Saito Family Collection
Finding aid created by Carter Sun.
Japanese American National Museum
© 2022
100 North Central Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Email: collections@janm.org
URL: http://www.janm.org/
Japanese American National Museum. All rights reserved.
Finding aid for the Saito Family Collection
Collection numbers: 92.60, 94.6, 94.49, 97.26, 97.301, 2007.8, 2007.39
Title: Saito Family collection
Dates: 1907-1958
Collection numbers: 92.60, 94.6, 94.49, 97.26, 97.301, 2007.8, 2007.39
Collection Size:
1.25 linear feet of archival material (3 boxes); approximately 4 linear feet of artifacts
Repository:
Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Los Angeles, California 90012
Creator: Saito Family
Abstract: This collection consists of letters, a scrapbook, pictures, and other memorabilia related to the Saito Family, with an emphasis
on George and Calvin Saito, who served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT) during World War II, and died while at war.
Many items are dated specifically between 1944-1945, while George and Calvin were fighting overseas in Europe.
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], Saito Family Collection. [92.60 / 94.6 / 94.49 / 97.26 / 97.301 / 2007.8 / 2007.39], Japanese American
National Museum. Los Angeles, CA.
Donated by Mary Tominaga Saito and the Saito Family in multiple donations between 1992 and 2007.
Items were initially processed and described by staff over multiple decades. Additional background details and description
were added, and a finding aid was created in 2022 by Carter Sun.
Saito family members:
- Kiichi Saito (1/2/1885 - 9/19/1968)
- Setsue Saito, nee Umetsu (2/11/1892 - 4/2/1949)
- Kazuo Saito (10/9/1915 - 2/16/2006), and wife Mary Akiko Saito, nee Watanabe (12/13/1917 - 1/11/2022)
- George Segio Saito (7/6/1918 - 10/17/1944)
- Shozo Saito (1/20/1920 - 10/4/1986), and wife Bessie Kyoko Saito, nee Matsuzawa (6/4/1924 - 1/19/2014)
- Mary Tsuyu Saito Tominaga (6/7/1921 - 12/24/2010), and husband Tom Hideo Tominaga (9/8/1915 - 9/13/1997)
- Calvin Tomio Saito (8/9/1923 - 7/7/1944)
I. Before Pearl Harbor
Kiichi Saito was born in Morioka, the capital city of Iwate Prefecture in Japan. In 1903, at only 18 years old, Kiichi arrived
in San Francisco aboard the Nippon Maru, fleeing the Russo-Japanese War. Setsu Umetsu was born in Hamae, in the Wakayama Prefecture,
and was married to Kiichi as a picture bride in 1914. Together, they had 5 children: Kazuo "Kaz" (b. 10/9/1915), George Seigo
(b. 7/6/1918), Shozo (b. 1/20/1920), Mary Tsuyu (b. 6/7/1921), and Calvin Tomio (b. 8/9/1923).
Kiichi served as a head waiter for the Palms Hotel in Los Angeles. Chasing the American dream, he later opened and ran a produce
stand, until Setsu grew ill. She had to be committed to an institution for the mentally ill and passed away due to natural
causes on April 2, 1949. Unable to support his children while running a business, Kiichi was forced to sell the produce stand
and find work as a gardener so that he could have more time to take care of his children.
Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Saito family lived a typical American life. They lived in an integrated neighborhood
on West 36th Street in Southwest LA, and regularly attended a Methodist Church. George, a former football player at Manual
Arts High School and boy scout, had college aspirations of becoming a pharmacist. Kazuo, after graduating Los Angeles Junior
College, worked as a clerk and lived with his wife Mary Watanabe. Shozo had been drafted into the army and was training and
stationed at Ft. Snelling, MN, specializing in Military Intelligence, Mary attended Manual Arts High School, and Calvin attended
John H. Francis Polytechnic High School, as a member of the track team and having college aspirations.
II. Post Pearl Harbor
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, their life no longer resembled that of a typical American. Police were at their door within
days, demanding to inspect their old Philco radio, which their neighbor had suspected was sending coded messages to Tokyo.
In the Spring of 1942, the Saito family was forcibly removed from their home, and sent to the Santa Anita WCCA Assembly Center,
where they were temporarily held until the fall, when they were moved to Granada War Relocation Center (Camp Amache) in Colorado.
Kazuo, who was already married and living with his wife’s family near downtown LA, was detained in Rohwer War Relocation Center
in Arkansas.
After the creation of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT), George and Calvin followed in Shozo’s footsteps and volunteered
for the US Army in hopes that their service would free their family. They were among the first five men to volunteer from
Granada and were released on April 6th, 1943, to enlist in the Army at Fort Logan, Colorado. Kazuo tried to volunteer for
service as well at Rohwer, but was denied, and went into war work as a machinist instead.
III. Fighting in World War II
George and Calvin both received a rank of private first class in the US Army, assigned to the newly formed, segregated 442nd
RCT. George served as an ammunition bearer in the 2nd Battalion, Company H while Calvin served as a radioman in the 3rd Battalion,
Company K. In 1944, the two left Camp Shelby (Mississippi) and were shipped to the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations, arriving
at Naples, Italy on May 28th, 1944. After going through preparations and moving to combat zones, the 442nd engaged with the
Germans near Castellina Marittima on July 5th, 1944. The 3rd Battalion came under an intense artillery barrage as they assaulted
Hill 140 (Little Cassino), a German strong point. The hill was finally taken on July 7th, however not without heavy casualties,
one being Calvin Saito, who was killed by a mortar blast on July 7, 1944.
