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Aiko Takita and Miyeko Takita papers

 Collection
Call Number: WA MSS S-3211

Content Description

Materials relating to Aiko Takita and Miyeko Takita's incarceration at the Tanforan Assembly Center, a temporary detention center at San Bruno, California, and the Topaz War Relocation Center, an American concentration camp in Millard County, Utah, 1942-1945. Included are letters, in English, concerning Miyeko's college enrollment and letters, in Japanese, from mother Aoyagi Takita to daughter Miyeko concerning family acquaintances all over the United States and daily life at the Topaz War Relocation Center. Also included are Topaz High School class materials (primarily lesson notes), Topaz Music School and Protestant church programs, 2 autograph books, and 3 drawings of the Tanforan Assembly Center. Accompanied by printed incarceration camp pamphlets and newsletters as well as printed sheet music. 2 additional autograph books predate the incarceration of the Takita family. There are also 15 photographs of the Takitas (some with Japanese manuscript captions), circa 1928-1946.

Dates

  • circa 1928-1946

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

The Aiko Takita and Miyeko Takita Papers is the physical property of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the appropriate curator.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Purchased from Vigilante Rare Documents on the Frederick W. and Carrie S. Beinecke Fund for Western Americana, 2015.

Arrangement

Arranged alphabetically by format.

Extent

2.71 Linear Feet (4 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Catalog Record

A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog

Persistent URL

https://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/beinecke.takitapapers

Abstract

Materials relating to Aiko Takita and Miyeko Takita's incarceration at the Tanforan Assembly Center, a temporary detention center at San Bruno, California, and the Topaz War Relocation Center, an American concentration camp in Millard County, Utah, 1942-1945. Included are letters, in English, concerning Miyeko's college enrollment and letters, in Japanese, from mother Aoyagi Takita to daughter Miyeko concerning family acquaintances all over the United States and daily life at the Topaz War Relocation Center. Also included are Topaz High School class materials (primarily lesson notes), Topaz Music School and Protestant church programs, 2 autograph books, and 3 drawings of the Tanforan Assembly Center. Accompanied by printed incarceration camp pamphlets and newsletters as well as printed sheet music. 2 additional autograph books predate the incarceration of the Takita family. There are also 15 photographs of the Takitas (some with Japanese manuscript captions), circa 1928-1946.

Biographical / Historical

Miyeko Takita (1924-2019), a Japanese-American woman, was forcibly removed by the United States government, along with her mother, Tsuneyo Aoyagi Takita (1901-1973), and sister, Aiko Takita (1926- ), to the Tanforan Assembly Center, a temporary detention center in San Bruno, California, in the spring of 1942, and to the Topaz War Relocation Center, an American concentration camp in Millard County, Utah, in 1942 October. The Takita sisters were released from the Topaz concentration camp, where they were involved in school, music, and the Protestant church, in 1945 October.

Miyeko Takita earned graduate degrees in Library Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. She worked for the United States Army as a librarian at Heidelberg University and after was accepted as a Fulbright Scholar at Keio University in Japan, where she met chemist Masato Tanabe. Upon moving to San Francisco, the two married and eventually had three children: Robert (Sukie) Tanabe, Kenneth (Michele) Tanabe, and Michiko Tanabe.

Processing Information

This finding aid was revised in 2021 to address outdated or harmful descriptive language. During that revision, description was changed in the biographical and scope and contents notes. References to Japanese American "relocation" and "internment" during World War II were removed and replaced with community recommended terminology, such as "incarceration."

Previous versions of this finding aid may be available. Please contact Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library for details. If you have questions or comments about these revisions, please contact Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library or the Archival and Manuscript Description Committee. For more information on reparative archival description at Yale, see Yale’s Statement on Harmful Language in Archival Description.

Collections are processed to a variety of levels, depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived research value, the availability of staff, competing priorities, and whether or not further accruals are expected. The library attempts to provide a basic level of preservation and access for all collections, and does more extensive processing of higher priority collections as time and resources permit.

These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards. For more information, please refer to the Beinecke Manuscript Unit Processing Manual.

Title
Guide to the Aiko Takita and Miyeko Takita Papers
Status
Completed
Author
Sarah Lerner
Date
July 2019, updated January 2021, November 2022
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description note
Finding aid written in English.

Revision Statements

  • May 2021: Finding aid revised to replace outdated or harmful descriptive language. See the processing note for more information.

Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository

Contact:
P. O. Box 208330
New Haven CT 06520-8330 US
(203) 432-2977

Location

121 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511

Opening Hours

Access Information

The Beinecke Library is open to all Yale University students and faculty, and visiting researchers whose work requires use of its special collections. You will need to bring appropriate photo ID the first time you register. Beinecke is a non-circulating, closed stack library. Paging is done by library staff during business hours. You can request collection material online at least two business days in advance of your visit, using the request links in Archives at Yale. For more information, please see Planning Your Research Visit and consult the Reading Room Policies prior to visiting the library.