Collection is open for research.
Gift of Homer Yasui on behalf of the Yasui family, December 1991 (Lib. Acc. 20531). One 1934 calendar gift of Homer Yasui, September 1991 (Lib. Acc. 23573).
The records are arranged into eight series:
Nearly two-thirds of the materials in this collection were written in
a pre-World War II Japanese script (sometimes also known as Old Japanese) that
is distinct from modern Japanese, while the remainder of the materials are in
English. To facilitate archival arrangement and description of the collection,
a team of translators was engaged in 2022-2023 as part of a grant-funded
processing project (see sponsorship note). Translators reviewed and briefly
interpreted the highest priority Old Japanese language materials and summarized
folder contents in English. Individual documents were then selected for full or
partial translation; these documents were chosen either for their historical
significance or because they were representative of types of content in the
collection overall. During the grant project, 54 documents were translated into
English and modern Japanese, and over 100 more were identified as candidates
for future translation as time and funding allow. When translations are
available, they are included in the collection with the original documents and
In 1903, seventeen-year-old Masuo Yasui left Nanukaichi in the Okayama prefecture of Japan for the western United States, stopping in Portland before he joined family members in working on the Union Pacific Railroad, along with thousands of other laborers from Japan. Two years later, Masuo returned to Japantown in Portland, Oregon, intent on learning English while working various jobs. Masuo later convinced his brother Renichi Fujimoto to move with him to Hood River, Oregon, which had a growing population of Japanese immigrant laborers. In 1908, Masuo Yasui and Renichi Fujimoto opened the Yasui Bros. Co. store in Hood River, the first iteration of what would become four locations of their successful business over the next three and a half decades.
A few years later, Masuo Yasui married Shidzuyo Miyake, a college-educated teacher also from Nanukaichi, Okayama, who joined him in Oregon in late 1912. Over the next two decades, the couple had nine children: sons Kay, sometimes spelled Kei (born 1914), Tsuyoshi, later known as Ray or Chop (born 1915), and Minoru, often known as Min (born 1917); daughters Yuki (born 1918) and Michi (born 1920); sons Roku (born 1922), Shu (born 1923), and Homer (born 1924); and youngest daughter Yuka (born 1927). Yuki died of an illness at age 3, and eldest son Kay committed suicide at age 17. Renichi Fujimoto married Matsuyo Senno in 1904, but obligations to Renichi's adoptive family in Japan, the Fujimotos, kept her from immigrating to the United States to join him until 1931. Renichi and Matsuyo had no children of their own, but were close with Masuo and Shidzuyo's children.
The Yasui Bros. Co. store played a central role as a social hub and meeting place for the Japanese American community in Hood River. Masuo became a vital contact for Japanese immigrants and their families. He frequently helped fellow Japanese Americans find employment and housing, and used his English fluency to assist with legal and government forms, such as citizenship documentation for children born in the United States, and to broker small land purchases. The Yasui Bros. store also sold life insurance and brokered steamship travel arrangements to and from Japan.
In addition to operating the store, the Yasuis took advantage of the agricultural potential in the Hood River Valley and surrounding areas, where they bought and leased land for their own farms and orchards in Dee, Mosier, and Willow Flat. Like many in the area, they produced apples and pears, but also strawberries and asparagus, which the Yasuis and other Japanese American farmers introduced to the region. Their farming operations spawned trucking and shipping businesses, and Masuo Yasui created a cooperative called the Mid-Columbia Vegetable Growers Association to help with packing and shipping of asparagus.
Masuo Yasui also served as a liaison between the Japanese American and white communities in Hood River, fielding inquiries from business owners in search of laborers and helping to settle disputes. Over time, Masuo grew into a leading representative of his community, founding the Japanese Savings Association of Hood River and constructing and operating a Japanese Community Hall, while also being a rare Japanese American member in mostly white organizations like the Rotary Club. He was the first Japanese American person elected to the powerful Apple Growers Association and received the most votes of any candidate in 1939. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Masuo Yasui was recognized by the Portland Japanese Consulate for his services to his community, and received awards from the Japanese government and other agencies for fostering business relations between the United States and Japan.
