Contributing Institution: UCLA Library Special Collections

Title: Yuji Ichioka papers

Creator: Ichioka, Yuji

Identifier/Call Number: LSC.0242

Physical Description: 681.0 Linear Feet (162 boxes and 2 oversize boxes)

Date (inclusive): circa 1880-2002

Abstract: Yuji Ichioka (1936-2002) was an American-born Japanese (Nisei) historian who pioneered in studies of Japanese American experiences. Coining the term "Asian American," Ichioka was also instrumental in developing an academic field of Asian American Studies since the late 1960s. The 2009 addition to the original Ichioka papers (processed in 2005) consists of personal documents, materials relating to the establishment and initial operation of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, Ichioka's involvement in the early phase of an ethnic studies program at UC Berkeley and community activism in northern and southern California, correspondence, conference planning and participations, publication drafts, research materials, teaching materials, and subject files.

Physical Location: Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.

Language of Material: Materials are in English.

Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.

CONTAINS DIGITAL MATERIALS: This collection contains both processed and unprocessed digital materials. Digital materials are not currently available for access, unless otherwise noted in a Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements note at the series and file levels. All requests to access processed digital materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.

Property rights to the physical objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. The copyright to the duplicates of manuscript papers belongs to the archives that house them. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.

Gift of Emma Gee, 2005.

[Identification of item], Yuji Ichioka Papers (Collection Number 242). UUCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

Processed by Eiichiro Azuma, 2005 and 2009.

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UCLA Catalog Record ID: 9953411593606533  

Yuji Ichioka (1936-2002) was born in San Francisco, California, as a son of Japanese immigrants. Having interned at the Topaz internment camp in Utah during the Pacific War, he returned to the San Francisco bay area with his parents and siblings to start a new life in Berkeley, where he stayed until his high school graduation in 1954. Ichioka then served in the United States Army to station in Germany, and after his discharge, he attended UCLA and graduated in 1962. Intending to pursue graduate study in Chinese history with a fellowship from Columbia University, Ichioka moved to New York City, but he quit the program soon after. Having served as a youth parole worker with the New York State Training School for Boys, he traveled to Japan for the first time in the winter of 1966, an experience that inspired him to take up the study of Japanese language and pursue research on Japanese immigrant experience in the United States. After he returned from the trans-Pacific trip, Ichioka enrolled in an MA program in Japanese history at the University of California at Berkeley, which he completed in 1968. Around this time, he also played a central role in forming the Asian American Political Alliance, and Ichioka, along with his partner Emma Gee whom he had met at Columbia, steered the younger generations of Asian Americans to a civil right/antiwar movement. Recruited as the instructor of the first Asian American studies course at UCLA, Ichioka took part in the establishment of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center while maintaining his ties to early leaders in UC Berkeley's ethnic studies. By 1972, Ichioka permanently moved to southern California, where he continued his research and writing on Japanese American history until his death in September 2002. At UCLA he was Research Associate and Adjunct Associate Professor of History. Ichioka was married to Emma Gee, a scholar of Asian American woman history, as well as a writer and labor activist.

During his career as a professional historian, Ichioka traveled numerous times to Japan for research and teaching while writing two major monographs: The Issei: The World of the First Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885-1924 (1988), and Before Internment: Essays in Prewar Japanese American History (posthumously published in 2006). Other publications of his include; 2 edited volumes: Karl G. Yoneda, Ganbatte: Sixty-Year Struggle of a Kibei Worker (1983), and Views from Within: The Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study (1989); 2 annotated bibliographies: A Buried Past (1974), and A Buried Past II (1999); and a dozens of path-breaking journal articles in Amerasia Journal, Pacific Historical Review, Agricultural History, and California History, among others. Ichioka was among the first few Asian Americanists who showed an interest in studies of Asian immigration to Latin America when such a subject was unconceivable in the field, and he took a few trips to Peru and Brazil for networking and preliminary research for a comparative study project and international conference on Japanese in the Americas.

