Coram Nobis and the Continuum of Activism

              Heritage • Spring 1999
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Work on the Bussei Kaikan of the Yakima
Buddhist Church was interrupted by the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. The
unfinished building was used as a USO during
the war, and then served as a hostel for returning internees until 1947. However, less than
one-fifth of former residents returned. The depleted congregation worked on the kaikan
continued as time and funds permitted.
Construction was finally completed in 1965.
Courtesy of the BCA Archives.
the Meaning orCommunity:
The   Issei   Farmers   of   Wapato,   Washington
By Isao Fujimoto
Edited by Ken Kaji and Shizue Seigel
[During WWII, my father]
had been detained as a
dangerous "enemy alien" because
he had been a sort of leader.
to build community - perhaps the
most important aspect of keeping up
the spirits i
in a hostile envir
M
y father, Taichi Fujimoto, was
from Esumi-mura, Wakayama
ken, Japan. He left the vessel
which employed him as a ship's carpenter and made his way to Yakima in
eastern Washington.
There, more than 125 Nikkei families grew potatoes, melons, tomatoes,
carrots and other vegetables and field
crops on land rented from the Yakima
Indians. The Alien Land Laws, which
forbade the sale or rental of land "to
aliens ineligible for citizenship," were
specifically targeted against the
Japanese. The Yakima reservation provided a welcome haven, resulting in a
thriving community that included a
Japanese Methodist church and the
Yakima Valley Buddhist temple in
Wapato.
As the community grew in the
1930s, the need for additional facilities,
especially for the youth, led to the envisioning of a kaikan, or community
center, adjacent to the Buddhist
Church. This auditorium/gymnasium
would house a stage, basketball court,
Sunday School classrooms, meeting
rooms and other facilities for commu-
8  National Japanese American Historical Society
nity gatherings and conferences. While
monetary resources were low, temple
members were willing to make up the
difference by contributing their labor.
Construction began in 1939.
Because of his skills in carpentry, my
father was put in charge of construction. He trained and guided volunteers
in the various skills required to build
the structure, supervising as many as
75 temple members on weekends. My
father spent an enormous amount of
time at the building site, and our farm
- 80 acres of field and row crops - was
neglected.
One day, over 50 farmers showed
up. We had a whole field of carrots that
needed to be picked. They swept the
fields, completing the harvest, and
shipped it off to the packing house. My
parents were delighted and grateful.
The community had turned out to
help them in appreciation of all the
time my father had devoted to the
kaikan. This was the spirit by which
the kaikan at the Yakima Buddhist
Temple was built. It left me with a lasting impression of what community
means: people working together can
Fujimoto (cont'd on p. 22)