Mayumi Tsutakawa gives a presentation on her family’s path through the Japanese internment camps of World War II and life afterwards on Saturday at the Chehalis Library.
More than 30 people filled a room Saturday afternoon at the Vernetta Smith Chehalis Timberland Library to hear Mayumi Tsutakawa speak for an hour about her family’s experience as Japanese-Americans before, during and after World War II.
Many people took notes as Tsutakawa walked the audience through the path the United States took to Feb. 19, 1942, the day President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the internment of more than 110,000 U.S. citizens and immigrants of Japanese descent.
Tsutakawa gives her talk entitled “The Pine and the Cherry: Japanese Americans in Washington” to communities around the state in partnership with the nonprofit Humanities Washington. The people of Chehalis came prepared.
“I thought the discussions and questions were really quite sophisticated,” Tsutakawa said. “There were people who were knowledgeable about past history and thoughtful about the current state of things. I was pleased with the tone and level of interest people brought.”
Lewis County had families who were interned during the war.
One member of the audience entered with a connection to Tsutakawa that nobody else could match.
Peter Gayton, a member of the Gayton family that has roots in Seattle going back to the 1880s and is a prominent part of the African-American community there, grew up around the corner from the Tsutakawa family.
He and Mayumi Tsutakawa both graduated from Franklin High School in the late 1960s.
The pair have crossed paths in Olympia from time to time as adults, but never kept in close touch after high school. That changed Saturday when Gayton, who lives in Tumwater, drove down to see his former classmate’s presentation.
“Since I retired, I’ve felt a rejuvenation to reconnect with people,” Gayton said. “I saw her on the library website and said ‘I need to come and see her before our 50th (high school class reunion).’ Some of the presentation was just like going back to the old neighborhood, and now I have her business card, so we’ll be in touch.”
Tsutakawa was touched to see her former neighbor and classmate in the audience. He hadn’t told her that he planned to show up.
Slides of the Tsutakawa home showing art by Mayumi’s late father George, a celebrated painter and sculptor, on the walls sparked his memories of playing basketball with her brothers in their driveway as George worked in the garage.
As audience members asked questions about the loyalty pledge the U.S. government circulated around internment camps and considered the question of reparations, Gayton thought about the talks he gives to high school students about his family history and the Civil Rights era in Seattle much in the same way Tsutakawa uses her family history to discuss World War II.
“I’m happy to see friends, and I’m happy to not know anyone in the group,” Tsutakawa said. “I’ve had people come up and say they went to college with my cousin or something, but I’m sure it had been at least six years since I last saw Peter.”
Tsutakawa also praised the Chehalis library staff for their help setting up the room and equipment. She said she hopes to return to Chehalis during the course of her next two-year arrangement with Humanities Washington, which begins in January 2019.
