He argued that it was the WRA's responsibility to mount a public relations campaign to fix the stigma facing Japanese Americans. "It is the obligation of you people to do a good job in public relations to correct the great wrong that has been done to our people. It is up to you to help us." Shibutani criticized Yatabe in private for not mentioning the fact that Japanese Americans had their democratic rights infringed upon and for not addressing the problems facing Nisei resettlers, such as lack of employment opportunities. ^[8]

In August 1944, Yatabe, in following his principle of highlighting "human interest stories" of the community, enlisted opera singer Ruby Yoshino Schaar to embark on a speaking tour of the Midwest and East Coast to promote stories about the loyalty of Japanese Americans to the U.S. With funding from the Carnegie Endowment, Yatabe and Yoshino toured the Midwest and East Coast, where they lectured on the contributions of Japanese Americans to the war effort. They were joined frequently by Nisei servicemembers as part of their speaking engagements, such as their lecture with Thomas Taro Higa in New York City. ^[9]

He lived in Chicago for the rest of his life, and remained an influential voice within the JACL.

In 1960, the JACL honored Yatabe with an award at their annual convention in recognition of his role as the "father" of the JACL. The convention, held in Sacramento, California, also honored Dr. Koto Matsudaira, Japan's permanent ambassador to the United Nations who worked with the JACL to eliminate the word "Jap" from popular usage (Matsudaira initially garnered criticism when he downplayed the word "Jap" as a racial slur on national television). ^[10]

In November 1972, Yatabe returned to the Fresno area to meet with JACL chapters in what was dubbed a "homecoming" for the elderly Yatabe. Even at 75, Yatabe continued to practice dentistry in Chicago. On November 25, 1977, Thomas Tamotsu Yatabe died at the age of 81.

Chuman, Frank. The Bamboo People: The Law and Japanese-Americans. Del Mar, Calif.: Publisher's Inc., 1976.

Hosokawa, Bill. Nisei: The Quiet Americans. New York: William Morrow and Co., 1969.

van Harmelen, Jonathan. "Dr. T.T. Yatabe, the American Loyalty League, and the Birth of the JACL." Discover Nikkei, Jan. 9, 2023.

"Dr. Tom Yatabe, 80: 'Grandaddy of the JACL.'" Pacific Citizen, Nov. 25, 1977.