The , in what was then Tacoma, Washington

Tacoma, Washington

Tacoma is a mid-sized urban port city and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Park. The population was 198,397, according to...

's Japantown

Japantown

is a common name for official Japanese communities in big cities outside Japan. Alternatively, a Japantown may be called J-town, Little Tokyo, or Nihonmachi , the first two being common names for the Japanese communities in San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively.-North America:Japantowns were...

, was one of 24 Japanese language schools that existed in Washington prior to World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

History

The building was built in 1922 to replace a smaller building and accommodate a larger enrollment. Because Washington had laws preventing aliens

Alien (law)

In law, an alien is a person in a country who is not a citizen of that country.-Categorization:Types of "alien" persons are:*An alien who is legally permitted to remain in a country which is foreign to him or her. On specified terms, this kind of alien may be called a legal alien of that country...

 from owning land, the lot was paid for by a school corporation that was made up of three Americans, and two Issei Japanese Americans. Two lots were bought for a total cost of $1,600, and the building was built at a cost of $9,000. An addition to the building was added in 1926. The school taught classes on the English language, the Japanese language, and Japanese culture.

During World War II the building was used to gather Japanese residents

Executive Order 9066

United States Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942 authorizing the Secretary of War to prescribe certain areas as military zones...

 during World War II, before sending them to internment camps

Japanese American internment

Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...

.

The University of Washington

University of Washington

University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...

 bought the building in 1993 after it established a campus in Tacoma. By this point, the decades of vacancy had left the building quite dilapidated. The same year, the university had made a request to the Tacoma Landmarks Preservation Commission for permission to demolish the building and replace it with a commemorative garden, but failed to act on their approval. In 2001, the City of Tacoma told the university that the building was a safety hazard and the following year the Preservation Commission renewed their approval of the plan for demolition. The university received an estimate of $3 million to rehabilitate the building, and decided that the cost was not feasible.

Despite being listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

, as well as being a City of Tacoma Landmark, the building was demolished in 2004 after having stood vacant since the 1940s. Prior to its demolishing, the school was one of only two Japanese language schools left, of around four dozen that existed on the West Coast of the United States and in Hawaii.

Sources

• Asato, Noriko (2006). Teaching Mikadoism: The Attack on Japanese Language Schools in Hawaii, California, and Washington, 1919-1927, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, ISBN 0824828984.
• Magden, Ronald E. (1998). Furusato: Tacoma-Pierce County Japanese 1888-1988, Nikkeijinkai: Tacoma Japanese Community Service.
• Sandercock, Leonie (1998). Making the Invisible Visible: A Multicultural Planning History, University of California Press, ISBN 0520207351.