Restrictions on Access
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Preferred Citation
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Items Removed from the Collection
UCLA Catalog Record ID
Biography
Expanded Biographical Narrative
Scope and Content
Organization and Arrangement
Related Material
Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: Akahori Family papers
Creator:
Akahori family
Identifier/Call Number: LSC.2010.01
Physical Description:
19.5 Linear Feet
(39 boxes, 1 oversize box)
Date (inclusive): circa 1908-1965
Abstract: Masaru Akahori was a writer, businessman, and an active member of the Japanese American community. He worked for several
different Japanese language newspapers both in Japan and in the United States. He was also involved in numerous business ventures,
many of which ended in failure. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he was arrested on suspicion of being an enemy
alien and incarcerated in various internment camps until March 1946. In the postwar years, he resettled his family in Los
Angeles, and founded the "Town Crier," a Japanese language daily, in Little Tokyo. The collection consists of his diaries,
memoirs, correspondence, business and financial records, and clippings from the many publications to which he contributed.
It also includes diaries and letters written by his second wife Kiku, and various personal records relating to the Akahori
family. Materials are in both English and Japanese.
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:
English
, Japanese
.
Restrictions on Access
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained
by the creators and their heirs. 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.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Akahori Family Papers, Japanese American Research Project Collection (Collection 2010). UCLA Library
Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Unknown
Items Removed from the Collection
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Box 40 removed as a result of reprocessing.
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UCLA Catalog Record ID
Biography
Masaru Akahori was born in 1884 in Tokushima Prefecture. He arrived in the United States in 1904, and worked as a reporter
for a Japanese language press in Northern California for several years until returning to Japan in 1919 to work as a reporter
for the "Yomiuri Shimbun" in Tokyo. He returned to America three years later, and became involved in various business ventures,
many of which proved unsuccessful. These ventures included a legal office, a commercial company, and an advertising agency.
Following a particularly messy financial fallout, he moved to Seattle to work for a couple of Japanese language newspapers
based in the Pacific Northwest region. Immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was arrested by FBI agents as a suspect
enemy alien, and thereafter moved from one internment camp to another until he was finally released in March 1946. Following
the War, he and his family resettled in Los Angeles, California, and he began publishing the "Town Crier," a mimeographed
Japanese language daily. Throughout his life, he went by various pen names and aliases such as: Meishu, Bennaishi, Bennosuke,
Manako, and Hyoroku Oishi. He was known among his American friends as Ben. He married twice. He had two sons from his first
marriage and a daughter, Tomoko Marjorie, from his second.
Kiku Akahori (née Ishizuka, 1900-1961), Masaru's second wife, was also known as Kikuko or Keybow. A native of Kanagawa Prefecture,
she originally came to the United States to join her first husband, Katsu Hosaka, but divorced him in 1928 on the basis of
spousal mistreatment. She looked to Masaru as a confidant and often went to him with her troubles about her first marriage.
They saw and wrote to each other often and eventually married in 1935.They had one daughter between them, and remained together
until her death in 1961 as a result of an illness.
Expanded Biographical Narrative
Masaru Akahori (1884-). Writer, businessman, and newspaper publisher. A native of Tokushima Prefecture, he graduated from
Tokushima Chugakko [characters] [Tokushima Middle School], at which Toyohiko Kagawa, a well-known Christian social reformer
and labor leader, was his senior classmate. Masaru arrived in the United States in 1904, initially resided in the San Francisco
Bay Area, and later worked in Sacramento and Placerville, California, as a reporter of a Japanese language press. In 1919
he went back to Japan to work as a reporter for the" Yomiuri Shimbun" [characters] in Tokyo. He returned to America in 1922,
and was involved in various business ventures in Southern California, including the Akahori Horitsu Jimusho [characters] [Akahori
Legal Office] and the American Oriental Advertising Company (AOC). Many of these ventures proved unsuccessful, and his financial
entanglement with business partners of the AOC resulted in his abscondence from his Terminal Island community. Subsequently,
he fled to Seattle, Washington, where he became Managing Editor of the Taihoku Nippo [characters] [The Great Northern Daily
News], and also served as the Pacific Northwest region correspondent of the Nichibei Shimbun [characters] [The Japanese American
News] of San Francisco, one of the largest and influential Japanese language newspapers in America, until World War II broke
out. Immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack, he was arrested by FBI agents as a suspected enemy alien, and was incarcerated
in various internment camps, including Fort Missoula, Lordsburg, Santa Fe, and Crystal City. When he was finally released
from the internment camp in March 1946, he and his family were resettled in Los Angeles. In the following month he began publishing
the "Town Crier," a mimeographed Japanese language daily, in Little Tokyo.
He married twice. He had two sons, Seikichi Julius and Sakuzo (both residing in Japan), from his first marriage to Mikie Miki,
and a Nisei daughter, Tomoko Marjorie, from his second to Kiku Ishizuka. His pen names and aliases included: Meishu, Bennaishi,
Bennosuke, Manako, and Hyroku Oishi. He was known as Ben M. Akahori among his American friends.
Scope and Content
The Akahori Family Papers are one of the largest and most significant collections of personal papers of Japanese immigrants
(the Issei) included in the Japanese American Research Project (JARP) Collection housed in Library Special Collections. Particularly
detailed are Masaru Akahori's diaries and memoirs, extensive files of personal correspondence, a large and comprehensive collection
of documentary and printed materials regarding his wartime incarceration, hefty amounts of clippings and draft notes of his
numerous publications, and fairly complete sets of business and financial records from his various attempts in venture business.
The collection also contains diaries and letters written by his wife Kiku, and various correspondence and personal records
relating to the Akahori family. Materials are in both English and Japanese.
Most of Akahori's prewar papers were impounded by FBI agents when he was arrested on December 7, 1942 in Seattle. Soon after
he was released from the Crystal City Internment Camp in Texas in March 1946, he got in touch with the FBI and went to a designated
Los Angeles warehouse, where his impounded personal papers and belongings were returned to him. He encouraged his Issei friends
and acquaintances who were fellow inmates in the internment camps to do the same. However, many of them remained reluctant
and afraid in the days of uncertainty, not far removed from their unpleasant experiences, to have any dealings with the FBI.
This may account, in part, for the noticeable absence in the JARP Collection of comparable personal papers, records and documentary
materials of other Issei.
Organization and Arrangement
Arranged in the following series:
1. Diaries
2. Memoirs of Masaru Akahori
3. Scrapbooks and mementos compiled by Masaru Akahori
4. Personal correspondence
5. Personal records of family members
6. Writings and publishing by Masaru
7. Office records of Akahori Horitsu Jimusho
8. Stone Chemical Products Company
9. American Oriental Advertising Company (AOC)
10. Hyoroku Oishi Office
11. Columbia Commerical Company
12. Wartime internment
13. Postwar business records
14. Financial records
15. Published materials collected by Masaru Akahori
Related Material
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Japanese Americans -- Evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945
Diaries.
Journalists -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archives.
Japanese American families -- California -- Archives.
Family papers.
Business records.
Correspondence.
Japanese American Research Project (University of California, Los Angeles)
Akahori family--Archives.
Akahori, Kikuko--Archives.
Akahori, Masaru, 1884- --Archives.
Akahori, Kikuko
Akahori, Masaru