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Oral history interview with Chiyo Endo

 Collection
Identifier: SR 951

Scope and Contents

This oral history interview with Chiyo Endo was conducted by Nadyne Yoneko Dozono at Endo's home in Milwaukie, Oregon, in two sessions, on February 28, 1992, and March 2, 1992. The interview was recorded as part of the Japanese American Oral History Project, which was conducted by the Oregon Historical Society Research Library to preserve the stories of Japanese Americans in Oregon. The interview was conducted in Japanese; the description of the content of the interview provided here is based on an incomplete English translation and transcript by Shiori Miyazaki, a student at the Pacific International Academy, in 2018. The translation and transcript have not been verified for accuracy.The recording of session two is briefly interrupted by a snippet of an interview in Japanese with an unidentified woman.

According to the transcript, in the first interview session, Endo discusses her family background and early life in Fukushima, Japan. She talks about immigrating to the United States after her parents established themselves as farmers in Gladstone, Oregon. She speaks about her marriage to Kanichi Endo, and about life on a farm in Milwaukie, Oregon. She discusses her children, their lives, their education, and their careers. She shares her experiences after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, talks about what her siblings experienced during the war, and discusses the death of her husband, Kanichi Endo, a few months before the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans by the U.S. government.

In the second interview session, Endo further discusses her marriage to Kanichi Endo. She talks about raising her children, about running a greenhouse business, and about the Japanese American community in Milwaukie. She briefly shares her experiences while incarcerated at the Minidoka camp in Idaho during World War II. She closes the interview with a discussion about how she rebuilt her greenhouse business following her return to Oregon after the end of the war.

Dates

  • Creation: 1992 February 28-March 2

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society. Use is allowed according to the following statement: Creative Commons - BY-NC-SA, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Biographical note

Chiyo Endo, nee Nakamura, was born in Fukushima, Japan, in 1906. In 1917, she and her family immigrated to the United States. In 1924, she and Kanichi Endo were married. The next year, the couple moved to Milwaukie, Oregon, and they ran a greenhouse business. Kanichi Endo died in early 1942. Later that year, Chiyo Endo and her six children were incarcerated by the U.S. government at the Minodoka War Relocation Center in Idaho. After her release, she returned to Milwaukie and continued to run her business. In 1965, she became a U.S. citizen. She died in 2009.

Sources: Vital records on Ancestry.com; Endo’s obituary in The Oregonian on February 5, 2009.

Extent

0.1 Cubic Feet (2 audiocassettes (1 hr., 53 min., 6 sec.) + incomplete transcript (103 pages))

Language of Materials

Japanese

English

Abstract

Oral history interview with Chiyo Endo conducted in Japanese by Nadyne Yoneko Dozono on February 28 and March 2, 1992, as part of the Japanese American Oral History Project. Endo discusses her early life in Fukushima, Japan, her marriage to Kanichi Endo after immigrating to the United States, and her experiences after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

General

Forms part of the Japanese American Oral History Project.

Title
Oral history interview with Chiyo Endo
Status
Completed
Author
Sarah Stroman
Date
2023
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
Finding aid is written in English.

Repository Details

Part of the Oregon Historical Society Research Library Repository

Contact:
1200 SW Park Ave.
Portland OR 97205 United States
5033065204
5033065240