Hank Umemoto - Manzanar to Mount Whitney: The Life and Times of a Lost Hiker

Just for the heck of it, during the late 1980s I wrote a series of three-hundred-word personal essaysone a month for forty-eight consecutive monthsand sent them to my children. A few stories were published in the Rafu Shimpo newspaper and the Nanka Nikkei Voices Journal , and some of those who read the stories commented on how surprised they were since I dont look or talk like the intellectual type. My sincere thanks go to these people, who in their way encouraged me to continue my writing endeavors.

Those forty-eight stories were laid to rest for the next twenty years, until 2011, when I accidentally stumbled onto the files and, just for the heck of it, printed and bound the stories for my children. When my daughter Karen and son-in-law Brian asked if I minded if they tried to get the collection published, my reply was simply, Do whatever you want with it. To Karen and Brian, then, go my thanks for putting this project into motion by contacting my publisher and obtaining my grant and following through with contributing to every aspect of the project to the very end.

When Malcolm Margolin, publisher at Heyday, was contacted, he commented that I lacked professionalism but had a bizarre sense of humor and a unique writing talent that, although amateurish, was enough to commit him to publishing the stories. My appreciation goes to Malcolm for plunking down his bet on a longshot.

With Malcolm and Heyday attached to the project, the California State Library issued a grant to see it through. To the California State Library and the California Civil Liberties Public Education Program, I wish to express my gratitude.

To best present the manuscript in a professional manner, I sought the aid of Naomi Hirahara, an educator and seasoned author of several books pertaining to Japanese American culture. She suggested the title Manzanar to Mount Whitney and introduced the concept of weaving my internment camp stories into my hiking narratives. I thank Naomi for making this volume uniquedifferent than any other book ever published on the topic.

To further refine the text, Gayle Wattawa and Lisa K. Marietta of Heyday pored over the manuscript and made numerous helpful comments and suggestions. I am indebted to Gayle and Lisa for their expertise in transforming a group of random stories into a captivating, cohesive book.

Without the encouragement and support of all these people along the way, the stories I had written just for the heck of it might have remained in my computer, archived among the dead files, until they were eventually deleted, forever forgotten.

About the Author

Hank Umemoto was born in 1928 to immigrant grape farmers in Florin, a rural community near Sacramento, California. At the age of thirteen, he and his familyalong with 115,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestrywere evacuated from the West Coast and imprisoned by the U.S. government in internment camps for the duration of World War II.

Hank spent three years and three months at Manzanar War Relocation Center, located in the eastern foothills of the Sierra Nevada Range. From inside the five-strand barbed wire enclosure on the desert floor, he often gazed at the zigzagging Whitney Portal Road that led to the main trail going up Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the contiguous United States. He always dreamt of climbing the Big One someday.

After his release from camp, he moved to Los Angeles, where he spent the first three and a half years living in skid row. After finishing high school, he worked to support himself and his mother while attending Los Angeles City College. During the Korean War, he served overseas in the army with 38th Military Intelligence Service. After his discharge, he attended Cal State Los Angeles using funds from the GI Bill, then married, raised a family, and worked in a variety of trades and businesses. His jobs included gardener, owner of a jewelry store, owner of a mail-order business, and insurance agent with Cal Western Life. He eventually started a print shop and remained in the printing business for thirty-two years, until his retirement in his mid-seventies. He now writes for enjoyment during his sunset years.

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