Prior to World War II, Winters was home to a thriving Japanese community of over 300 people.
A bustling area of shops, businesses and homes, Japantown was once home to the largest Japanese community in Yolo County.
When the war hit, the once vibrant community was torn apart as Japanese Americans were marched off to internment camps. Following V-J Day, anti-Japanese sentiments were at an all-time high and the Japantown of Winters was torched to the ground. Feeling unwelcome, many Japanese families chose not to return to Winters.
Decades later, the members of the Historical Society of Winters decided their next exhibit would focus on the Japanese community, ensuring their story was preserved and not lost to history.
Lifelong Winters resident Vicki Jacobs said preparations for the exhibit began back in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Meeting over Zoom, descendants of those early Japanese families met with the Historical Society of Winters to begin gathering stories, letters, photographs and artifacts.
“We had the idea that we wanted to tell the story and we had the buy-in from our Japanese friends too,” Jacobs said. “They felt like it was an important story to tell because that’s not easy to relive and to put out there for everyone to see. They wanted the story told, so with their help, we told the story.”
Jacobs said she was “thrilled” when she learned of plans for the exhibit. Jacobs’ parents moved to Winters after WWI, settling in a little house that was situated on a 45-acre ranch where her grandfather experimented with different varieties of apricots and peaches.
Her grandfather hired George Takahashi to live on the ranch and manage the orchards. Takahashi was one of the first farmers of Japanese descent to arrive in Winters. Takahashi’s son Frank became the foreman for Jacobs’ father.
“I spent hours watching his wife Shizu,” Jacobs remembered. “She made what I now know as sushi and kept a traditional Japanese home, sewing on her pedal-operated Singer sewing machine.”
The Lost Japanese Community of Winters exhibit opened in June 2021 to tremendous success, with over 100 people attending the grand opening. The exhibit was a labor of dedication and teamwork with assistance from curators Gloria Lopez and Rob Coman and exceptional input from Roy Kozen, Dennis Hiramatsu, Howard Kato and Floyd Shimomura.
Jacobs was neighbors and childhood friends with Shimomura, whose story and family history is shared in the exhibit.
“I always thought that this was a story that the museum needed to tell because when I was growing up, those were our classmates and that’s just no longer the case,” Jacobs said. “There were very few left that even came back after World War II, but then the second generation went on and didn’t stay in Winters and weren’t typically farmers or shopkeepers. They left and became pharmacists and dentists and attorneys. So I thought it was important for people who live here now to recognize how vibrant that community was and what an important part it played.”
During the curation of the exhibit, a photograph from 1930 depicting a large gathering of Japanese families for a funeral in Japantown with a railroad trestle bridge clearly in the background was discovered.
“We found this wonderful picture that actually came from the Yolo County archives of a funeral and we could see where it was taken and there was Japantown in the background,” Jacobs explained. “That’s what sort of moved us to memorialize the spot.”
The Japantown monument dedication will take place rain or shine on Saturday, May 4 at Rotary Park, located at 201 E. Main St. in Winters, in very close proximity to where the original 1930 photo was taken.
The day’s events will begin with a Buddhist service at the Winters Cemetery at 11 a.m.
“Japanese families from Winters, before everyone kinda aged out, used to come every year in the spring and they would have a kind of rededication or reunion at the cemetery so Floyd arranged for that to be recreated,” Jacobs said.
The Taiko Drummers will perform at 1:30 p.m. at Rotary Park with the dedication program beginning at 2 p.m.
The Winters Museum, located at 13 Russell St., will also be holding extended hours from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and will feature The Lost Japanese Community of Winters exhibit.
“If we don’t remember, we forget and we tend to repeat the mistakes of the past so I think this is so critical,” Jacobs said.
For more information about The Lost Japanese Community of Winters exhibit or the Japantown monument dedication, visit https://www.wintersmuseum.org/.
