Spring Meeting Recap
Japanese in Mountain View
By Marina Marinovich
MVHA Publicity Chair
Photos and mementos from Mtn. View’s Japanese
community were displayed during the event.
Ellen Kamei helped organize
the event’s speakers and shared
information on her family’s
history in Mtn. View.
Panelists included L to R: Julie Satake Ryu, Ken Kamei
and Wayne Adachi.
The Mountain View Historical Association held its
annual Spring Event & Membership Meeting 2017
at the Historic Adobe Building on May 7, 2017. The
focus was on the history of Mountain View’s Japanese
American community. The event was timed to celebrate
May as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and
to reflect on the 75th anniversary of Executive Order
9066, which authorized the forced removal of Japanese-
American citizens and longtime residents from the West
Coast. A panel of Mountain View’s Japanese American
community came together to share their stories and
memories of being in the internment camps and of how
being forced off their land affected their families forever.
South Bay native Mike Inouye, NBC Bay Area’s weekday
morning traffic anchor, served as moderator for the
panel. Ellen Kamei, who helped organize the event’s
speakers, is a third-generation resident of Mountain
View and currently serves on the city’s Environmental
Planning Commission. Ken Kamei, her father, was born
in a Japanese internment camp during World War II.
He was also part of the first graduating class of Graham
Middle School.
Julie Satake Ryu presented two wonderful broadcast-
quality short films that shared poignant Japanese
American memories, stories, and photos all related to
her own rich family history.
Mike Inouye, NBC Bay Area’s
weekday morning traffic anchor
served as panel moderator.
Wayne Adachi, who recently sold the last of his family’s
berry farm property in Mountain View, grew up on the
Adachi Nursery and explained how foreign market trade
and ever-increasing expenses eventually led to the demise
of the flower industry here in the Bay Area.
Halle Sousa, a high school student and Mountain View
native, presented a touching film she produced titled
Amache Remembered. It is about the internment camp
her grandfather was sent to during the war in Amache,
Colorado. It can be found at the Japanese American
Memorial Society web site.
Stories were shared about their respective families’
histories. There was felt to be a strong mutual respect
and camaraderie between the panel members based on
their shared history of growing up in farming families in
the Mtn. View area. Their grandfathers and fathers were
founding supporters of the Buddhist Temple that served
as a backbone for their community. It helped to strengthen
and unify them as they faced the challenges of attending
school as members of a minority group.
The MVHA would like to thank everyone who participated
in the panel and attended the event. We hope to continue
to offer programs such as this that give the many diverse
communities that have called Mountain View home a
chance to reflect on their history and share their stories.
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