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Title: Edo Mita papers
Dates: 1930-1955
Collection number: 2020.57
Collection Size:
1 linear foot (1 box and 1 oversized folder)
Repository:
Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Los Angeles, California 90012
Creator: Mita, Edo
Abstract: This collection includes materials collected by and created primarily by Edo Mita, dating from 1930-1955. The bulk of the
collection are personal diaries related to his time in 1930s France, correspondence with Huguette Clark and others on the
topic of Japanese cultural dress, materials related to his deportation case, and personal photographs.
Physical location: Japanese American National Museum. 100 North Central Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90012.
By appointment only. Please contact the Collections Management and Access Unit (collections@janm.org). Advanced notice is
required.
All requests for permission to publish, reproduce, or quote from materials in this collection must be submitted to the Collections
Management and Access Unit at the Japanese American National Museum (collections@janm.org).
[Identification of item], Edo Mita Papers. 2020.57, Japanese American National Museum. Los Angeles, CA.
Acquired in 2020 as a gift of Kene Rosa.
The collection was processed and the finding aid created in 2022 by Christine Chan.
Edo Heihachi Mita was born on May 8, 1908, in Tokyo, Japan, son of famed actor Sojin Kamiyama (also known as Mitsugu Mita).
In 1922, he immigrated with his parents at age 13 to San Francisco, California, before settling in Los Angeles. An artist
and poet, he spent some time in France during the early 1930s, as recorded in his journals. Sometime prior to 1940, he married
his first wife, Chiyeko (Chiye) Mori. During World War II, Chiye was sent to the concentration camp at Manzanar, while Edo
– who had been diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1928 – was sent to Hillcrest Sanitarium in La Crescenta, California, where it
appears he remained from 1942 until 1947/1948. In 1950, he married Janet Callendar but the marriage was short-lived and he
married Hester Cushing two years later. Throughout the 1950s, Edo – who was also known as Edward Kamiyama (and possibly Ed
Sojin Jr) – appeared in a handful of Hollywood films and television shows, among them the role of “Mr. Sasikawa” in the television
episode “Decoy,” from Alfred Hitchcock Presents. During this time, Edo also successfully fought against a 1952 McCarran-Walter
Act deportation order while battling stomach cancer. He died on May 12, 1963, at the age of 54 and is buried at the Mountain
View Cemetery and Mausoleum in Altadena, California.
This collection includes materials collected by and created primarily by Edo Mita, dating from 1930-1955. The bulk of the
collection are personal diaries related to his time in France circa the 1903s, correspondence with Huguette Clark and others
on the topic of Japanese cultural dress, materials related to his deportation case, and personal photographs. There are multiple
folders of magazine clippings used as supporting material for Clark’s research.
JANM has other collections related to works by artists in Europe in the 1930s, including Henry Sugimoto.
Materials were organized by topic. Correspondence was arranged by sender and then chronologically.
Mita, Edo
Clark, Huguette, 1906-2011
Diaries
Correspondence