However, as the Yasuis and other Japanese immigrants prospered, anti-Japanese sentiment was growing among white residents in Hood River. In 1923, Oregon passed a bill preventing Japanese and Chinese immigrants from owning land, and a local Anti-Asiatic Association formed soon after. Anti-Japanese sentiment came to a boiling point after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The FBI arrested Masuo Yasui, then 55, five days later with no official charges or evidence of treason. He would remain in government detention until after the end of the war, and was repeatedly transferred among various federal detention centers, including Fort Missoula, Montana; Fort Sill, Oklahoma; and Camp Livingston, Louisiana.
In February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing exclusion of "any and all persons" from areas designated by the military, which would, within months, result in the government's forced removal and mass incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans on the West Coast. In March, after being refused for U.S. military enlistment, Minoru Yasui, who had become a lawyer and was living in Portland, Oregon, deliberately violated a curfew imposed on Japanese Americans in order to be arrested and establish the basis for a legal challenge to the curfew. He was convicted and spent nine months in solitary confinement; during this time, his case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, but the court upheld his conviction and ruled that the curfew was legal.
The Yasui family's situation would continue to worsen; in the spring of 1942, the Yasui Bros. Co. store was forcibly closed and the family's other assets were frozen or confiscated. Not long afteward, Yasui family members were among the Japanese Americans sent by the U.S. government to incarceration camps, euphemistically called "war relocation centers," which were typically located in dry and desolate locations. While Masuo was held in Louisiana and Min was in solitary confinement in the Multnomah County Jail, Shidzuyo, Renichi, Matsuyo, Ray (also known as Chop or Tsuyoshi) and his wife, Mickie, as well as young Homer and Yuka, were sent first to the temporary Pinedale Assembly Center near Fresno, California, then to the Tule Lake incarceration camp. Min appealed unsuccessfully to the government for his father to join the rest of the family as Shidzuyo and other family members and friends wrote letters pleading for a rehearing, but all requests were denied. In June 1943, Masuo was transferred to the Santa Fe Detention Center in New Mexico, where his family could finally request to visit him. By this time, Minoru Yasui and Renichi and Matsuyo Fujimoto were being held at the Minidoka War Relocation Center in southern Idaho. Roku, Michi, and Shu Yasui, college students at the time, had avoided incarceration through geographical location or preemptive travel to Denver, Colorado.
Life in the camps was difficult for most of those incarcerated; families were largely separated, food was bad and extreme elements pierced the shoddily constructed barracks. The Yasuis wrote letters to each other through this period and visited Masuo as often as possible. Ray secured a work leave to do farm labor in Idaho, while Shidzuyo successfully petitioned for educational releases for her younger children; they joined Michi in Denver, where Minoru also came after his release in fall 1944. Despite an active letter-writing campaign with the support of senators and the Japanese American Citizens League, Masuo was detained until January 1946, five months after Japan surrendered and the war was declared to have ended. He joined the rest of the family in Denver upon his release.
As was the case for many other Japanese Americans, incarceration caused the Yasuis to lose their home, savings, businesses, and all but one of their farms, and they never regained what they once had. Hood River made national headlines toward the end of the war for its virulent racism and antagonism toward Japanese American residents to deter them from returning to the area, and the local post of the American Legion had waged a campaign against Masuo's release. Masuo and Shidzuyo left Denver to return to Oregon but resettled in Portland instead; only Ray Yasui returned to Hood River, to restore the now disheveled orchard in Willow Flat. In 1952, at their first opportunity to do so under federal law, the Issei (first generation) of Yasuis became United States citizens. Five years later, in declining health, Masuo died by suicide at the age of 70; Shidzuyo passed away of natural causes three years after his death. The second generation of Yasuis, the Nisei, built successful careers as lawyers, doctors, teachers, and entrepreneurs. Minoru Yasui's experiences during World War II led him to a lifelong career as a civil rights activist, for which he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015. His siblings were also active in civil rights causes and served as strong advocates for redress in the 1980s, and led organizations including the Japanese American Citizens League, the Nikkei Legacy Center, and the Min Yasui Legacy Project.
