Japanese Americans CSUJAD Fresno

The result of a collaborative effort between fourteen CSU campuses, the California State University Japanese American Digitization (CSUJAD) project was funded through grants from the National Endowment for Humanities and the National Park Service.  It was coordinated centrally by California State University, Dominguez Hills.

View the full CSUJAD digitized collection at http://csujad.com/

Fresno State’s contribution to the CSUJAD project consists of oral histories of citizens of the San Joaquin Valley, photographs, publications and documents relating to incarceration. It also includes the Violet Kazue de Cristoforo Papers relating to a Japanese American poet who was incarcerated at Tule Lake. The collection includes her haikus written at the segregation center as well as other writings and materials related to the Redress Movement. The collections digitized for the project consist of:

Walter E. Pollock Papers

Records, architectural drawings and other materials relating to the Fresno Assembly Center as well as Pollock’s reminiscences of his time as activities director for the assembly center.

Violet Kazue de Cristoforo Papers

The papers of a Japanese American poet who was an internee at the Tule Lake Segregation Center. The collection includes her haikus written at the segregation center as well as other writings such as "A Victim of a Tule Lake Anthropolgist." Documents related to the redress movement and de Cristoforo's activism in that movement are also available as are items related to her 2007 National Heritage Fellowship award from the National Endowment for the Arts in addition to some personal and family information.

JACL-CCDC Japanese American Oral History Collection

A collection of 36 videotaped interviews with Japanese Americans (primarily Nisei) in the San Joaquin Valley. Funded by the Japanese Americans Citizens League (JACL), the oral histories were initiated by the late Izumi Taniguchi, a retired professor of Economics at California State University, Fresno. The JACL-CCDC oral histories can be accessed online through the San Joaquin Valley Japanese Americans in World War II digitized collection.

Japanese Americans in World War II Collection

Newsletters produced in internment camps, pamphlets, newspapers, and photographs relating the experiences of Japanese American internees during World War II, especially in the San Joaquin Valley. Also includes official documents issued by the U.S. government declaring the official stance. The Japanese Americans in World War II photographs and some of the newsletters can be accessed online through the San Joaquin Valley Japanese Americans in World War II digitized collection.

Success Through Perseverance Collection

This collection includes materials from the Fresno County Library's Success Through Perseverance project, funded by the NEH, 1979-80). It contains 471 items, some of which are compound objects. It can be accessed online through the San Joaquin Valley Japanese Americans in World War II digitized collection.