![\"Mary](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/jaac-special-archives-ap-5.13.26-web-10.jpg\")
\nMarielle Tsukamoto followed in her mother Mary’s footsteps as a teacher and Japanese American community leader. (Sacramento State\/Jennifer K. Morita)<\/p>\n
Made up of personal photos, documents, and belongings of Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II, the purpose of the collection is to never forget.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe children, the Nisei, are very adamant about continuing to educate the public,\u201d Special Collections\/University Archives Head Sarah Allison said. \u201cThey wanted a place where their families\u2019 collections could go and be preserved and made accessible for future generations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just want to make sure their history never gets lost.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Japanese American Archive Collection was\u00a0established\u00a0in 1994 when longtime Elk Grove teacher, civil rights activist, and Japanese American leader Mary Tsukamoto donated letters, photographs, and artifacts to the University.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her one stipulation: Sac State had to release the items for educational purposes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With Tsukamoto\u2019s prompting, donations from the Florin Japanese American Citizens League, the Sacramento VFW Nisei Post 8985, and\u00a0nearly 300\u00a0private individuals soon followed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Today the archive houses more than 2,100 items, including photographs, letters, diaries, artwork, and oral histories \u2014 spanning from the pre-war years, the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, and up through the grass-roots reparations movement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pieces of the collection are on loan all over the world, including the California Museum, the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and Heroes of Vosges Museum in France, where the primarily Nisei 100th Infantry Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team liberated several towns.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some materials were also part of a Smithsonian art exhibit that traveled to Tokyo, where the Emperor and Empress of Japan had a private showing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s arguably one of the best in the world, and that is because of its depth and breadth,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cIt may not be the largest, but we have materials from the government, the military, the\u00a0incarcerees, the Quakers who helped them, the neighbor who took care of them, and even the haters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHistory has many points of view.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sacramento State\u00a0alumna\u00a0Mary Tsukamoto\u2019s legacy\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before the war, Mary Tsukamoto and her husband Alfred farmed grapes in Florin, home to hundreds of Japanese immigrants and their American-born children. But on February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 removing 120,000 Japanese Americans living along the West Coast and forcing them to live behind barbed wire in remote, desolate concentration camps.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They could only bring what they could carry. Entire families were crammed into one-room wooden barracks.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/jaac-special-archives-ap-5.13.26-web-6.jpg\")
\nJAAC photo of Mary Tsukamoto receiving a plaque on the National Day of Apology. Beside her is Sacramento Bee reporter Judy Tachibana. (Sacramento State\/Andrea Price)<\/p>\n
\u00a0For many years, Tsukamoto\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0speak of her wartime experiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mother always said she felt like a second-class citizen,\u201d Marielle Tsukamoto said. \u201cBecause if you were a child of immigrants, you\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0really count.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody wanted to be Japanese.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0Tsukamoto earned her teaching\u00a0credential\u00a0from Sacramento State and taught in the Elk Grove Unified School District for 26 years. When she retired in 1976, she served as director of\u00a0Jan Ken Po Gakko<\/a>, a summer program that teaches area children about Japanese American culture.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the kids asked, \u2018What did Grandpa do wrong? Why was he in prison?\u2019\u201d Marielle Tsukamoto said. \u201cShe realized these kids thought we were incarcerated because we committed a crime. Unless<\/p>\n we speak up,\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0not going to know that what the government did was unconstitutional.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe did nothing wrong.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Tsukamoto became active in the Civil Rights Movement. She developed lessons on the Japanese American experience during World War II that is now part of the statewide fifth-grade curriculum. She was a leader in grass-roots efforts that led to the passage of the Civil Liberties Act signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 effectively apologizing for the government\u2019s mistake.\u00a0<\/p>\n She also developed We the People, an exhibit on incarceration for the Smithsonian Institute\u2019s American History Museum to mark the Constitution\u2019s Centennial.\u00a0<\/p>\n The collection tells a story\u00a0<\/p>\n In December 1944, while the\u00a0Tsukamotos\u00a0were still incarcerated and living in a drafty barrack, Mary sent a Christmas card to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife.