A Story of Resilience
Written by Gordon Yamate. Graphics by members of the Los Gatos Anti-Racism Coalition
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 1, 2025
PART 1 - The Birth of a Los Gatos Family (Pre-WWII)
When Hirokichi1 and Asa2 Inouye left Japan for the United States, they could not have imagined the life that awaited them in Los Gatos, California. Both had family roots in the Hiroshima prefecture and were married in Japan on August 4, 1912. Hirokichi’s father died when Hirokichi was five years old, and Hirokichi was raised by his grandfather and grandmother. When he was older, his grandfather, worried about his own advancing age, told Hirokichi to find work in California because he would need to support his mother and his two sisters. Although records indicate that Asa arrived in San Francisco via Tacoma, Washington, on June 29, 1913, Hirokichi had arrived in California much earlier, in the early 1900s or possibly late 1800s, and made several trips back and forth to Japan. Hirokichi eventually secured work on the Hume Ranch, located in the Glen Una neighborhood off Saratoga–Los Gatos Road. He rose to the position of ranch foreman, supervising the operation of one of the largest prune tree orchard operations in the world.3
https://www.facebook.com/groups/SanJoseHistory/posts/3463012147163328/
A white two-story wood building on Canon Drive initially housed Japanese laborers working on the ranch. Asa Inouye cooked meals for the men. That structure was later converted into the Inouye family home, where Hirokichi and Asa raised their family. After the Hume Ranch ceased farming operations in 1919, the ranch property was sold and subdivided, and Hirokichi was given the first choice of those parcels to purchase. It is likely that he continued to farm that land until the Inouye family was forced to leave their home in 1942. Neighbors in the Glen Una neighborhood still remember the iconic residence at the northern end of a large meadow with a wooden barn, a favorite subject for local painters. The property was situated across from a tributary of the San Tomas Aquino Creek nestled between gentle hillsides. Even today, it feels like a world away from the bustle of Silicon Valley that later replaced the agricultural heartland once known as the Valley of the Heart’s Delight.
The Inouyes had seven children: Hiromu, Kaoru,4 Tatsuru, Tohru, Mitsuru, Kikuye and Mamoru, all born in Los Gatos and U.S. citizens. Hirokichi and Asa’s first born, Hiromu, tragically died in infancy in 1919. Little was said about how he died, and for years his cause of death remained vague. Family stories suggest that he sucumbed after consuming fresh fruit, a condition that today likely could have been easily treated. However, a funeral record from a local mortuary revealed the cause of death as polio encephalitis. At the time, polio was highly stigmatized, its spread shrouded in fears of contagion and misconceptions about the disease, not unlike other epidemics where little was known at the initial outbreak. But, the cause of death may have been even more concealed—in Japanese culture, illnesses and diseases were often kept private—a reflection of social customs and familial discretion.
The Inouye children attended local schools: the elementary school on Austin Way near the fire station on Highway 9, the University Avenue School (which later became Old Town Los Gatos), and Oak Street Elementary in Saratoga. Kaoru and Tohru (and likely Tatsuru) fondly remembered their grammar school days—sharing classrooms with none other than future actress Olivia de Havilland. Kaoru attended UC Berkeley, graduating with a degree in Chemistry in 1938.5
https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/news/alum-kaoru-kay-inouyes-internment-and-military-story
PART 2 - World War II Further Breaks Up the Inouye Family
PART 3 - After the War
During their incarceration, the Inouye home was occupied by strangers. It’s unclear whether this arrangement was made by the federal government or local caretakers. Upon their return, the Inouyes found the house vandalized, looted, and neglected. Despite pressure from their attorney to sell their home before being evacuated, the family managed to retain ownership of the property. Because the Inouye family could only take what they could carry under Executive Order 9066, many of the family’s possessions had to be sold at fire-sale prices. However, sympathetic neighbors helped store two cherished family heirlooms: a collection of Hinamatsuri (Girls’ Day) dolls that comprised the Imperial family and court, and a koto, a traditional Japanese stringed musical instrument. Hirokichi made a tiered platform out of a wooden fruit crate to display the Hinamatsuri dolls. While the family was incarcerated, these items were stored by trusted neighbors—possibly the Wisner family on Glen Una Drive. The Hinamatsuri doll collection now resides in the permanent collection of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.
Tohru returned to California for a short stay after the war ended to obtain his master’s degree at Stanford and then returned to Chicago, where he later obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois. He later became a professor of Pathology, joining the faculty at Northwestern University Medical School. Tohru’s wife, Helen, enjoyed a fascinating career at Leo Burnett, a national advertising firm. They would live in Chicago for the rest of their lives.
After the war, Kaoru settled in Los Angeles, married and started a family. He spent the bulk of his career as a research chemist at Aerojet in Southern California. Despite the hardships in the concentration camp, Kikuye and Mamoru continued their school studies. Kikuye graduated as valedictorian of her high school class at Heart Mountain, delivering a speech that sent a message of hope that education offered a path to opportunity and a message of gratitude to the faculty and staff. Following the family’s return to Los Gatos, Kikuye enrolled at UC Berkeley, where she lived with the family of a professor and received room and board in exchange for working as a nanny caring for their young child. She earned a degree in child development. After graduating, she taught pre-school and later became a homemaker and raised her family. Many years later in 2007, she was posthumously awarded her high school diploma from Los Gatos High School.7
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19505088
Before Asa’s passing in 1972, all of her children reunited in Los Gatos at the Hacienda Restaurant. It was the first time that Tatsuru and Mitsuru had returned to the United States since they had been adopted.8https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/mamoru-inouye-obituary?pid=2863548 There are stories that Asa was deeply pained by having sons on opposite sides of the war, and that she regretted splitting up the family.
Mamoru attended Santa Clara University and received a master’s degree from Stanford University. He worked for 40 years as a research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center. After retiring from NASA, he pursued his interest in preserving the Japanese American concentration camp experience, publishing a little known collection of photographs of the Heart Mountain internment camp taken by Time-Life photographers Hansel Mieth and Otto Klaus, and curating exhibits of those photographs at the Forbes Mill Museum (which closed in 2014 and is now part of the New Museum Los Gatos) and Santa Clara University’s de Sassait Museum. Mamoru lived in the family house with his wife until he passed away in 2004.9https://kumikoba08.wixsite.com/jnhs/blank-page Mamoru recalled that, although inmates were sometimes allowed to leave the camp to visit nearby Cody, Wyoming, to see movies and shop before the war ended, his sister Kikuye never stepped foot outside the Heart Mountain concentration camp until it officially closed. “She wasn’t the same person when she left,” he recalled.
This article is part of the Coalition’s “Local Narrative Series on the Japanese Incarceration in Los Gatos.”
FOOTNOTES
1. Born February 23, 1875 and died April 30, 1945. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/29688573/mamoru-inouye#view-photo=88772129
2. Born July 16, 1892 and died March 11, 1972. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/29688573/mamoru-inouye#view-photo=88772129
3. https://www.facebook.com/groups/SanJoseHistory/posts/3463012147163328/
4. Born December 5, 1919 and died September 11, 1999. https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/kaoru-inouye-24-26mlvh4
5. https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/news/alum-kaoru-kay-inouyes-internment-and-military-story
6. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/executive-order-9066
7. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19505088
8. https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/mamoru-inouye-obituary?pid=2863548
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