Manuscripts

Correspondence

Description: Bulk is letters from family in Japan, especially in Yokohama, including from brother Shigeru Kozawa and sister Mitsuo Kozawa, providing updates on family, visit plans, and requests. Several are addressed to both Frank and Sumi. Also present are letters from Frank to Sumi while he was serving in the military in the late 1940s and a few addressed to brother Shigeru while he was staying in the U.S., which were originally housed together with letters received. In addition, there are several greeting cards received.
Type: Manuscripts(Opens in new tab)
Date: 1948-1980s
Call number: mssSK
Provenance: Gift of Kozawa Family Trust, February 2020.
Restrictions: Open for use by qualified researchers and by appointment. Please contact Reader Services at the Huntington Library for more information.; RESTRICTED: Box 48: housed in cold storage; extended retrieval and delivery time required.

Immediate family

Manuscripts

Portraits of Asakichi and Ura Kawakami, Yuki Sakai and children, Sumi Lillian Sakai Kozawa, Frank Ukio Kozawa, and Susie Kozawa. Includes baby portraits of Sumi Lillian Sakai Kozawa and of her in Japan, 1941 (box 35, folder 1) and numerous Susie Kozawa school portraits. Also present are formal photos of the funerals of Ura Kawakami at Manzanar, 1942 (box 38) and of Dan Sakai (box 42); a group portrait of Yuki Sakai and her children, 1930s (box 42); and portraits of Sumi and Miyoko Sakai in kimonos, 1930s (box 43).

mssSK

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Family papers

Manuscripts

Bulk is material for family members Yuki Sakai, Sumi Lillian Sakai Kozawa, Frank Ukio Kozawa, Susie Kozawa, and Etsuko Rose Sakai. Includes correspondence, notebooks and school material, publications, ephemera, and artifacts. Filing names reflect most common usages and variations.

mssSK

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Correspondence

Manuscripts

Letters to unidentified Sakai Kozawa family members.

mssSK

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Notebooks

Manuscripts

Most likely notes and calligraphy studies of Sumi Sakai while traveling in Japan.

mssSK

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Letters received

Manuscripts

Letters dated 1939 and 1941 to 1946 were originally stored together in a file box; the bulk of these were sent to Sumi and sometimes multiple Sakai family members while incarcerated at Manzanar and are primarily from personal and family friends. Some were sent from other camps including Poston, Gila River, and Tule Lake, or from elsewhere in the U.S. following the sender's release, describing their current lives, schooling, and work, in New York, Washington, D.C., Boston, Chicago, and elsewhere. These correspondents performed secretarial work, domestic labor, and farm labor; some were involved in resettlement efforts by the Advisory Committee for Evacuees in Chicago and the American Friends Service Committee; or served in the U.S. Army. There are several letters from friend Sunao Imoto, who was released from Poston to work for poet Carl Sandburg and his wife, Lilian Sandburg. Also present in this group are letters from friends and neighbors in Los Angeles, including Galetta Van Valkenburgh, and a request from Yuki Sakai to a Father Lavery for assistance in transferring her parents from the Santa Anita Sanitarium near the Santa Anita Assembly Center, dated 1942 June 17. Letters were possibly originally filed by sender and there are several index cards with correspondents' names and addresses present. Some letters from 1940 and 1941 were sent to Sumi Sakai while she was traveling in Japan. Post-war correspondence is from family and friends in the U.S. and Japan and includes greeting cards and holiday snapshot cards, especially from the Kawakami family; some letters and cards are addressed to multiple family members.

mssSK

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Sumi Lillian Sakai Kozawa

Manuscripts

Primarily photographs of Manzanar, including numerous reproductions of Ansel Adams photos as well as snapshots of Sumi Sakai and others, some with captions. There are a few images of the library staff in 1943 and several of young men in military uniforms both at Manzanar and in Europe, presumably sent to Sumi. A number of photos depict an excursion of Sumi and friends possibly occurring after the war ended but before return to Los Angeles, along with stock photos of the Mojave Desert.

mssSK

Correspondence

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Immediate family

Family papers

Correspondence

Notebooks

Letters received

Sumi Lillian Sakai Kozawa