Sources: Lauren Kessler, Stubbon Twig: Three Generations in the Life
of a Japanese American Family (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2005);
Densho Encyclopedia, "Minoru Yasui," 2020,
Yasui Brothers business records, Mss 2949, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Preliminary processing was performed by Kassidy Whetstone under the auspices of a 2022-2023 grant project; housing, arrangement, and description were finalized by Jeffrey Hayes and Dana Miller in 2023. Volunteer Misaka Sidahiro provided preliminary interpretation and sorting of many Japanese language materials in 1998, and the interpretation and translation necessary for processing of the collection were provided by Yoko Gulde, Naomi Diffely, and Mami Kikuchi, a team of language consultants who were hired for the 2022-2023 grant project.
In addition, some materials that are typically weeded during archival processing, such as canceled checks, have been retained in this collection in the event that they may represent the only available record of the presence and activities of some Japanese and Japanese American individuals in Hood River at that time. These materials can be found in Series 4, Financial records.
Additional collections at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library relating to the Yasui family include: the Yasui family papers, Coll 949; Masuo Yasui letter to Sagoro Asai, Coll 956; Bernard B. Kliks papers relating to Minoru Yasui and University of Oregon Law School reunions, Coll 920; oral history interviews with Randall B. Kester, SR 1278 (1992) and SR 11093 (2005); and a radio interview with Homer Yasui and Jeff Uecker, SR 946 (1992).
Collections relating to the the Yasui family that are held at other libraries include: R. Sims Collection on Minidoka and Japanese Americans, Mss 356, Boise State University Library Special Collections; interview with Japanese Americans in Utah, ACCN 1209, University of Utah Library Special Collections; Mike M. Masaoka papers, Mss 0656, University of Utah Library Special Collections; the Gordon K. Hirabayashi papers, Coll 3159, University of Washington Libraries Special Collections; and the Minoru Yasui papers, Archives and Special Collections, Auraria Library, Denver, Colorado.
More than 900 photographs of the Yasui family and store are available
online in the Densho digital repository,
The Yasui Brothers records primarily document the business, personal, and community-related activities of the Yasui family in Hood River, Oregon, from the start of the 20th century until World War II, when they were among the more than 120,000 Japanese Americans incarcerated by the U.S. government.
The bulk of the collection consists of correspondence and records relating to the business activities of Masuo Yasui (1886-1957). These include the general store, Yasui Bros., that he ran with his brother Renichi Fujimoto; and orchards in the Hood River Valley and surrounding areas that the firm operated. Store records include a variety of advertising materials, while farming records include packing lists, crop reports, and records of local farming associations Masuo Yasui was involved with. The collection also reflects Yasui's involvement in the local community, including his work assisting other Japanese immigrants to the United States. A small quantity of materials relates to the Yasui Bros. store's forced closure and the management of the family's property and assets while they were incarcerated during World War II.
The collection also includes personal papers of Masuo Yasui; his wife, Shidzuyo Yasui; his brother Renichi Fujimoto; and his children. These consist of correspondence, ephemera, and a personal history that Masuo Yasui wrote at the request of the Japanese consulate. Other materials in the collection include records from the 1970s and 1980s of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), in which Masuo Yasui's son Homer Yasui and his wife, Miyuki Yasui, were active, and magazines and newspapers the family received in both Japanese and English.
A substantial amount of this collection is in a pre-World War II
Japanese script that is distinct from modern Japanese. Some of these materials,
particularly those in Series 1 (Business correspondence and related materials)
and Series 6 (Personal papers) have been reviewed and summarized by
translators. Selected documents have been translated into English and modern
Japanese and
Seven photographic prints were separated from Lib. Acc. 20531 to Org. Lot 907, the Yasui Bros. Co. photographs collection, at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library; these were subsequently incorporated into Coll 949, the Yasui family papers. Over 1,200 objects from Lib. Acc. 20531 were
separated to Oregon Historical Society Museum Collection 91-97, and are
viewable online in the OHS Museum Portal,
The Oregon Historical Society owns the materials in the Research Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. The Society does not necessarily hold copyright to all materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from copyright owners.
