Dave Tatsuno (born Masaharu Tatsuno August 18, 1913 – January 26, 2006, in San Jose,

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

) was a

Japanese American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian Americans, Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 United States census, 2000 census, they have declined in ...

businessman who documented life in his family's internment camp during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. His footage was later compiled into the film ''

Topaz Topaz is a silicate mineral made of aluminium, aluminum and fluorine with the chemical formula aluminium, Alsilicon, Sioxygen, O(fluorine, F, hydroxide, OH). It is used as a gemstone in jewelry and other adornments. Common topaz in its natural ...

'' (named for the

Topaz War Relocation Center The Topaz War Relocation Center, also known as the Central Utah Relocation Center (Topaz) and briefly as the Abraham Relocation Center, was an Internment of Japanese Americans, American concentration camp in which Nisei#American Nisei, Americans ...

where he was confined). The film was placed in the

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation (library and archival science), preservation, each selected for its cultural, historical, and aestheti ...

, part of the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

, in 1997. Tatsuno was a 1936 graduate of the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. After graduation, he went to work at Nichi Bei Bussan, a San Francisco department store his father established in 1902. At Topaz, Tatsuno was put in charge of the camp's co-operative store. Upon Tatsuno's release from Topaz in 1945, he reopened his store but moved his family to San Jose in 1948 after his 7-year-old son died during a routine tonsillectomy. Besides being a prominent civic leader, he spent most of his post-war years running Nichi Bei Bussan and had opened a second one in San Jose after relocating his family there. The San Jose store is run by one of his daughters while San Francisco store closed in 1997 after the death of his brother Masateru "Tut". Tatsuno was predeceased by his wife Alice (died in 2005; née Okada), whom he married in 1938, and a son. He was survived by their five other children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

References

External links

Photograph
of the Tatsuno family in the Topaz camp.

of Dave Tatsuno preparing to evacuate to the Topaz camp. *
"American Topics: Rare Look at Internment Camp"
''The International Herald Tribune'', January 27, 1997. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tatsuno, Dave 1913 births 2006 deaths American people of Japanese descent Businesspeople from San Francisco Japanese-American internees University of California, Berkeley alumni 20th-century American businesspeople

See also

References

External links