How a promise helped keep a Yuba City family’s roots intact after the internment of Japanese Americans | Choosing a Friend
Lucille Tokuno celebrated her 100th birthday in April. Her son helps share their family’s story of hope and honor during a dark chapter in American history.
Tokuno Family
Story Meet Lucille Harumi Tokuno
On a warm, but windy spring afternoon, family and friends gathered in Yuba City for a surprise milestone birthday. Lucille Harumi Tokuno celebrated her 100th birthday in April 2022.
“I’m so surprised," she said. "I’m so happy to have my family and friends."
She said her secret to longevity is holding on to hope.
“Looking forward for me, looking forward to each day,” Tokuno said.
Born and raised in Sacramento, Tokuno — whose maiden name was Tanaka — was a typical American girl who enjoyed dressing up with her sisters and jumping on fashion trends. Take, for example, denim jeans for women. Lady Levis was released in 1934, five years before World War II.
She wore them stylishly in a photo with her father, Kazuo Tanaka, a first-generation Japanese immigrant ineligible for citizenship known as Issei.
Tokuno is a second-generation Japanese, known as Nisei and is an American-born U.S. citizen
Yet, her and her father’s lives changed in an instant.
Story Life following and during internment
Following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order to relocate tens of thousands of Japanese families into internment camps. California defined anyone with at least 1/16th Japanese blood as a potential Japanese loyalist who should be interned.
Tokuno’s son, Dean Tokuno, said he only learned of this chapter in American history as a teen. He recalls being angered to learn of the experience his mother lived through but never spoke of.
“When the word came about, Japanese Americans were not allowed to take anything more than they could carry and that was it. Everything that they left behind, was abandoned,” Dean Tokuno said.
Tokuno’s family was sent hundreds of miles north of the only place she called home in an internment camp called "Tule Lake."
Her father was forced to sell their restaurant in Old Sacramento.
“They had nobody to give the land to or hold it for them. So as a consequence, they lost it,” Dean Tokuno said. “It's heartbreaking actually, but that's what happened.”
But a silver lining, Tule Lake is also where a young Lucille met Dean’s father Ted Tokuno.
“She was smitten. He didn't know but he was going to marry her, and they fell in love,” Dean Tokuno said.
Ted Tokuno, born in Palermo, California was also Nisei.
“He was considered a dangerous Japanese,” Dean Tokuno said.
He explained his father was licensed to carry out demolitions and to fly planes as a farmworker.
“He was scrutinized very heavily. And that had an effect on him,” Dean said.
Like Lucille Tokuno’s father, Ted Tokuno’s father also had to sell off property, including a 20-acre ranchette in the southwest portion of Yuba City just beyond the Yuba buttes.
It was one of three plots of land he bought for each of his sons. Two of whom served in the first U.S. Army combat unit comprised entirely of Japanese Americans, the 442nd regimental combat team.
Dean Tokuno said a friend bought the ranchette for a dollar with the promise of selling the land back.
“My grandfather was a first-generation Japanese who can barely speak English,” Dean Tokuno said. “And yet, he hands the keys to everything he owned to this Caucasian man who says I’ll take care of it for you. Give it back to you for a buck when you get back.”
That promise was kept.
“This piece of property that we're on right now is the piece of property that my grandfather Bundo Tokuno bought for my dad,” he said as family members ate cake and took pictures with Lucille Tokuno for her surprise birthday.
Sutter County records show that a widow, Laura B. Davis, sold the farm back to Ted and Lucille Tokuno in 1946.
At the time, Japanese faces were that of the enemy. The American Institute of Public Opinion found only 1% of Americans opposed the internment of Japanese non-citizens.
“My grandfather chose the right friend,” Dean Tokuno said. “It's, it's remarkable. It's about honor. That's what it comes down to.”
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, to compensate some 100,000 people of Japanese descent for their incarceration during World War II. They were given $20,000 in restitution and an apology letter signed by President George Bush in 1990.
“My father still hung on to that one of his most prized possessions a letter of apology,” Dean Tokuno said. “He said ‘this check is going to help me but what I’ve needed since the end of the war was this letter.'”
Generations of Tokunos have since made memories on the farm, and Lucille says her husband’s contributions are cherished.
“He loved the farm and he really kept it well for the family to enjoy. Been here for over 50 years and I still love it. I won’t trade it for anything else,” she said.
Looking back at her 100 years of life, Lucille says her love of dance carried her through the hand full of years at Tule Lake.
“I taught dancing. And so I had a little studio where I had many young people to teach and it was a happy occasion always,” she said.
She added her life isn’t defined by war, but by love.
“I think my greatest achievement is having a family and seeing them grow. And enjoying life. That’s what it’s all about."
