Correspondence between Oberlin College and the UW
Correspondence Series, 2/7 Ernest H. Wilkins, Box 58, Nisei folder, Oberlin College Archives.
LETTER FROM L.P. SIEG TO PRESIDENT WILKINS DATED MARCH 10, 1942.
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
SEATTLE
March 10, 1942
President Ernest H. Wilkins
Oberlin College
Oberlin, Ohio
My dear President Wilkins:
Because of the exigencies of war, the Army has given advance notice of the evacuation from this area of both native and American born Japanese. Between three and four hundred members of the latter group are students who have been enrolled in the University of Washington this year.
We have known these students as excellent scholars and young people who have contributed their leadership to our classroom work and constructive campus activities. As a group, their scholarship is well above the University average. As citizens of the University community, they have been loyal supporters of academic and defense activities.
Some of these students will wish to continue their education in institutions away from the Pacific Coast area. We are interested in seeing, in so far as it is possible, that the students of this group be given every opportunity to do so.
This letter is in the nature of an exploratory note to inquire whether your institution would be in a position to open its doors to a few well-qualified American students of Japanese ancestry.
Sincerely yours,
L. P. Sieg
President
Letter from President Wilkens to L.P. Sieg dated March 19, 1942
March 19, 1942
President L.P. Sieg,
University of Washington,
Seattle, Washington.
Dear President Sieg:
Many thanks for you letter of March 10. May I venture to compliment you on its excellence both in spirit and in form?
While it is too late for us to take in any new students in the current semester, we are starting a full length term of sixteen weeks on June 8. that term will run until late September and the Fall Term will start early in October.
We have here in our Sophomore Class a young man from Seattle, Harry Yamaguchi, who is making an excellent record scholastically and personally.
On his recommendation I am very glad to say to you that if any or all of the four students named below should be able to arrange to come to Oberlin beginning with the Summer Session, they would be welcome:
Kenji Okuda
Norio Higano
Richard Imai
Koichi Hayashi
We could not undertake to provide any financial help for them in their first term of attendance: but if in that term they should do well scholastically and otherwise and should then continue in Oberlin, our scholarship resources would be as available to them as to any other students.
I should be glad to know at your convenience whether we may expect any of them.
If one or more of these should be unable to come, I should be glad to have you nominate a substitute.
Yours sincerely,
EHW:JC
Letter from Robert O’Brien to President Wilkins dated March 26, 1942
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
SEATTLE
OFFICE OF THE DEAN
March 26, 1942
President Ernest Hatch Wilkins
Oberlin College
Oberlin, Ohio
Dear President Wilkins:
President Sieg has given me your letter of March 19 to answer as I am advisor to the Japanese students on campus.
As this is our Spring vacation, I have not been able to contact the four students recommended by Harry Yamaguchi but shall attempt to do so within the next day or two.
I have just returned from a conference with academic, Y.M.C.A., and army officials in San Francisco and find that all three groups agreed upon the desireability of continuing the education of our American born Japanese with a view to assisting the assimilation process after the war.
May I thank you for your generosity and cooperation in helping us find a place for some of our best students.
Sincerely,
Robert W. O’Brien
Assistant to the Dean
RWO: cg
Letter from Robert O’Brien to President Wilkins, 29 June 1942
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
SEATTLE
OFFICE OF THE DEAN
June 29, 1942
President Ernest H. Wilkins
Office of the President
Oberlin College
Oberlin, Ohio
Dear President Wilkins:
I want to take this opportunity to again thank you for the leadership which you have taken in perpetuating the Oberlin traditions which mean so much to her alumni. I should like to pass on to you the following quotation from a letter from one of our students who is there this summer:
“There are no exceptions of restrictions. The war hasn’t affected their policy a bit…there are eleven of us Nisei students at Oberlin, and my only regret is that some more of the Nisei students are not here to benefit by Oberlin democracy. It is indeed a pleasure and an inspiration to attend such a school where you are treated on an equal basis with everyone else.”
One of the most difficult jobs in student relocation is that of placing our technically-trained graduate students. Of the men in this classification, our outstanding example is Mr. Chihiro Kikuchi, who has been a member of our faculty in Physics for several years. His colleagues in the department are at one in their unqualified recommendation of Mr. Kikuchi. There is little that I can add, except to say that I have known him personally for three years. Our contact has been intimate, as he was the leader of the young people at the Japanese Congregational Church in Seattle during the year which I acted as layman pastor (a good Oberlin congregational practice). In that time both Mrs. O’Brien and I have come to know him quite well and have admired him, not only as an able scholar and good teacher, but as a Christian gentleman of real loyalty to his country, –the United States.
Chihiro Kikuchi has completed all of his requirements for his Doctor’s degree with the exception of his thesis. More than anything else, he wants an opportunity to use his talents constructively in support of this country. I am hoping that you may see your way clear to find some small spot for him at Oberlin.
At present he is living in Pullman, Washington, the home of the state college, but we have had confidential information to the effect that the American-born may be removed from all the sections of the State of Washington.
Cordially,
Robert W. O’Brien
RWO: jeh
Robert O’Brien, to Oberlin College Secretary to the President, Miss Ruth T. Forsythe
August 22, 1942
Miss Ruth T. Forsythe
Secretary to the President
Oberlin College
Oberlin, Ohio
My dear Miss Forsythe:
A great deal has happened in student relocation since my visit to your office in Oberlin last April. The work which we carried on individually from the University of Washington has been coordinated under the National Student Relocation Council.
At present we are quite concerned with getting community acceptance for the excellent Nisei students whom Oberlin has accepted. I am particularly concerned that Bill Makino, Kenji Okuda, gain community acceptance in time to get to Oberlin for the Fall term. I am wondering if it would be possible for you to get a statement similar to the one below from Mayor Cummings and send it Airmail to Miss Trudy King, 2538 Channing Way, Berkeley, California. This would materially help, not only the two students from the University of Washington, but those whom John B. Schwertman wrote about on August 14.
Let me thank you again for the very pleasant visit I had at my old alma mater.
Sincerely,
ROBERT W. O’BRIEN
Assistant to the Dean
University of Washington
RWO: pjh
“We are not aware of any local condition which would make it inadvisable for Bill Makino and Kenji Okuda who are American citizens of Japanese ancestry and who are fully accepted for admission by Oberlin College, to live as students in this community.”
Or perhaps his own spontaneous statement: “Anyone whom the college accepted we’d take without question.”
RWO
Letter from Ruth Forsythe to Robert O’Brien dated August 27, 1942
August 27, 1942
Mr. Robert W. O’Brien,
Assistant to the Dean,
University of Washington,
Seattle, Washington.
Dear Mr. O’Brien:
I am today sending a letter such as you requested to Miss King. Mr. Comings is very ill in Allen Hospital, but Professor McCullough, Vice-Chairman of the Village Council, has written the letter for him.
I think there is really nothing to fear in this matter. There are, I hear, a few individual townspeople objecting to the admission of these students, but they have not taken the time or the trouble to check the facts as to the number accepted by the College. The City Manager’s Office has been kept fully informed.
Sincerely yours,
RF
Secretary to the President