At the McDowell House, we keep an ever-growing collection of reference books for use by our volunteers, staff, and outside researchers. In the midst of these tomes, you may come across an unassuming paperback book; a pale gray cover with bold black text that reads:
“Pre-WWII History of Japanese Pioneers in the Clearing and Development of Land in Bellevue by Asaichi Tsushima 1952”
Inside is a treasure trove of knowledge gathered from the Japanese community prior to WWII. Mr. Asaichi Tsushima worked to preserve the memories of Bellevue’s earliest Japanese pioneers for the future. He dedicated the book to the Nisei of Bellevue and sought to show them an honest glimpse into the joys and heartaches of their parents’ generation.
“The Japanese immigrants, your parents, courageously and tenaciously struggled and persevered against horrendous odds, clearing the acres and acres of virgin forest land for agricultural and residential use, and I believe the Isseis made significant contributions to the community’s rapid growth. ”
There are hand-drawn maps of the farms worked by the Japanese community, photos of the Clubhouse dedication, and chapters covering things like the Life of the Farmers and Education and Religion. Perhaps most importantly, Mr. Tsushima lists, by name and home prefecture, all the early Japanese pioneers. He includes as much biographical information he had for each one up to WWII and after incarceration. This has been a tremendous resource for EHC and other local community organizations researching the families and community that built Bellevue.
The book was translated in 1991 by Harriet (Yamagishi) Mihara, Alan Hideo and Chiye (Ito) Yabuki, and Rose (Yabuki) Matsushita. EHC is lucky to have multiple copies of this little book in our collection and we keep one available for research purposes.
Asaichi Tsushima arrived in Bellevue in 1908 at the age of twenty from Okayama-ken, Japan. He worked on a farm as a laborer in the strawberry fields until the manager, Mr. Hirayama moved to Seattle in 1910. From there, he worked in an apple orchard and as a gardener for white neighbors while living in a tent on Clyde Hill.
Through an arranged marriage, his wife Nami Tsushima came from Japan to join him in 1912. Nami worked as a domestic worker for some of the wealthy families on Hunts Point.
Asaichi leased a small tract on Hunts Point in 1917. The family grew vegetables and sold them to other families nearby. Around the same time, the Tsushimas farmed property at Fairweather Bay with the Mizokawa and Muromoto families.
The Japanese community was growing rapidly at that time and so was the need for education for their children, the Nisei. A language school was established in 1921, but was forced to close. Anti-Japanese propaganda made claims that these Nisei children were being forced to swear loyalty to Japan and it’s emperor. Those suspicions have since proved to be false, but they were effective in stoking racist fears in Bellevue.
A second language school opened in 1925 and held classes in a Downey Hill Issei home until the community organized for a school building in Medina in 1929. Mr. Tsushima was the first teacher. In 1930, the Japanese Community Clubhouse was built and the two schools consolidated there. Language lessons were initially only offered on Saturdays, but later they would be offered every day for an hour after school.
In the early morning hours of December 8, 1941, three Bellevue Japanese community leaders were taken from their homes by the FBI. Asaichi Tsushima was one of them. Due to his popularity as a public speaker and his close ties to the language school, Mr. Tsushima was considered a security threat following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He would spend the majority of the war years at a prison camp in New Mexico.
In 1942, Nami Tsushima and their daughter Michi were evacuated to Pinedale and Tule Lake, then to Minidoka. The Tsushima family returned to Bellevue in 1946. Mr. Tsushima worked on his book by taking down the remembrances of the Issei generation. He finished the book in 1952 and there was a limited publishing. He made special note to request the book never be sold.
Asaichi Tsushima returned to his birthplace in Japan and lived there until his death in 1969.
Resources
Tsushima, Asaichi. Pre-WWII History of Japanese Pioneers in the Clearing and Development of Land in Bellevue. 1952.
Neiwert, David A. Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
