Joyce Hirohata founded Hirohata Design, a one woman company, in 2003. The mission of the press is to preserve, expand and republish the works of her late grandfather, Paul Tsunegoro Hirohata who recorded the lives of Japanese Americans and immigrants in the 1920s and 1930s. Books by Paul T. Hirohata include:

(1) Orations and Essays by the Japanese Second Generation of America (1932, 1935). Written in English, the publication is a collection of speeches by the first Japanese American valedictorians. Republished by Hirohata Design as Nisei Voices. All material from the 1932 and 1935 editions are included in Nisei Voices.

(2) Zaibei Fukuoka kenjin shi (1931), Zaibei Fukuoka kenjin to jigyo (1936). Written in Japanese, these publications document the families and business enterprises of Japanese immigrants from Fukuoka in the U.S.

(3) Nichi-Bei gaiko shi kankei shashincho (1940). Written in Japanese, the work is a pictorial book of photographs of the history of U.S. and Japan’s diplomatic relations up to 1940.

(4) Charles Lindbergh, the King of the Sky (circa 1930) was written in Japanese. This book is lost and we know of no existing copy.

The Library of Congress, University of California at Berkeley and Los Angeles, Japanese American National Museum, as well a handful of private collections have copies of a few of the books.

All of Paul T. Hirohata’s works were self published in small quantities and sold only within the Japanese American community in California in the 1930s. Consequently, the material has never been widely distributed or seen by the general public. Hirohata Design hopes to translate the Japanese works into English for students and historians. If you have knowledge of pre World War II Japanese and would like to help, please contact Joyce Hirohata at hirohata@earthlink.net.