The First Church to Close
Virginia Swanson’s ministry had begun in 1932 when the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Minnesotan had been sent by the Women’s Baptist Home Mission Board in New York to serve as a missionary…
Flashlights in the Dark
On February 27, 1942, the residents of Terminal Island (twenty-five miles south of Los Angeles off the coast of San Pedro) were the first Japanese Americans to be evicted from…
The Truck-Driving Missionary
In 1915, Rev. Herbert V. Nicholson (1892-1983) arrived in Japan after committing his life to serve the Japanese people. Born in Rochester, New York, he had received a call to…
The Cost of Resistance
Supporting the Nikkei during the internment was unpopular and viewed as anti-American. Rev. W. Sherman Burgoyne served as minister of the Asbury Methodist Church in Hood River, Oregon where approximately…
Voices of Protest
Nikkei Voices Rev. Daisuke Kitagawa spoke out against wartime injustices, asserting that his fellow Episcopal churchmen “opposed evacuation as a matter of principle, but nothing was done beyond that. .…
A Shameful Silence
Prior to World War II, pacifist groups like the Church of the Brethren, the Mennonites, the FOR (an interfaith pacifist group committed to social justice), and the Religious Society of…
To a Place Unknown: Evacuation
Despite an uncertain future, Japanese American Christians faced their evacuation with a faith defined by the author of Hebrews: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction…
The Christian Answer to Suffering
Rev. Dr. E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973) was a former Methodist missionary to India who penned a well-received book, The Christ of the Indian Road. He was also a good friend…
We Shall Have Our Easter
Rev. John Misao Yamazaki (1884-1985) served in St. Mary’s Episcopal Church of Los Angeles for parts of five decades. He pastored the church before the war from 1913 to 1942,…
New Pilgrims
In April 1921, Rev. Kengo Tajima (1884-1961) was sent to continue the work of the Japanese Church of Christ in Salt Lake City begun by Rev. Hidenobu Toyotome. Tajima’s ministry…