Jonathan van Harmelen

jonathan

Jonathan van Harmelen is currently a Ph.D student in history at UC Santa Cruz specializing in the history of Japanese-American incarceration. He holds a BA in history and French from Pomona College and an MA from Georgetown University. He can be reached at jvanharm@ucsc.edu.

Updated February 2020

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Horse Stall Housing, Spoiled Ham, and Other Stories of Life in Tanforan - Part 2

By Brian Niiya, Jonathan van Harmelen
5 Dec 2022

Read Part 1 >> Nisei Collegians Given its urban population and proximity to Bay Area colleges, it is likely that there was a higher concentration of college students at Tanforan than at most other “assembly centers.” Though most were not immediately able to continue their education, there were a few who were able to leave Tanforan to attend college—and thus avoid going to a WRA concentration camp—often with the assistance of the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council, which formed at the end of May 1942. Among them were former UC Berk…

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Horse Stall Housing, Spoiled Ham, and Other Stories of Life in Tanforan - Part 1

By Brian Niiya, Jonathan van Harmelen
4 Dec 2022

The second largest of the so-called “assembly centers” with a peak population of 7,816, Tanforan was built on the site of the Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno, California, near the present site of the San Francisco International Airport. Its inmate population arrived in late April and early May 1942, and came almost entirely from the San Francisco Bay area and was thus among the most urban of the short-term camps. Essentially the entire inmate population was transferred to the Topaz, Utah, concentration camp in September 1942. It is now the site of a shopping center and BART stati…

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The Woes of Voting in Camp in 1942

By Jonathan van Harmelen
25 Nov 2022

In every election, the question of voter turnout poses a serious challenge. On innumerable occasions, the problem has been aggravated due to legislators’ attempts to restrict access to voting, often targeting minority voters. In the Jim Crow South, the imposition of poll taxes and literacy tests long served to prevent African Americans from voting. Eighty years ago, in both the elections of 1942 and 1944, Japanese Americans confined behind barbed wire fences faced particular hurdles in order to exercise their right as voters. The problem was particularly acute in 1942. The Issei, who w…

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Yukuo Uyehara – An Issei Academic in Wartime - Part 2

By Jonathan van Harmelen
27 Oct 2022

Read Part 1 >> The bombing of Pearl Harbor turned Professor Yukuo Uyehara’s life around, as it did to countless other Japanese Americans in Hawaii. In the wake of the attack, the FBI arrested dozens of Issei community leaders. Uyehara remained free and continued his work as an instructor at University of Hawaii, although he held the status of “enemy alien.” In September 1942, Uyehara was added to a directory of leading scholars in the United States for his work in Japanese. Shortly thereafter, the University of Hawaii appointed Uyehara as chair of the East Asian Lan…

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Yukuo Uyehara – An Issei Academic in Wartime - Part 1

By Jonathan van Harmelen
26 Oct 2022

Before U.S. entry in World War II, a small group of Japanese immigrants found work as academics in American universities. A few, such as Yamato Ichihashi of Stanford University, Toyokichi Iyenaga of University of Chicago, were prestigious researchers who conducted pioneering work on Japan and/or prewar Japanese American communities. Others, like Etsu Sugimoto and Bunji Omura, supplemented their income by teaching at universities like Columbia University, where they provided introductory courses in Japanese language and culture to students. Within this group, one exceptional individual was …

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Japanese migrants and their descendants

Jonathan van Harmelen

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書評：和泉真澄『日系カナダ人の移動と運動―知られざる日本人の越境生活史』

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Journal Entry #Lesson 3450: "Sharpen Your Pencils!"

Narumi Ogusuku Ubiquitous Nikkei Artist

Herald Salutes – Staff Sergeant Higuchi

The Morgenthau Diaries and FDR's Troubling Views of Minorities

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