Opening Hours
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Rare Books
Secret servants : a history of Japanese espionage
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Rare Books
Image not available
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Image not available
Visual Materials
An album of snapshots documenting an unidentified Japanese engineering student's experiences during a study visit at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) from 1935 to 1936. The small photographs are accompanied by detailed, neatly written ink captions in Japanese, with occasional words in English. The album begins with his ship's departure from Kobe, Japan, on December 17, 1935, with stops in Yokohama and Honolulu, Hawaii, and arrival in San Francisco on January 2, 1936. The student observes that his fellow travelers (translated from Japanese) are those going with high hopes, those going with nervous anxiety, those seeking development, and lonesome people. The images and captions document buildings and professors at Caltech; details of streets, businesses and some houses in Pasadena; the garden of "Mr. Cole's" house; the Gilmore Circus Parade; Glendale; Ocean Park, and his departure from San Pedro at the end of his stay. There are two small drawings: businesses at the intersection of Lake Avenue and California Street, Pasadena; and Colorado Blvd. between Green and Cordova streets.
photCL 726
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Visual Materials
A personal photo album compiled and annotated by a Japanese American serviceman who served in the U.S. occupation forces during the post-World War II occupation of Japan. The album begins with his departure from Hawaii to Japan in 1946, including one image of his old school, McKinley High School in Honolulu. In Tokyo, there are many photographs of fellow soldiers, as well as Japanese young men and women; buildings and landmarks; parks; and army buildings. Two images of a large building are described as General Douglas MacArthur's headquarters in Tokyo, and there is one image of him walking out of the building. Besides Tokyo, the soldier is seen in Kamakura and Otake, near Iwakuni, where he may have been stationed later. Of note are a few images of building destruction in Hiroshima, 1947, in the aftermath of the atomic bombing. At the back of the album are many single and group portraits of Japanese residents, possibly family members or acquaintances in Iwakuni and Otake. The album has handwritten captions in English, with occasional captions written in Japanese.
photCL 667
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Rare Books
Pioneering Nisei attorney Frank F. Chuman (1917- ) was active in many of the key civil rights-related cases in the early postwar era. He is also credited with being one of the first to come up with the concept of reopening the wartime cases using the writ of error coram nobis. During his time in law school, he worked at the Los Angeles County Probation Department. Following Executive Order 9066, Chuman was placed on "leave of absence" from his job, and subsequently taken away and confined at Manzanar. Chuman left Manzanar in the fall of 1943 to continue his legal studies. During the postwar years, he served as legal counsel for the national JACL from 1953-60 and as its national president from 1960-62. During his term as president, Chuman negotiated with UCLA president, Franklin Murphy, the creation of the Japanese American Research Project (JARP), to be housed at UCLA, with archives holding rare materials on Japanese immigrants. In connection with JARP, Chuman devoted several years of research, when he could get away from his law practice, to the creation of a legal history of Japanese Americans, including the evolution of legislation and jurisprudence in regard to immigration restrictions, alien land laws, wartime confinement and other subjects. Chuman's book remains the standard work in that area
655028
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Visual Materials
Two albums of photographs taken by a Japanese businessman of his trip to the United States in the early 1930s. The man appears to have been Yaroku Katayama, who was engaged in export trade in the 1930s and 1940s, and appears in a few photographs, including one aboard the passenger ship Taiyo Maru with Japanese parliamentarian Mitsuhashi Shiroji. The two small albums have many handwritten captions in Japanese, and a few in English. The date 1932 is written in two captions in both albums. The small black-and-white snapshots depict street scenes and scenery in Niagara Falls, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Chicago, and in Arizona, where he traveled by train on the Santa Fe Railway. One of the albums is primarily of scenes in Hawaii, especially Honolulu, where he stopped en route to his return to Japan.
photCL 681
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Rare Books
The secret life of an American writer, Andre Parent, describing his dreams, his privacies, and everything he keeps hidden. Andre Parent's story begins in Massachusetts where his first furtive sexual encounters introduce him to the thrills of leading a double life. Parent travels the globe and tastes the delights of innumerable affairs before settling down to writing, wedlock, and self-analysis.
647104
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Visual Materials
A personal photograph album compiled by Japanese American teenager Leimomi Fujimoto, documenting her junior high and high school years in Hawaii during the World War II era. The album begins in 1943, when she is in the eighth grade, and continues through her years at St. Anthony High School, a Catholic school in Wailuku, Maui. She and her friends are seen enjoying activities such as football games, birthday parties, and beach outings, and there are many portraits of Fujimoto and her school friends. Some snapshots were taken on visits to natural landmarks and downtown buildings in the Kahului area of Maui. Throughout the album are Fujimoto's expressive handwritten captions, which include many names of people and places. There are also photographs of her family, teachers, and her future husband, Vincent "Buzz" Sills, who is named as Fujimoto's groom in a wedding announcement clipping laid in the album. Other clippings highlight Fujimoto's many social activities, such as being a song leader in high school, attending the junior prom (where she was a member of the royal court), completing a Hula dancing course, and serving as maid of honor in a wedding. The album ends around 1948, after her high school graduation, but several laid-in photographs are dated later, depicting Fujimoto's marriage and her children. Notably, the album demonstrates Fujimoto's relative freedom living under the martial law imposed on the Hawaiian Islands during World War II, in contrast to the internment of Japanese Americans in the Western United States.
photCL 643