This main series of correspondence focuses on business matters, but also reflects the range and interconnectedness of the Yasuis’ business transactions, community activities, and personal relationships. The majority of correspondence is in pre-World War II Japanese, and folder contents have been reviewed and summarized by translators; where feasible, the focus of individual folders has been noted in the folder title.
The series is divided into seven subseries: Subseries 1.1, Masuo Yasui business, community, and personal correspondence; Subseries 1.2, Yasui Brothers business and community correspondence; Subseries 1.3, Correspondence and related materials regarding incarceration and liquidation of assets; Subseries 1.4, Incoming Yasui Brothers correspondence; Subseries 1.5, Outgoing Yasui Brothers correspondence; Subseries 1.6, General Yasui Brothers business correspondence; and Subseries 1.7, Miscellaneous. (Personal and family correspondence is located in Series 6.)
The more personal and community-oriented correspondence in this series is listed first and covers a broad variety of topics, including assistance that Masuo Yasui provided to fellow Japanese immigrants, concerns about anti-Japanese sentiment, and a small quantity of material regarding the sale of the store and management of the Yasui assets by Ray Yasui during the family's incarceration. Later subseries are more strictly business-related, consisting of correspondence between the Yasui Bros. Co. and its wholesalers, vendors, and customers. With the exception of correspondence about or during incarceration, business correspondence in this series roughly spans the period from the early dates of operation of the Yasui Brothers businesses to approximately a decade after their closing (1909-1951).
Subseries 1.1 contains materials easily identifiable as being specifically to or from Masuo Yasui and includes slightly more personal material than other subseries; it is almost entirely in Japanese and spans the years of his Hood River business operations.
An item in this folder is viewable online, with translations
in English and modern Japanese:
An item from this folder is viewable online:
Two items in Box 1, Folder 23, and one item in Box 1, Folder
24, are viewable online, with translations in English and modern Japanese. In
Box 1, Folder 23:
Two items in this folder are viewable online, with
translations in English and modern Japanese:
An item in this folder is viewable online, with translations
in English and modern Japanese:
Two items in Box 2, Folder 8, are viewable online, with
translations in English and modern Japanese:
An item in Box 2, Folder 12, is viewable online, with
translations in English and modern Japanese:
Almost exclusively in Japanese, Subseries 1.2 reflects the activities of the Yasuis and the supportive services they offered to the Japanese American community in Hood River and wider Oregon.
An item in Box 3, Folder 7, is viewable online, with
translations in English and modern Japanese:
An item in this folder is viewable online, with translations
in English and modern Japanese:
Items in this folder are viewable online, with translations in
English and modern Japanese:
An item from Box 3, Folder 14, and an item from Box 3, Folder
15, are viewable online, with translations in English and modern Japanese. From
Box 3, Folder 14:
An item in this folder is viewable online, with translations
in English and modern Japanese:
An item in this folder is viewable online, with translations
in English and modern Japanese:
Two items from Box 3, Folder 23 are viewable online, with
translations in English and modern Japanese:
An item in Box 4, Folder 17, is viewable online, with
translations in English and modern Japanese:
An item in this folder is viewable online, with translations
in English and modern Japanese:
Subseries 1.3 highlights the closure and sale of the Yasui Bros. Co. store, Ray Yasui's dealings with various government and business entities regarding the family's properties and assets, and Ernest C. Smith's protection of some of the Yasuis' belongings and communication with them during their incarceration. These materials are mostly in English and cover the years 1942-1946.
Three items in this folder are viewable online:
Two items in this folder are viewable online:
Four items in this folder are viewable online:
An item in this folder is viewable online:
Mainly in Japanese, Subseries 1.4 covers straightforward business topics such as vendor negotiations, wholesale orders, accounts, and payments.
Two items in this folder are viewable online:
An item in Box 6, Folder 7, is viewable online, with
translations in English and modern Japanese:
An item in Box 6, Folder 24, is viewable online:
Entirely in Japanese, Subseries 1.5 consists of a small amount of outgoing correspondence from Yasui Brothers. It includes letters by Renichi Fujimoto (Yasui), orders, and discussions of financial topics and store inventories.
