Ariki Masayuki (File 37622/7-2)
Masayuki Ariki was fourteen years old when he arrived to Angel Island in 1937. He was detained because his relatives did not pick him up at the San Francisco docks. He remembered anxiety at being locked up on Angel Island, not knowing when relatives would testify on his behalf. He was born in Fresno, California and was taken to Japan by his parents when he was three years old. His parents took him out of high school in Japan and sent him to live with his sister and brother-in-law in San Francisco. Masayuki did not want to return to America. "M parents never said why, but I knew they wanted to get rid of me. That's what they use to do in Japan with someone who won't fit into their way of life." His sister and brother-in-law did not meet him upon his arrival, and he spent 12 days locked up in men’s barracks, being the sole Japanese among 40 to 50 Chinese and Filipino men. He could not talk to anyone, and worried the entire time. He wrote a letter to parents in Hiroshima with help of a Filipino inmate. Finally his sister Shizuye Yokoji came, and he was released.
Above information adapted from:
Lee, Erika, and Judy Yung. Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print. p. 134-136
To view Ariki Masayuki's original case file photographed at the National Archives at San Francisco click here.
Masayuki Ariki was fourteen years old when he arrived to Angel Island in 1937. He was detained because his relatives did not pick him up at the San Francisco docks. He remembered anxiety at being locked up on Angel Island, not knowing when relatives would testify on his behalf. He was born in Fresno, California and was taken to Japan by his parents when he was three years old. His parents took him out of high school in Japan and sent him to live with his sister and brother-in-law in San Francisco. Masayuki did not want to return to America. "M parents never said why, but I knew they wanted to get rid of me. That's what they use to do in Japan with someone who won't fit into their way of life." His sister and brother-in-law did not meet him upon his arrival, and he spent 12 days locked up in men’s barracks, being the sole Japanese among 40 to 50 Chinese and Filipino men. He could not talk to anyone, and worried the entire time. He wrote a letter to parents in Hiroshima with help of a Filipino inmate. Finally his sister Shizuye Yokoji came, and he was released.
Above information adapted from:
Lee, Erika, and Judy Yung. Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print. p. 134-136
To view Ariki Masayuki's original case file photographed at the National Archives at San Francisco click here.