Akahori family

Biography

Masaru Akahori was born in 1884; a native of Tokushima Prefecture, he arrived in the United States in 1904. He resided in the San Francisco Bay area and worked in Sacramento and Placerville, California, as a reporter for a Japanese language press. Mr. Akahori returned to Japan in 1919 as a reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun in Tokyo. He returned to the United States in 1922 and moved to Seattle, Washington, where he became managing editor of the Taihoku Nippo ( The Great Northern Daily News ). Mr. Akahori also served as Pacific Northwest region correspondent of the Nichibei Shimbun ( The Japanese American News ) of San Francisco until World War II. Following World War II, he resettled in Los Angeles, California, and began publishing The Town Crier, a mimeographed Japanese language daily. His various pen names include: Meishu, Bennaishi, Bennosuke, Manako, and Oishi Hyoroku; he was also known as Ben M. Akahori.

Kiku Akahori, also known as Kikuko, was born in 1900; a native of Kanagawa, she arrived in the United States to join her first husband, Hosaka. Her first marriage ended in 1928 and she married Masaru Akahori in 1935. Kiku Akahori died ca. 1961.

Expanded Biographical Narrative

AKAHORI Masaru ([characters], 1884-). Author, journalist, and businessman. A native of Tokushima Prefecture [characters]. He graduated from Tokushima Chgakk [characters] [Tokushima Middle School], at which KAGAWA Toyohiko [characters], well-known Christian social reformer and labor leader, was his senior classmate. Akahori arrived in the United States in 1904, initially resided in the San Francisco Bay Area, and later worked in Sacramento and Placerville, California, as a reporter of a Japanese language press. In 1919 he went back to Japan as a reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun [characters] in Tokyo. He returned to America in 1922, and was involved in various business ventures in Southern California, including the Hritsu Jimusho [characters] [Legal Office] until 1932. He then moved to Seattle, Washington, became Managing Editor of the Taihoku Nipp [characters] [The Great Northern Daily News], and also served as the Pacific Northwest region correspondent of the Nichibei Shimbun [characters] [The Japanese American News] of San Francisco, one of the largest and influential Japanese language newspapers in America, until the Pacific War broke out. Immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack, he was arrested by FBI agents as one of the suspected enemy aliens, and was incarcerated in various internment camps. When he was finally released from the internment camp in March 1946, he and his family were resettled in Los Angeles. In the following month he began publishing the Town Crier, a mimeographed Japanese language daily, in Little Tokyo. He was married twice. He had two sons (residing in Japan) by his first marriage, and a Nisei daughter (Tomoko Marjorie) by the second. His pen names were: Meishu ([characters]), Bennaishi ([characters]), Bennosuke ([characters]), Manako ([characters]), and ŌISHI Hyroku ([characters]). Among his American friends, he is known as Ben M. Akahori.

AKAHORI Kiku ([characters], née ISHIZUKA [characters], 1900-1961). Masaru's second wife. A native of Kanagawa Prefecture [characters]. She arrived in America to join her first husband, a HOSAKA [characters]. Her first marriage ended in divorce in 1928, and Kiku and Masaru were married in 1935. She is also known as Kikuko Akahori.

Akahori Family Papers are one of the largest and most valuable collections of personal papers of Japanese immigrants (Issei) which are included in the Japanese American Research Project (JARP) Collection housed in the Special Collections Department of UCLA's University Research Library. Particularly useful are AKAHORI Masaru's diaries and memoirs, extensive files of personal correspondence, a large and comprehensive collection of documentary and printed materials re his wartime incarceration, and fairly complete sets of business and professional records in Los Angeles during years of the Great Depression (1929-1932).

Most of his prewar papers, Akahori explained, were impounded by FBI agents when he was arrested on December 7, 1942 in Seattle. Soon after he was released from the Crystal City Internment Camp in Texas in March 1946, he got in touch with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and went to a Los Angeles warehouse designated by the Bureau, where his impounded personal papers and belongings were returned to him. Akahori also mentioned that he had encouraged his Issei friends and acquaintances who were the fellow inmates in the Internment Camps to do the same. However, many of them were still reluctant--some were even afraid, according to Akahori, in the days of uncertainty not far removed from their unpleasant experiences--to have any dealings with the FBI.

This may account, in part, for the noticeable absence in the JARP Collection of comparable personal papers, records and documentary materials of other Issei who, like Akahori, were rounded up by FBI or Military Intelligence agents as suspected enemy aliens and incarcerated in the Internment Camps. Among them were many Issei who served as the leaders of and the spokesmen for the local Japanese communities--Issei journalists, Japanese language school teachers, and officers of Japanese associations and Buddhist churches. As most of them have already passed away, their papers and records, which might have been valuable tools to researchers in Japanese American studies, are unfortunately lost forever.

From the guide to the Akahori Family Papers, ca. 1908-1965, (University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Department of Special Collections.)