An item in this folder is viewable online, with translations
in English and modern Japanese:
Documents in Subseries 1.6 are a mix of incoming and outgoing correspondence, and are evenly balanced between English and Japanese. The content of correspondence in this subseries is less specific in nature, though specific topics and correspondents have been identified as much as feasible in folder titles.
An item in Box 12, Folder 20, is viewable online:
An item in Box 14, Folder 10, is viewable online:
This final portion of the main correspondence series is mostly in Japanese and showcases Japanese-style holiday cards and New Year's greetings, artifactual Yasui Bros. business stationery such as forms and envelopes, and a selection of common government forms from the Japanese Consulate of Portland's frequent consultation with Masuo Yasui.
Materials from the Yasui Bros. store include storefront items such as hand-painted signage for sales and products, inventory records, and ephemera. The ephemera includes stationery, price lists, and a variety of Yasui Bros. advertising materials, such as coupons, mailers, and wall calendars. Wholesaler catalogs and vendor price lists and advertisements are also included. There is more English than Japanese in this category and materials span the dates of operation of the store, 1908-1941, with some wholesaler material dated 1945.
Two items in this folder are viewable online, with
translations in English and modern Japanese:
Three items in this folder are viewable online:
An item in this folder is viewable online:
An item in this folder is viewable online:
Two items from Box 21, Folder 13, are viewable online:
An item in this folder is viewable online:
An item in this box is viewable online:
An item in this box is viewable online:
An item in this folder is viewable online:
An item in this folder is viewable online:
Three items in this folder are viewable online:
An item in this folder is viewable online, with translations
in English and modern Japanese:
An item in this folder is viewable online:
The Farm series documents the farms and orchards owned or operated by the Yasui Brothers company. General farm files (Subseries 3.1), provide evidence of operations, land transactions and management, and the labor and payment of harvesters and packers. Subseries 3.2 consists of records from specific Yasui farms and orchards in Hood River Valley locations such as Dee, Mosier, Pine Grove, and Willow Flat. These records document the production and distribution of crops such as strawberries, asparagus, apples, and pears throughout Oregon and the United States. Subseries 3.3 and Subseries 3.4 contain administrative records, correspondence, packing logs, and financial records related to the Apple Growers Association (AGA), for which Masuo Yasui served on the board of directors, and the Mid-Columbia Vegetable Growers (MCVG), an organization he started. This series' contents are in English and cover the years 1908-1947. Wherever possible, original ledger or folder names have been preserved within the current container list for Farm and orchard records.
An item Box 38, Folder 9, is viewable online:
An item in this folder is viewable online:
An item in this folder is viewable online:
Two items in this folder are viewable online:
Two items in this folder are viewable online:
Three items in Box 53, Folder 10, are viewable online:
This large series primarily contains the financial records of the Yasui Bros. store and some of the Yasuis' other businesses from 1905-1942. A significant portion of the series is incoming invoices from specific and general wholesalers and vendors, outgoing invoices issued by Yasui Bros., and shipping and freight records, especially for trucking produce. Yasui Bros. customer accounts and general files such as accounting ledgers are also present, as well as records of rental payments for apartments the Yasuis rented above their store, often to other Japanese Americans. The series also includes insurance and property tax records, and banking records such as canceled checks and notices of the exchange rate between U.S. dollars and Japanese yen. Some materials were retained in this collection due to the possibility that they are the only records of Japanese or Japanese American individuals' presence in Hood River before World War II. A substantial amount of this series' contents are in Japanese, most of which is not translated.
Records for other businesses and services that Masuo Yasui provided to fellow Japanese Americans are in both Japanese and English. They include his work as an employment agent, broker of land and real estate transactions, and his contracted roles as a life insurance salesman and ticket agent for multiple steamship companies offering trips to and from Japan. Other records document Masuo Yasui's assistance with legal disputes and official government documents, such as birth certificates, passports, and identity cards, and his founding of the Japanese Savings Association in Hood River. His work in the community is reflected in records of his membership in organizations such as the Japanese Association of Oregon and the Rotary Club, his assistance to the Japanese Consulate in Portland, and his fundraising for hospitals, churches and other charities.
