Kibei Cowboy

Contributed by Kenneth A. Yamashita

Susumu Yamashita and Red

My father, Susumu Yamashita, was a junior executive at the San Francisco branch of Mitsubishi Shoji Kaisha trading company before the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor.  

On April 30, 1942, he was involved in the mass forced removal of the Japanese American community from Berkeley to Tanforan detention center, a former race track in San Bruno, with my mother Kiyoko Kitano Yamashita and my eighteen-month-old sister Kimiko. My family was housed in a horse-stall “apartment” (Stable 20—Stall 18) from May to September.  

When my family was transported to the Topaz, Utah incarceration camp in September 1942, my father was recruited by George Lafabregue, the director of the Community Welfare division in Rec. Hall #23, to be his administrative assistant and liaison to the Issei (first-generation) residents due to his Japanese-language proficiency, which was gained from his 11 years of education in Tokyo between 1911–1922. This is why he was labeled as a “Kibei,” American born but educated in Japan.  

After working 14 months in Community Welfare, with its long office hours and on-call weekends providing the camp’s social services, my father was ready for a change from the distressing family case work.

Starting in 1943, my parents had requested leave clearance. Since they were both denied, my mother advised my father to “look for something new and completely different to do in Topaz, something that you might not consider doing after the War.” My Cal Berkeley/Harvard Business School-alumnus, ex-businessman father asked to be transferred to the agricultural division to work as a record keeper and ranch hand. He achieved personal satisfaction from working outdoors as a Kibei cowboy, tanned and healthy, herding cattle astride his favorite horse, Red. At age 39, he was undoubtedly one of the oldest cow”boys” amongst the riders at the Topaz cattle ranch.  

In 1951 he rejoined Mitsubishi and was charged with establishing its New York headquarters as the new Mitsubishi International Corporation.  

After Topaz, my father never rode a horse again.

Kenneth Akira Yamashita was born in Topaz in 1945. He grew up in New Jersey and received a BA and MLIS from Rutgers—The State University of NJ and a PhD from Simmons University in Boston. He retired from a 40-year career in public libraries in 2010, and currently lives in Stockton, CA.