\u00a0<\/p>\n Their reply on White House stationery, signed by Eleanor Roosevelt herself, is just one of the pieces Tsukamoto donated to the collection.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI am glad all is going\u00a0well,\u201d the First Lady wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n Photos and letters show how the\u00a0incarcerees\u00a0made the best out of\u00a0a bad situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n They worked and set up schools. They held dances, took\u00a0walks\u00a0and collected shells and arrowheads they found in the ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n Classes on art, painting, doll-making and other crafts produced charcoal sketches and watercolor paintings of life in camp.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is my favorite,\u201d Allison said, pointing to a painting of a woman and child walking\u00a0hand-in-hand\u00a0past rows of barracks, a watchtower in the distance.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels weird to say that, because this is a painting that was done in an internment camp.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0like they were trying to find hope. And\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0what comes through in these pieces.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Part of the collection, housed in a storage facility, includes a wardrobe, table, and desk Sacramento carpenter George Kawasaki made in camp using pieces of scrap wood and packing crates.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey used what was available,\u201d University Archivist Lynn Sanborn said. \u201cThey had all these things to not only document what was happening to\u00a0them, but\u00a0have a sense of normalcy. There are so many\u00a0different types\u00a0of materials in this collection that it really gives people an idea of what happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt can be a depressing collection. But\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0a very powerful\u00a0collection.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n George Matsushita, a member of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, wore the\u00a0senninbari\u00a0made by his mother while fighting in Italy during World War II.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s even a spot of blood on it,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cThe Japanese American soldiers were in a segregated unit, and many of them threw away their\u00a0senninbari\u00a0because it looked too Japanese. They wanted to be seen as patriotic.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Making the collection available to anyone\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2015, the National Park Service awarded a $321,000 grant to a group of 13 CSU campuses to digitize original documents related to the Japanese American incarceration.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sac State, with the largest collection, received $40,000 to digitally preserve\u00a0roughly 4,000\u00a0documents including letters, pamphlets, photographs and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the third leg of what we do,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cWe collect, preserve, and make it accessible for anybody, anywhere to see.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf it\u2019s in a box in a basement, and nobody knows what\u2019s in those boxes, it doesn\u2019t exist.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In addition to their families\u2019 personal belongings and documents, the Japanese American community also gave money to preserve and support the use of the collection. Today, the JAAC Endowment funds\u00a0two grants<\/a>\u00a0of up to $3,000 to pay travel expenses for undergraduate researchers to use the collection.\u00a0<\/p>\n Students gain experience applying for a grant, planning a research trip, and working with archivists in the reading room.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe wanted to help the next generation of students who might be interested in continuing to do historical or archival research,\u201d Allison said. \u201cThey physically get to look at the material and handle it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The digitized collection is available for anyone with Internet access to view anywhere in the world. But Allison said seeing the pieces in real life can be more rewarding.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s\u00a0something more ephemeral about the material being in front of you. You realize it could deteriorate, it\u00a0could no longer exist, which is why we have digital preservation,\u201d she said. \u201cBut sitting in the reading room and seeing it in a box with other materials, gives you a sense of how big the collection\u00a0actually is.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cComing in and working with an archivist adds another kind of layer, and so you just become immersed in the space and the research.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Nate Jeffords, a sophomore at Mount Vernon Nazarene University in Ohio, spent a week working in the University Archives Reading Room.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"White](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/jaac-special-archives-ap-5.13.26-web-1-2.jpg\")
\nGeorge Matsushita’s mother made him a senninbari to protect him while he fought in Italy as part of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. (Sacramento State\/Andrea Price)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/jaac-special-archives-ap-5.13.26-web-3-1.jpg\")
\nAn incarceree made this Japanese doll using leftover material, thread, and toilet paper to fashion the hands. (Sacramento State\/Andrea Price)<\/p>\n