Oral history interview with John Murakami [Sound Recording 01]

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SR952_T01S1

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Oral history interview with John Murakami [Sound Recording 01]

Date(s)

  • 1992-07-13 (Creation)

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Audiocassette; 00:32:25

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Biographical history

John Yoneo Murakami was born in Sherwood, Oregon, in 1919. His parents, Shuichi Sam Murakami and Yaeno Goto, immigrated to the United States from Japan around 1917. When Murakami was 7 years old, his family moved from their farm in Sherwood to Portland, where his father owned a grocery store, called Johnson Street Grocery. Murakami dropped out of high school in his sophomore year and later earned his GED. In 1942, he and Sumi Matsushita were married. That same year, Murakami's family was among the Japanese Americans incarcerated by the U.S. government at the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho. Murakami enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in the European Theater during World War II. He was injured in France and was discharged in 1945. He was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. After his discharge, he returned to Portland and worked in construction. He then taught building construction at Benson Polytechnic High School. After ten years of marriage, John Murakami and and Sumi Murakami adopted two children. After John Murakami’s retirement in 1984, he was active in numerous community organizations, including the Japanese Ancestral Society, the Nisei Veterans Committee, and Portland Taiko. He died in 2005. In 2011, he was posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal.

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Tape 1, Side 1. This oral history interview with John Y. Murakami was conducted by George Katagiri from July 13-20, 1992, at Murakami’s home in Portland, Oregon. The interview was recorded as part of the Japanese American Oral History Project, which was conducted by the Oregon Historical Society to preserve the stories of Japanese Americans in Oregon. This interview was conducted in three sessions. In the first interview session, conducted on July 13, 1992, Murakami discusses his family background and early life on a farm in Sherwood, Oregon, and in Portland, Oregon. He talks about the grocery store that his father, Shuichi Sam Murakami, owned, his experience during the Depression, and his education. He discusses jobs he worked after dropping out of high school and talks about playing baseball in the Nisei Baseball League.

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Copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society. Use is allowed according to the following statement: Creative Commons - BY-NC-SA, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

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  • eng

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