Written by Wendy Ogata
Utah’s hardscrabble Mormon pioneer history is a well-documented story. A new exhibit at the Brigham City Museum of Art & History delves into the lesser-known accounts of Japanese Americans who nurtured lives for themselves and their families in Box Elder County’s vast agricultural landscape in the early 1900s.
“Uncovering the Journey: Japanese American Pioneers in Box Elder County” opened in early 2025 as part of the Japanese American Citizens League’s annual Remembrance Day observance of Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Feb. 19, 1942. It ordered the forced relocation of 120,000 Japanese Americans — most of them United States citizens — to incarceration centers after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
The museum’s exhibit, which runs through June 21, is largely temporary, because many of the items on display are on loan from Japanese American families. On display are beautiful kimonos, trunks used by families to take what they could to the incarceration centers, military uniforms, and medals that belonged to Japanese Americans who fought for the U.S. Other artifacts include sports memorabilia of standout local athletes, and informational plaques, photographs and equipment that explain Japanese Americans’ lasting contributions to the county’s agricultural history.
Some items will become part of the museum’s permanent displays. Those artifacts include “photographs, some of the World War II uniforms, some of the items throughout were donated, but we really wanted to highlight the family treasures people were willing to share with us,” said Museum Director Alana Blumenthal.
She hopes the exhibit will be the beginning, not the end, of a long-term project to gather more information, memorabilia, and oral histories of the county’s Japanese American families.
This exhibit was two years in the making, sparked when Blumenthal met Norio Uyematsu, now 94 years old. Uyematsu’s family was forced in 1942 to relocate from their farm in Campbell, Calif., to the Heart Mountain, Wyo., incarceration center.
After the centers were closed in 1945, Uyematsu, then 14, moved with his family to Box Elder County to work for Earl Garret Anderson. Anderson offered jobs and six apartments for Japanese Americans who had no homes to return to after the centers closed. “He believed his civic and moral duty was to help families who had lost everything due to incarceration,” Blumenthal told a large gathering of more than 200 people who attended the exhibit’s ribbon cutting.
Uyematsu added: “The Andersons, I’m very grateful for them. In fact, this became our permanent home after losing our home in Campbell, California.”
Before the exhibition’s opening, the Wasatch Front North Japanese American Citizens League Chapter, in partnership with the Mt. Olympus and Salt Lake JACL chapters, sponsored a Day of Remembrance gathering at the Brigham Academy Center. William A. Harris, director of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum, was the keynote speaker. “Incarceration is a historical fact, and we explore it in our exhibits,” Harris said. “The president’s decision [to sign Executive Order 9066] still sparks debate.”
As for himself, Harris said the order doesn’t meet his litmus test of what is right. “I always ask myself were there people at the time … who opposed the decision, who found the executive order a gross error of judgment that would not stand the test of time? And the answer to that is a resounding yes.”
The incarceration of Norio Uyematsu and others like him is not just a story for Japanese Americans. “As Americans and citizens of the world we share this history,” Harris said.
He said the FDR Presidential Library and Museum takes its place “amongst the organizations and institutions which, frankly, acknowledge the mistakes and the wrongs, even while recognizing the singular accomplishments of remarkable leaders like FDR — leaders all too human.”
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If you go:
“Uncovering the Journey: Japanese American Pioneers in Box Elder County” runs through June 21, 2025
Brigham City Museum of Art & History
24 N. 300 West, Brigham City, Utah
Phone: (435) 226-1439
brighamcitymuseum.org
Hours:
10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday
1-5 p.m. Saturday
Closed Sunday and Monday
Admission is free, but donations are welcomed