Integrated Japanese-American High School One Year Before Executive Order 9066, San Francisco, 1940

Japanese-Americans in San Francisco

Non-Paper Memorabilia

[Japanese-American] [WWII] Galileo High School yearbook, 1940, showing Japanese American students in San Francisco immediately prior to the mass incarceration authorized by Executive Order 9066, a contemporaneous record of Nisei youth integrated in public education and American culture. Produced in a city with a significant Japanese American, the yearbook captures a generation of students navigating bicultural identities through participation in academic, artistic, and social institutions. The volume offers direct documentation of Japanese American integration and assimilation in prewar California.

Galileo High School. The Telescope. San Francisco: Galileo High School, 1940. The yearbook includes numerous portraits of Nisei students across senior class sections, clubs, and extracurricular activities, alongside their non-Japanese peers. A dedicated “Japanese Club” group photograph presents nearly two dozen students posed in formal arrangement, while additional pages include artwork credited to Miyamoto, who served as art editor and developed the annual theme “World Peace.” The volume reflects standard yearbook structure with individual portraits, candid imagery, and signed inscriptions, documenting student relationships and institutional life. Blue cloth boards. Approximately 8.5 x 11 inches.

The timing of this publication is critical, as many of the students represented would, within two years, be subject to forced removal and incarceration in camps including Tule Lake, Manzanar, and Topaz following the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and subsequent federal policy. The yearbook records a moment of stability before the disruption of education, community networks, and civil rights. The inclusion of Japanese American students in shared academic and social spaces underscores the extent of their participation in public life prior to wartime exclusion. Light sunning to spine and faint corner rubbing; interior clean and well-preserved. Overall very good condition. A substantial visual record of Japanese American student life in San Francisco immediately preceding wartime incarceration.

Item #21933

Price: $585.00