Nearly 1000 veterans, family members, and friends attended a Nisei veterans' testimonial banquet at Seattle's Civic Auditorium on December 13, 1946. The event, sponsored by the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), featured speakers paying tribute to Nisei (second generation Japanese Americans) soldiers who lost their lives during World War II.
Close relatives of those who died sat at special tables like the one shown here. At center (indicated by arrows) are Mr. Shinichi Seike and Mrs. Kameno Seike, whose son died in the war. Their son Toll volunteered to serve in the 442nd Regiment, a unit composed entirely of Japanese Americans. Toll died in action in France on October 29, 1944 while on a mission to rescue a battalion which had been cut off from the rest of the army. The Seike’s oldest son, Ben, also joined the army during World War II. He served as an interpreter with the Military Intelligence Service.
Shinichi Seike immigrated to the US in 1919 and owned a store on Maynard Street in the Chinatown - International District. He imported goods from Japan and drove them to farming camps in Eastern Washington to sell to Japanese farmers. Along with the rest of the Japanese American population on the West Coast, the Seike family was incarcerated during World War II. The family opened a nursery in 1953, and in 1961 they had a Japanese garden built to honor Toll's life.
Caption information source: Photo caption, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 15, 1946, p. 12. Caption information source: “A Nisei garden of memories in SeaTac, and a soldier’s blood spilled in WWII,” by Erik Lacitis, Seattle Times, November 11, 2017, retrieved from https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/northwest/a-nisei-garden-of-memories-in-seatac-and-a-soldiers-blood-spilled-in-wwii/.