In the first week of September, the 442nd began withdrawing from the front lines, as they had been reassigned to fight in
France. They left Italy on September 27th, and landed in France three days later. For two weeks, they traversed 500 miles
through the Rhone Valley, both by rail boxcar and on foot, until they reached the town of Bruyères, which they were instructed
to liberate, along with the four German-held hills surrounding it. In the process, George was struck by fragments of an artillery
shell and killed on October 17, 1944. Both George and Calvin were awarded a Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart, and the Congressional
Gold Medal, which is the highest Congressional Civilian Medal.
While George and Calvin were overseas, Kazuo worked as a senior audit clerk while detained at Rohwer because he studied accounting
in college. Kazuo and his wife Mary had three children, including one born in Rohwer, only a year before the war was over.
While Shozo was still serving in the Military Intelligence Service (MIS), Mary Saito, through the War Relocation Authority
job seeking program, left Amache with $50 and a train ticket to Boston. There, she found a job as a stenographer at the International
Institute House. After Mary left, Kiichi was left alone in the camp. He decided to join Mary in Boston, finding work as a
butler in Belmont, MA for widowed Mrs. Ruth Churchill (formerly Greenough) and her children, for whom he worked until his
death on September 19, 1968.
IV. After the War
After the war, Kazuo worked as a machinist at the International Harvester Company in Chicago, before settling down in Alhambra,
CA, where Kazuo and Mary both passed away, on February 16th, 2006, and January 11th, 2022, respectively. When Shozo completed
his service and returned to California, he married Bessie “Bess” Matsuzawa in 1949, and had two children, one of whom died
of leukemia when he was fourteen years old. Shozo started a freight broker company, Cal-Asia International Inc, where he served
as the president. The two lived in Torrance, where Shozo and Bessie passed away, on October 4th, 1986 and January 19th, 2014,
respectively. While in Boston, Mary Saito met her husband Tom Tominaga, a soldier in the MIS, who was on furlough. In 1946,
they got married in Hawaii, where they lived for 7 years and had a child, before settling down in Gardena, CA, where both
Tom and Mary passed away, on September 13, 1997 and December 24, 2010, respectively.
Overall, the collection contains newspaper clippings, letters, pictures of the Saito family, and other memorabilia, with an
emphasis on George and Calvin Saito, and their service in World War II. One scrapbook, compiled by Mary Saito, contains newspaper
clippings written about the deaths of George and Calvin Saito, and pictures of the Saito family. The collection also contains
letters between George and Kiichi Saito while George was at war, including the letter that George sent informing his father
about his brother Calvin’s death, and the last letter George sent his father before George was killed in action. Other notable
memorabilia contained in the collection include the purple hearts posthumously awarded to George and Calvin, yearbooks and
diplomas belonging to the family, as well as other items representing their lives before they were detained in Amache Relocation
Center. The collection also contains pictures of memorials and monuments dedicated to George and Calvin, as well as the rest
of the 442nd.
At the Japanese American National Museum, the Saito collection is broken up into seven different accession numbers. 92.60
is comprised of Japanese artifacts belonging to the family, such as scrolls, a Kimono, and boxes. 94.6 is a scrapbook compiled
by Mary Saito Tominaga, which includes pictures, newspaper clippings, as well as a family genealogy written by Mary Saito
Tominaga. 94.49 is made up of photographs of the family as well as correspondences between Kiichi Saito and George Saito
while George was at war. 94.6 and 94.49 are the two largest collections of the Saito family. 97.26 contains two copy negatives
of photos of the family in 1944. 97.301 refers to a wedding photograph of Kiichi and Setsu Saito. 2007.8 contains a copy of
The Moved-Outers, a fictional book written by Florence Crannell Means about the experiences of a teenage Japanese American
girl and her family from rural California during the chaos after Pearl Harbor, their forced removal and detainment at Amache
Relocation Center, and her release to attend college. 2007.8 also contains The Waiting People, by Peggy Billings, four stories
about the people of Korea, Okinawa, Taiwan and Hong Kong, waiting for something better to happen to them, and an oil painting
by Kosen Kusumi from March 1945, depicting four Nisei soldiers boarding an Army truck leaving the relocation center. 2007.39
refers to war awards and medals such as purple hearts and bronze star pins, as well as the two coffin tags belonging to George
and Calvin Saito.
A detailed container list is available at the bottom of this page.
The Hoover Institution Library and Archives’ Churchill collection has correspondence, newspaper clippings, memorabilia, and
photographs relating to the Saito family, while Kiichi worked as a butler for the Churchill family. The UC Berkeley Bancroft
Library’s Finding Aid to War Relocation Authority Photographs of Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Collection
scontains photographs of the Saito Family as well.
Original arrangement was preserved within each donation group.
Saito, Kiichi
Saito, George Segio
Tominaga, Mary Tsuyu (Saito)
Saito, Calvin Tomio
Japanese Americans
Japanese Americans--Colorado--Amache--Social life and customs
Granada Relocation Center
Correspondence
Photograph albums
Photographs