A small amount of personal and family materials is included with the business records. This series consists of personal papers of the Yasui family, including family and personal correspondence and their ephemera and memorabilia. It is divided into four subseries: Subseries 6.1, Issei papers: Masuo Yasui, Renichi Fujimoto (Yasui), and Shidzuyo Miyake Yasui materials; Subseries 6.2, Nisei papers: Kay Yasui materials; Subseries 6.3, Nisei papers: Michi, Minoru "Min", Ray "Chop" (Tsuyoshi), Roku, Yuka, and Yuki Yasui materials; and Series 6.4, Other family papers. Much of this series is in Japanese, which has been reviewed and summarized by translators.
Highlights include personal correspondence of and between Masuo Yasui, Shidzuyo Yasui, and Renichi Fujimoto (Yasui) and some correspondence from their families in Japan, as well as Masuo Yasui's business awards, speeches, and drafts of his personal history written at the request of the Japanese consulate. The bulk of this subseries is in Japanese.
Three items in this folder are viewable online, with
translations in English and modern Japanese:
Four items in this folder are viewable online, with
translations in English and modern Japanese:
An item in this folder is viewable online, with translations
in English and modern Japanese:
An item in this folder is viewable online, with translations
in English and modern Japanese:
This subseries consists of the papers of Masuo Yasui and Shidzuyo Yasui's oldest son, Kay Yasui (1913-1931). It includes materials relating to his education and his work on the high school newspaper, The Hood River Guide, as well as catalogs that he collected. It also includes condolence letters sent to the family after his death, and materials relating to his funeral. This subseries contains materials in English and in Japanese.
Two items in this folder are viewable online:
An item in this folder is viewable online, with translations
in English and modern Japanese:
This subseries contains the papers of Masuo and Shidzuyo's other children in the second generation of the Yasui family. Correspondence includes letters with their uncle Renichi Fujimoto (Yasui). Other materials include drafts of letters of recommendation for Minoru Yasui to the University of Oregon Law School, piano sheet music that Michi Yasui and Yuka Yasui used in Hood River performances, materials relating to Yuki Yasui's death and funeral, and an invitation to Ray Yasui's wedding. This subseries contains materials in English and in Japanese.
An item in this folder is viewable online, with translations
in English and modern Japanese:
An item in this folder is viewable online, with translations
in English and modern Japanese:
An item in this folder is viewable online, with translations
in English and modern Japanese:
This subseries contains general family correspondence, brochures, ephemera, religious publications, posters of paintings, watercolor paintings by an unknown artist, and school textbooks. This subseries contains materials in English and in Japanese.
An item in this folder is viewable online, with translations
in English and modern Japanese:
An item in this folder is viewable online, with translations
in English and modern Japanese:
Four items in this folder are viewable online, with
translations in English and modern Japanese:
Three items in this folder are viewable online, with
translations in English and modern Japanese:
This is the only series that entirely postdates World War II. It contains correspondence and records reflecting the involvement of Masuo Yasui's youngest son, Homer Yasui, and his wife, Miyuki Yasui, in the Japanese American Citizens League in the 1970s and 1980s, when Homer led the Portland chapter. The series include records for conventions and community events, materials relating to the establishment of the Minoru Yasui Memorial Fund, and lobbying efforts made to Congress for redress from the U.S. government for the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. These materials had been housed in binders and are in original order; most folder titles in the container list were retained from the donor's binder and folder titles. Materials in this series are in English.
Two items in this folder are viewable online:
This series consists of magazines, newspapers, and other published material that the Yasui family possessed, dating from approximately 1910 to 1979. All magazines are in Japanese, while the newspapers in this series are a mix of Japanese-language, bilingual English and Japanese, and some English-language publications. The newspapers include several titles published in Japan and in the United States (but none published in the camps where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II). For some newspaper titles, multiple issues are bound together with string. Additional published materials include guides, manuals, and pamphlets relating to the Second Sino-Japanese War.