Unidentified man; [possibly Chicago]; color photo, circa 1975 Summer

The Konman-Matsukawa family papers include a family history, letters, diaries, yearbooks, receipts, licenses, identification cards, certificates, diplomas, passports, report cards, Bibles, books, photographs (black and white and color), photographic negatives, legal documents (marriage, birth, and death certificates; military discharge papers; and a divorce filing), newspaper clippings, a U.S. Army uniform from World War II, and objects (pins, medals, a name plate, coins, eyeglasses, a lock of hair, and a dried umbilical chord). The materials date from 1910 to 1995 with the bulk dating from 1940 to 1955. Approximately 5% of the collection is written in Japanese language and has been processed with English translations.

Kazuyo “Jane” Konman Matsukawa collected these materials from her family members throughout her life (1914-1996). The collection contains related materials from her father, Kuro Konman; her siblings, Eiko “Vicky” Konman and Hideo “Jack” Konman; and her husband, Kenjiro “Henry” Matsukawa, and his family.

The collection is organized first by individual and then roughly chronologically. The photographs, negatives, textiles, and objects (Boxes 6-10) are housed separately from the paper records.

The collection documents the forced removal of the Konman family from Los Angeles to a U.S. internment camp at Rohwer Relocation Center near McGehee, Arkansas. Kazuyo’s sister, Eiko, documents the family’s experiences of being held at Santa Anita Racetrack in Arcadia, California for five months and then evacuated from the West Coast to Arkansas in her 1942 diary. In this diary Eiko transcribes letters sent to a dear friend from whom she recently separated. She attempts to maintain normality and suppress her fear by writing jokes and puns, despite her father’s disability and Kazuyo’s precarious illness during their removal. The collection contains scarce photographs of life during internment camp. It also documents Kazuyo’s resettlement and long-time residence in Chicago after internment camp in letters and photographs.

The Konman-Matsukawa Family Papers contain extremely rare and valuable written and photographic materials including a first-hand account of the evacuation of Japanese Americans from the West Coast and the conditions of everyday life while interned. In addition to the Eiko’s 1942 diary (Box 3), highlights include Hideo’s World War II uniform (Box 9), the Rohwer [Relocation] Center High School yearbook (Box 3), and rare photographs from inside internment camp (Boxes 6-7).

The difficulties and hardship that families like the Konman family faced before, during, and after World War II are subtly documented throughout this collection. In her 1941 diary (Box 3), Eiko wrote about the family’s financial pressures after her father has a stroke. She documented the growing tension between the United States and Japan and noticeably started using her Americanized name, Vicky. She also wrote about happy times as well like going to the movies and Hideo’s birthday dinner. While a specific link between the evacuation and internment camp experiences and the loss of family members cannot be made explicitly, one wonders how much these devastating experiences exacerbated existing problems. Kazuyo, Eiko, and Hideo suffered the loss of their father one month before leaving internment camp. Then in 1948, Eiko died of leukemia and a few months later Hideo left Chicago for Hawaii leaving Kazuyo alone in Chicago. An explicit example is found in a letter dated November 17, 1949 (Box 1, Folder 19), Kenjiro’s cousin described how his uncle’s health problems began when he was thrown into “the stockades” at the start of World War II because he as a leader in the Japanese American community in Hawaii. He never recovered and died in 1949.

In her 1966 to 1969 diaries, Kazuyo described the complaints, demands, and problems they had with tenants and the general details of life (Boxes 1-2). She makes a rare comment about how Japanese Americans are perpetually considered “foreigners” in the United States in a December 27, 1977 letter to her cousins in Japan (Box 2).

This collection is open without restrictions except for the newspaper-clipping scrapbook (Box 3, Folder 12), which may not be handled by researchers. A photocopy of this scrapbook is available for use (Box 4, Folder 1). Photographs in Kenjiro’s album (Boxes 6-7) were removed from the album because the pages were highly acidic. Information added by the person who processed the collection is found in brackets [XX].