Isaku and Emi Kida Papers

Isaku Kida (1905-1996) immigrated to the United States from Japan in 1930 as a student of theology. Following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, he fell under the suspicion of the FBI for his growing interest in communism. Arrested and incarcerated at Ellis Island, he was subsequently released to work as a language instructor for the Office of Strategic Services. In 1958, Kida’s wife, Emi (1919-2002), immigrated to New York City from Japan to join him. Born in Gifu prefecture in 1919, Emi attended Doshisha Women’s Senmon School where she studied embroidery, ikebana (flower arranging), and cooking. Near the end of World War II, Isaku became the business manager and later president of New York’s premier Japanese American newspaper, the Hokubei Shimpo (later renamed the New York Nichibei in 1945). He served as the Japanese language editor and Emi worked as a reporter, in addition to setting the Japanese hot-type by hand. The paper documented the life of New York’s post-war Japanese American community and served as an important early outlet for many Asian American Movement writers in the 1960s and 1970s.

The majority of the collection consists of copies of both the Hokubei Shimpo and the New York Nichibei. In addition to these records, the Kida Papers also contain Emi’s writings, photographs, clippings, daybooks, and personal memorabilia spanning her forty-three years in the US.

To learn more about the contents of the Isaku and Emi Kida Papers, located at the NYU Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, view the collection’s finding aid.

Image: A photograph of the New York Nichibei Directory, 1972; Isaku and Emi Kida Papers; TAM.165; Box 1; Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University Libraries.