Ireichō
The Japanese American National Museum has had an exhibit open for the past couple of years, Irei: National Monument for the WWII Japanese American Incarceration which includes three elements: a website (Ireizō), light sculptures (Ireihi), and a book of names (Ireichō). Tynor, Mallory, and I were in Southern California before Melody, Kellen, and Noël before my dad’s memorial service, so we took the opportunity to go to the JANM to stamp names in the Ireichō.
The light sculptures (Ireihi) are located in several camps, including Jerome (where my mom’s family was), Amache, Poston, and Heart Mountain (family of cousins were at all three). There will also be a sculpture at JANM when they reopen in 2026 after renovations.
The website (Ireizō) contains all the names in the book. There are over 125,000 names, so to find a particular person, you can use different search options from the menu. I did notice a couple of occurrences of first and middle names being reversed and have submitted updates for them. I have a theory on why that happened at the end of this post.
I knew ahead of time that Tynor, Mallory, and I would have time to go to the Japanese American National Museum so I was able to reserve time for us to stamp names in the Ireichō. You can stamp up to six names per fifteen-minute block, so I reserved two blocks since I came up with ten names.
We arrived early enough to be able to look through the exhibits, and when it was time, we went to the waiting area and watched a couple of videos showing the background of the project and an explanation of the stamping process. Soon after, a researcher came out and led us to the book.
Even though you know that the book is large, it seems even larger when you see it in person. Part of that is probably because the names are in rather large print, and there is space for stamps. The other part, of course, is that there are a lot of names.
We each did a practice stamp on a scrap piece of paper, then the researcher asked us if we would be willing to stamp names that haven’t been stamped yet. The hope is that all names in the book will have a stamp, but they realize it probably won’t happen. At any rate, we each stamped a name early in the book.
After that, we started stamping the names I had submitted. The first were my great-grandparents, one of whom was already stamped (most likely since he was very early in the book and someone volunteered to stamp his name). There was a slight surprise when stamping my mom’s father since I had always assumed his birthday was December 31st, 1901. However, He was listed in 1902, and indeed, doing more research, I found his birthdate was January 15th. I’m not sure where the other date came from. I also stamped my dad’s parents.
Next up was Uncle Easy, whose name was Isao Fujimoto. Since that’s where one of Tynor’s middle names comes from, I had suggested earlier that would be a name he would want to stamp, so all three of us put a stamp next to Uncle’s name. Tynor also wanted to stamp my parents, and Mallory did so too. I also stamped my Aunt Frances and my mom.
Surrounding the Ireichō is a set of markers, one representing each camp. On each marker is a small jar holding dirt from that particular camp.
I’m glad we had a chance to stamp the book since the exhibit closes at the beginning of December. The hope is that the book will be part of a traveling exhibit.
Name confusion
I mentioned that there were some cases of first and middle names being swapped in the book. Both my grandfather and aunt have English first names and Japanese middle names, but their names are reversed both in the Ireizō and the Ireichō. My mom’s first name is Japanese but her middle name is English, and her name is correct.
I have a theory on why the names are changed. If you look at the Final Accountability Rosters of Evacuees at Relocation Centers (searchable on Family Search), my grandfather (Frank Toru Ishii) is listed as “Toru Ishii” with an alias of “Frank”. Similarly, my aunt (Frances Aiko Ishii) is “Aiko Ishii” with alias “Frances”. If you look up my mom (Kiyo Anne Ishii), she’s listed as “Kiyo Ishii” with alias “Anne”. The first part of my theory is that when names were gathered for the relocation centers, the Japanese name was assumed to be the person’s given name, and the English one as an alias, rather than writing down the person’s full (first, middle, last) name. The second part of the theory is that when the names were gathered for the Ireichō by using the alias name as a middle name (since they had no way of knowing which was which).
Speaking of names, my cousin was at a gathering at the Amache camp in Colorado, and she said that both her grandma and her grandma’s sister (who have Japanese first names and English middle names) were called by their middle names in school during camp. It seems that the teachers were American, so probably chose to use the English names. In her grand aunt’s case, the name used wasn’t even her middle name; it could have been made up by the teacher.