Collection consists of Yuji Ichioka's correspondence (1970-2002), research papers, writings, teaching materials, rare Japanese American periodicals, and miscellaneous subject files. The research papers contain photocopies of Japanese immigrant publications and newspaper clippings, Japanese diplomatic papers, American and Japanese magazine articles, and U.S. National Archives materials, which are related to various aspects of Japanese American experiences running mainly from the 1880s to 1945. Though these materials provided a basis for the writing of his articles and books, there are great deals of primary sources that are untapped and therefore help researchers pursue original historical studies. Researchers should be also aware that because Ichioka periodically deposited some of his research acquisitions, especially Japanese American personal papers and rare books, as part of UCLA's Japanese American Research Project collections, the materials included in this collection constitute only portions of what Ichioka had collected for over thirty years of his career. Drafts and revision notes of Ichioka's published articles and books are included in this collection, as the instructional materials that he developed are also available. His professional correspondence, albeit closed for use for ten years from accession, would be useful for understanding Ichioka's day-to-day operation as a scholar and teacher, his service to the fields of Japanese American history and Asian American Studies, and his interactions with scholars and intellectuals in not only the United States but also Latin America and Japan. Others papers pertain to Ichioka's role in the development of Asian American archival collections at UCLA and the organization of academic conferences

The 2009 addition represents the materials that have been discovered at Ichioka's residence since the original acquisition was processed in 2005. This collection of 23 boxes consists of Yuji Ichioka's personal files (inc. school materials), papers relating to the establishment and operation of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, the first Asian American studies course he taught there in 1969, his involvement in the nascent phase of UC Berkeley's ethnic studies program and community-based political organizing in northern and southern California, correspondence, materials pertaining to conference planning and participations, publication manuscripts and drafts, research materials, teaching materials, and miscellaneous subject files. Most of the listing categories used for the organization of this collection are drawn from the original 2005 collection, though a few new categories are created. The most notable of those new categories are the first two container lists, which provide a good glimpse into Ichioka's formative education at UCLA and UC Berkeley, as well as his role in the development of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. Because his involvement in-and commitment to-community activism was closely tied to his scholarly activities with the Asian American Studies Center, the materials relating to these matters are placed side by side in the second category of Container List, and researchers should be aware of their inseparable nature. It is also notable that the materials in the same category include those produced by and relating to Emma Gee, who worked together with Ichioka in the Asian American movement. The materials pertaining to the planning of and the networking for a comparative study of Japanese in North and South America would be also valuable in light of Ichioka's pioneering vision for this area of transnational historical research. Whereas the 2009 addition supplements the original acquisition with the hitherto unavailable documents covering the birth of the Asian American Studies Center at UCLA and an international study of Japanese in the Americas, many of the research papers in this collection overlap with the contents of the latter, and so do the research materials. (The finding aid provides cross-reference information when necessary.) Still, some of his writings and research materials in this collection not only reveal a birds' eye view of Ichioka's scholarly endeavor, but they also represent the primary sources that are untapped and therefore potentially quite helpful for researchers in their own studies. It should be noted that because Ichioka periodically deposited some of his research acquisitions, especially Japanese American personal papers and rare books, as part of UCLA's Japanese American Research Project collections and the East Asian Library holdings, the materials included in this-and the earlier 2005-collection constitute only portions of what Ichioka had collected for over thirty years of his career. The correspondence files in Boxes 145 and 146, as those in Boxes 1 through 16, are closed for ten years and restricted for use. Eiichiro Azuma processed both the 2005 and 2009 acquisitions.

Arranged in the following series:

1. Correspondence File
2. Conferences and Edited Anthologies
3. Publications
4. Research Materials
5. Teaching Materials
6. Archival Development
7. Subject Files
8. Periodicals
9. Asian American Studies & Movement
10. Card Catalog
11. Personal File

The 2005 acquisition of Ichioka's office materials-consisting of 139 boxes-is the backbone of the newly-expanded Yuji Ichioka Papers. Many other collections of manuscripts were also deposited by Ichioka as part of the Japanese American Research Project collections at UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Library, UCLA. Japanese American Research Project Collections   at Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Library, UCLA. See Yuji Ichioka, el al., A Buried Past: An Annotated Bibliography of the Japanese American Research Project Collection (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974); and Yuji Ichioka and Eiichiro Azuma, A Buried Past II: A Sequel to the Annotated Bibliography of the Japanese American Research Project Collection (Los Angeles: UCLA Asian American Studies Center, 1999).