Museum of Riverside

Reading the Walls Online Exhibit - Room #1 : Case 1

Haradas Leave their Native Country of Japan

<p> Immigration Papers, Jukichi Harada, 1903. Riverside Metropolitan Museum, Harada Family Collection.</p> <p>These documents were issued in Japan for Jukichi so that he could immigrate to the United States. It’s thought that he may have updated these papers at the onset of World War II as the photograph is of him as an older man. His daughter Mine would recall many years later her father’s reasons for leaving Japan, "He said it was very – in Japanese they call it ‘tightening of the shoulders’, meaning that things were a little too regimented or that he was restricted too much." [Rawitsch, Mark H., Interviews with Members of the Harada Family, Mark Rawitsch, 2003, p. 58)]</p> <p> Immigration Papers, Jukichi Harada, 1903. Riverside Metropolitan Museum, Harada Family Collection.</p> <p>These documents were issued in Japan for Jukichi so that he could immigrate to the United States. He documented his trips to the United States (1898 and 1902) on the envelope.</p> <p> <p>Photograph, Ken, Jukichi, and Masa Atsu Harada, ca.1902. Riverside Metropolitan Museum, Harada Family Collection.</p> <p></p>Jukichi returned to Japan in 1902. This was the first time that he met his son, Masa Atsu. In this photograph, he wears a typical American outfit, while his wife and son are dressed in traditional Japanese clothes. </p> <p> <p>Under Kimono, resist dyed, Japan, ca. 1900. Riverside Metropolitan Museum, Harada Family Collecion.</p> <p></p>In 2002, the resist-dyed under kimono that Masa Atsu wore was found in a trunk in the Harada House. Jukichi re-immigrated to the United States in 1903, seeking work in Southern California. In 1904, his wife, Ken and son, Masa Atsu sailed on the S.S. Doric for San Francisco to join Jukichi, but Ken was denied entry due to an infectious eye disease, and deported back to Japan. Masa Atsu stayed with his father in Redlands. In 1905, Jukichi arranged passage for Ken through the Canadian port of Vancouver and the family was finally reunited.</p> <p><p class='text311'>Ship passage ticket, Ken Harada, 1905 . Riverside Metropolitan Museum, Harada Family Collection.</p> <p>This small ticket was used by Ken in 1905 for her second trip across the Pacific on the ship the 'Tar Tar'. The family was reunited in Vancouver, Canada and they settled in Riverside in the same year. The Haradas were unusual in emigrating to Riverside from the Aichi prefecture. Most of the Japanese who settled in Riverside were from the Wakayama and Fukuoka Prefectures.</p>
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Like millions of immigrants to the United States, the Harada family left Japan to come to a country where they believed they could have unlimited opportunities for themselves and their children. The Haradas emigrated from the Aichi Prefecture of Japan while the majority of Japanese immigrants to Riverside were from the Wakayama and Fukuoka Prefectures.

Jukichi Harada and Ken Indo were both born in the Aichi Prefecture of Japan in the late 1880s. They were married in 1897. Jukichi received his formal education and secured a teaching position at a local elementary school.

Jukichi believed that his life in Japan as a teacher would be too restrictive. He left his teaching job and applied for a Japanese passport to conduct academic research overseas. He arrived in San Francisco in May 1898. The onset of the Spanish American War enabled him to find work on several ships including the USS Solace as a galley assistant. Still in Japan, Ken gave birth to their son, Masa Atsu.

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