Courtesy Photo­Image Harvesting potatoes near Hershey

Courtesy Photo­Image Rev. Hiram Hisanori Kano

Courtesy Photo­Image Harvesting corn west of North Platte

Courtesy Photo­Image Rev. Kano, right front center, with a group outside the church.

Courtesy Photo­Image Working the harvest

Courtesy Photo­Image Rev. Kano with other clerics

Courtesy Photo­Image Chief Discoe's letter

Like thousands of others, Hiram Hisanori Kano journeyed from Japan to the United States in the early years of the 20th century.

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Kano was a young man who wanted to learn more, do more and see more.

Like dozens of others Japanese immigrants, Kano eventually arrived in North Platte.

The immigrants battled disastrous weather, no conveniences, few comforts, economic depressions and bigotry to raise families and serve their country.

Such journeys will be honored for 30 days beginning July 23, at special presentations all over the country, including the Lincoln County Historical Museum in North Platte.

And, the Episcopal Church of Our Savior in North Platte will host a special celebration on July 29, celebrating the Japanese heritage and giving honor to a former beloved priest, Rev. Kano.

Kano arrived in the United States in 1916. He was 27, a short, humble man with a big spirit.

As a child, he had met the Nebraska statesman William Jennings Bryan, who visited Japan. The Kano family was part of the Imperial Japanese family that hosted Bryan.

Kano became fascinated with the United States and Nebraska.

Kano came from Japan to Lincoln to study, where he obtained a masters degree in agricultural economics from the University of Nebraska and aimed to help other Japanese immigrants learn to farm.

His work led him to politics. In 1919, he confronted an effort in the Legislature to prohibit Japanese immigrants from owning real estate in the state. He provided statistics on the number of Japanese people living and farming in Nebraska. He testified again in 1921 against a similar measure. Both times, his testimony helped defeat the prohibitions.

Kano farmed near Litchfield. In 1920, he became President of the Nebraska Japanese Americanization Society.

His vocation was helping others and in 1925 he was appointed as an Episcopal church lay worker and moved to Mitchell.

Three years later, he was ordained a deacon and began ministering to the Episcopal Church’s Japanese missions in North Platte and Mitchell.

When he is honored July 29-30, those who knew him will attend, as well as those he influenced despite the distance of time and geography, including the leader of the Episcopal Church in the United States.

“He was a wonderful man, a short guy,” said Susan (Kumagai) Thompson, 87, who grew up in North Platte, “but he stood head and shoulders above everyone in the community, because of the kind of person he was. He was outstanding, helpful. He rose above everything.”

Settler, parishioner

Susan Kumagai’s father Chozo arrived in the United States by ship around the turn of the 20th century. He later told his children that there was no future for someone like him in Japan, no good jobs and no opportunity for schooling.

Chozo probably worked his way over on the ship, Susan said. He landed in San Francisco and worked on a salmon boat for a while - anything to get a job, she said. He joined a railroad section gang, a common occupation for Orientals, and worked his way west, eventually arriving in North Platte.

Kumagai became a janitor at the roundhouse and as the years went by, he bought six acres of land and operated a small dairy with the help of his wife and three oldest children.

Many Japanese immigrants settled west of North Platte, farming the fertile Platte Valley.

It was a hard life but a productive one, Susan said, until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Then it got harder.

Bombing

The Japanese in North Platte immediately came under suspicion. North Platte Police Chief O.L. Discoe sent a letter to law officers in Omaha listing the names and locations of Japanese living in North Platte and the vicinity.

Ben Kuroki, a Hershey native who fought to successfully fought to rise above suspicion, became a World War II flying hero, but he was on the list.

The FBI arrested Kano Dec. 7, 1941, the same day Pearl Harbor was attacked, and he spent two years in five different internment camps in four states.

Kumagai was fired from his job at the roundhouse. Within a few days, each of his milk customers left notes in return bottles, saying they didn’t want milk until further notice.

No quit

Kano again rose above his surroundings, making the best of his life in the camps. He started what he called the Internment University, teaching English to internees. He also offered counseling and conducted worship. Eventually he was allowed to go to a seminary in Nashotah, Wisc., and after the war, he moved to Scotts Bluff and then to Ft. Collins, Colo.

Kumagai sold his dairy cows and turned the six acres where the cows pastured into a truck garden.

“It was a lot of work for my dad,” Susan said. “He had no experience, no machinery. I don’t know how he did it. He probably was helped by others in the community. It’s all sort of a dream to me now. I left for college in 1942, but he had the best crops you ever saw and sold them to local stores. Financially, that saved us. We (Kumagai’s six children) all went to college.”

In 1952, Kano and Kumagai and 23 others were finally naturalized, becoming U.S. citizens in a ceremony in North Platte. Between 1953 and 1955 nearly all of the Japanese immigrants in Nebraska became naturalized citizens of the United States.

Many of their descendents have moved on to other places, but a significant number will return for the celebration, which commemorates the spirit of the immigrants and the open hearted humility of Rev. Kano.

“It’s going to be a wonderful get-together,” said Ruth Kamino of North Platte, whose husband Sam, 90, is a member of the second generation, “but in a way it’s a shame that so many Nisei (children of Japanese immigrants) are gone and the ones that are here are not in great health.”

Gov. Dave Heineman signed a proclamation July 11, proclaiming July 29 as The Reverend Hiram Hisanori Kano Day in Nebraska. Susan (Kumagai) Thompson was present.

Earlier this year, the Nebraska Legislature extended its gratitude to Father Kano for his work with the Japanese-Americans in the Platte River Valley and commemorated his two missions -- St. George's in North Platte and St. Mary's in Mitchell.

Sen. Tom Hansen introduced the Legislative resolution.

“Hiram Kano was a quiet and persevering warrior in the battle against the evil of racism and a champion of his people in the struggle for justice and peace as he fought for the dignity of every human being,” the resolution says.

First published in the July 11 print edition of the North Platte Bulletin. Thanks to Stephen Kay of North Platte and all who contributed information to this report. -Editor.