October 13, 2024 – August 30, 2025
One of the remarkable features of this exhibit is a newly developed database of more than 1,100 names and 260 addresses documenting all the Berkeley residents of Japanese descent who were forcibly removed from their homes during World War II and sent to internment camps such as Topaz in Utah. The searchable Berkeley “Here Lived” database will be available digitally in the museum and displayed as a printed list to memorialize a traumatic history that is within living memory. It was inspired by the Stolpersteine (“stumbling stones”) memorial project in Europe.
The exhibit also features historic artifacts, contemporary artworks, and illustrated panels about housing and redlining; the robust Japanese American business, religious, education, and sports communities; and activism. Personal memories of growing up in Berkeley and family photos are included. Research for the project included multiple oral history interviews.
The exhibit has been developed primarily by local Japanese Americans Arlene Makita Acuña, Gary Tominaga, Nancy Ukai, and David Ushijima, along with Kathryn Lucchese and BHSM volunteers Jeanine Castello-Lin (chair), Aimee Baldwin, Elina Juvonen, George Petty, Michael Several, and Chuck Wollenberg.
Open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 1 to 4 pm. Admission is free (donations appreciated).
Dr. Hajime Uyeyama was born in Berkeley in 1904. Photo with younger brother, Dr. Kahn Uyeyama, c. 1912.
Kurasaburo Fujii was the first of five generations in Berkeley. He opened a cooperative laundry in 1914 on Shattuck Avenue near Blake. He stands before his delivery vehicle, c. 1939.
Dorothea Lange, “Berkeley, California. Residents of Japanese ancestry are closing out their businesses in preparation for the coming evacuation. They will be moved into War Relocation Authority centers to spend the duration,” March 19, 1942. Densho Digital Repository.
View from the second floor of First Congregational Church of Japanese Americans boarding a bus for Tanforan (April 1942, photo by church secretary Eleanor Breed).
A model Topaz barrack made by Mas Nakata after he returned to Berkeley.
One of Dana Kawano’s Kasa Project painted umbrellas interpreting a story told by a Japanese American incarceration victim or their descendant.
Jeanie Kashima holds a collage that she made of the Fulton Street house her grandfather purchased in 1917 despite the Alien Land Law. She has added five generations of family members. Behind her is the “Here Lived” database.
This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit www.calhum.org