Exhibit examines Japanese influence, history in Chula Vista

The first exhibition at the new Chula Vista Museum & History Center looks at a chapter of local history that museum officials say is significant but not widely known.

The Japanese Story traces the history of Chula Vista’s Japanese and Japanese American community, from the arrival of immigrants around 1900 and the development of local farms to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and what happened to the community after the war.

Pat Aguilar, chairperson of the museum’s board of directors, said the exhibition reflects the museum’s mission of helping residents and visitors understand the events that shaped Chula Vista.

“We felt that the agricultural innovations, incarceration during WWII, and subsequent recovery of Chula Vista’s Japanese American community is a significant piece of our history that is not well known and carries relevant lessons for how today’s immigrants are perceived and treated,” Aguilar said.

Japanese immigrants began arriving in the Chula Vista area around 1900. Among their early contributions were innovative farming techniques, including growing vegetables in an area known for orchards and developing a method to extend the growing season for celery, which was then considered a delicacy.

The extent of Japanese American agriculture in the area is one of the first things visitors encounter in the exhibition.

“It’s not an artifact or a photo, but I would say don’t miss the first exhibit piece, which is a map showing the extent of Japanese American farms in Chula Vista both before and after WWII,” Aguilar said.

Aguilar said the number and extent of those farms was one of the things that surprised her during the process of putting the exhibition together.

The exhibition also examines what happened after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, when Japanese Americans faced widespread racism, discrimination and incarceration.

Almost all of Chula Vista’s Japanese American residents were held at the Poston, Ariz., incarceration camp during the war.

One local family whose story is featured is the Muraoka family. Saburo Muraoka immigrated to Chula Vista in 1915 at age 15. After Pearl Harbor, he was arrested and eventually held in military stockades and prisons in Montana, Oklahoma and Louisiana.

Four months after his arrest, Japanese American families in San Diego County, including the Muraokas, were ordered to leave their homes, farms and businesses and report to U.S. authorities with only what they could carry.

The exhibition also includes two handmade paper dolls and two handmade face fans believed to have been created at Poston during the war, most likely by a child.

The story behind those objects came from Museum Director Earl Jentz. He said a local resident named Rosa became interested in the museum’s smaller Japanese American exhibit and helped promote it in the community. She eventually gave Jentz the dolls and fans, explaining that they had been made at Poston by Yoko Mu, a neighbor who was ill and entering the hospital and could no longer keep them.
Jentz said the objects were made from the limited materials available in the camp.

For Aguilar, one of the least-known parts of the story is what happened after the war ended and the camps closed.

Despite the forced removal and incarceration, the Muraoka family returned to Chula Vista and continued to live and serve in the community.
Aguilar hopes visitors leave with a broader understanding of that history and its relevance beyond Chula Vista.

“How the experiences of local Japanese American residents, including those born in the U.S., is a metaphor for experiences of immigrants and their descendants everywhere,” she said.