Nisei Childhood in Fresno, CA Extensive Photo Archive 53 photographs,Belonging to Frank Jiro Hashimoto, Japanese American Internee and U.S. Army Veteran, ca. 1950s

Nisei Japanese American

Photograph

[Japanese American][Japanese Internment] Frank Jiro Hashimoto photo archive recording the friendships, keepsakes, and young social life of a Japanese American boy in Fresno, California, circa late 1940s-1950s. Hashimoto was a survivor of WWII era Japanese American internment as a young boy. The photographs are a personal record of his postwar life in California. Born in Fresno in 1941, Frank Hashimoto was interned as a young child; these photographs belong to the years after that rupture, when Hashimoto returned to Fresno and found friendship and community with classmates, whose inscribed portraits he kept for the remainder of his life. Hashimoto passed away in 2018. His obituary paints a picture of an extraordinarily loved and devoted family man, member of the Fresno Nisei community, graduate of the California State University of Fresno, U.S. Army veteran, and active member of the JACL and Buddhist church life. These images capture the mid-century childhood of a Japanese American in California's Central Valley.
Photo archive of 53 silver gelatin portrait photographs, mostly small school portrait prints, with a leather wallet and 4 related paper items, Fresno, California, circa late 1940s to mid 1950s. Thirty one photographs show young children, about 9-11 years old, in tightly cropped studio school portraits against plain backdrops, wearing plaid shirts, sweaters, open collars, and neatly combed hair; one portrait shows Frank survives with his name written in pencil on the verso. Two others carry identifications, “Earlene Mears” and “James Garner”. Twenty two later portraits show teenagers in more formal yearbook style poses, many inscribed directly to Frank in white or blue ink and signed with first names including Joyce, Richard, Amy, Bernice, Adrian, and Frances. The leather wallet contains an “Approved Identification Card” with Frank Hashimoto’s name, Fresno address at 3682 E. Clayton, age 13, height, weight, dark hair, and a pasted portrait, accompanied by a worn key tag reading “Room 12 Frank Hashimoto,” a 1954 Hallmark holiday reminder card advertising Okamoto’s Jewelry Gifts Greeting Cards at 917 F Street in Fresno and a small German Shepherd trading card. These photographs, originally enclosed in the wallet, were kept close, signed, identified and clearly carried personal significance to Hashimoto.
The archive is a strong, personal record of Nisei childhood in post-war California. The images preserve the childhood memories of Frank Hashimoto’s friends as children and teenagers, the inscriptions written to him, and the small paper ephemera that stayed with him in his wallet, giving the group the intimacy of a treasured adolescent collection. Light edge wear, minor corner rubbing, scattered handling creases, and expected age toning to some prints and paper items; wallet and ephemera worn but intact. Overall very good condition. A compact but unusually grounded record of postwar Japanese American adolescence in Fresno, chronicling the young life of a Nisei internee and U.S. Army serviceman.

Item #23281

Price: $850.00