Named Scholarships

Named Scholarships are a very special category of awards that are given in memory of, in honor of, or in tribute to individuals, groups or events. They are established with a minimum contribution of $20,000. The following are the 11 current Named Scholarships of the NSRC Fund.

The Michihiko and Bernice Hayashida Scholarship

established by the NSRC board of directors

Michihiko “Mich” Hayashida was born in Berkeley, California, one of 12 children. His family was interned first at Tanforan, then at Topaz, Utah. He was able to leave the internment camp in 1943 with the help of the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council to attend Boston University. He counts among several important influences in his life his oldest brother Tetsuo; a classmate at Berkeley High School; and Eleanor Sekerak, a teacher at Topaz. Mich followed in his brother’s footsteps as a premed student, but after one year, he was called to military service. He returned in 1946, graduated, and then attended Boston University Medical School becoming a board-certified ophthalmologist. His practice eventually took him to Hawaii. Mich met his wife, Bernice, who is from Hawaii, while she was attending the Boston College School of Social Work. Bernice has actively volunteered in their five children’s classrooms and PTA, Kaiser Hospital, the Waikiki Aquarium, League of Women Voters Education Committee, as a docent at the Bishop Museum to visitors from Japan, and has been involved in several community and neighborhood improvement and preservation projects. Mich says, “Despite all the problems and uncertainty brought on by our mass forced removal from the Pacific Coast, there were those not directly affected, who despite the disapproval or indifference of the majority, went out of their way to help us. In our time of need they came forward and enabled so many of us to continue our education. In doing so, they instilled in us a sense of responsibility to help others in need. The forced displacement of the Southeast Asians provided the opportunity to be actively involved in helping students to further their education.”

The Nobu Kumekawa Hibino Scholarship

established by family and friends of Nobu Kumekawa Hibino
Nobu Kumekawa Hibino (1921–1998) was the heart and soul of the Nisei Student Relocation Commemorative Fund. In 1943, Nobu was one semester away from graduating from UC Berkeley when her family was interned at Topaz, Utah. With the help of the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council, she was able to leave Topaz and complete her last semester at Boston University. In 1980, she became one of the founders of the NSRC Fund. Nobu and a small group of New England Nisei felt it was time to “extend a helping hand” to others as a way of paying tribute to those who had done the same for her and her generation during those dark days of WWII. Besides being the driving force of the NSRC Fund for 18 years, Nobu dedicated her life to her family, community service, and involvement in the civil rights movement, housing, politics, education, and environmental issues. She started the first Head Start program in the state of Connecticut, and followed that accomplishment by becoming the first minority and first woman to serve on the board of a bank in that state. True to form, Nobu tackled everything with intelligence, wit, curiosity, and gusto.   

The Tama Yoshimura Ishihara Scholarship

established by Jiro Ishihara, the NSRC board of directors, family and friends of Tama Y. IshiharaTama Yoshimura Ishihara (1926–2005) of Concord, Massachusetts, joined the NSRC Fund board of directors in 1989 because she was a firm believer in the value of education as a necessary tool for success in America, especially for recent immigrant children. For 13 years she gave her time freely to help advance this notion. As board member Yutaka Kobayashi said, “I often wondered how it is that such a petite woman could muster up so much energy and spirit! It was always a pleasure to work with Tama because you knew that the job would get done and done well. It is my belief that Tama’s early experience helped shape her outlook on life. She was uprooted from her home by her own government at age 16 during WWII, her family forced to live in a horse stall at the Tanforan, California, race track, and then in barracks behind barbed wire fences in Topaz, Utah. She graduated from Topaz High School in 1943 and left the concentration camp to attend, and graduate with a degree in bacteriology, from Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Tama’s college education was made possible because of the work of the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council. We miss her very much and are thankful for the time she spent with us.”  

The Alice Abe Matsumoto Scholarship

established by Friends of Alice Abe Matsumoto
Alice Abe Matsumoto (1920–1997) was the fourth of the six children of Toyoji and Yuka Abe of San Francisco. Alice was a student at the University of California at Berkeley when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Alice’s father, a leader in the Japanese American community of San Francisco and publisher of a Japanese language newspaper, was classified by the U.S. government as a dangerous enemy alien, and immediately arrested and placed in detention camps in Montana and Texas for the duration of the war. Alice, her mother, three sisters and a brother were interned in the Tanforan Assembly Center and then the Topaz Relocation Center in Utah. At the time her eldest brother was serving with the U.S. Army. With the help of the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council, Alice left Topaz to attend Temple University in Philadelphia and received her degree in Nutrition and Dietetics. When her family moved to Minnesota in 1962 she became the head therapeutic dietitian at St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Paul. She was an active member of the Minnesota Chapter of the American Dietetics Association and served on various committees to educate the public by giving lectures and demonstrations to promote optimal nutrition, health and well-being. She was active in her church, the St. Paul-Nagasaki Sister City organization, and the Como Park Japanese Garden board. She was ever mindful of the valuable assistance she received in 1943 from the Student Relocation Council to complete her education and the effect it had on her life. Alice’s close friend, Nobu Kumekawa Hibino said, “Alice’s many admiring friends remembered her unselfish concern and the love for others. She was quick to compliment people but reluctant to accept credit for all she did.” Alice believed in the goals of the NSRC Fund and was one of its earliest supporters.

The Hisaye Hamaoka Mochizuki Scholarship

established by Akio Mochizuki
Hisaye Hamoka was born in 1925 in Del Rey, California, the second of three daughters of Kyuhei and Kima Hamaoka, originally of Kumamoto, Japan. The family moved to Delano, California where the sisters attended segregated schools. In 1942, Hisaye was a student at Delano High School. Hisaye, her mother and sisters were evacuated to Merced Assembly Center and Amache (Granada) Relocation Center in Colorado. She graduated from high school in Amache. Hisaye applied to several universities from camp. She was not accepted to any of the universities to which she applied, but in 1944, with the help of the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council, she travelled to Minneapolis to see if the University of Minnesota would accept her for the Fall quarter. She matriculated in 1944 and graduated in 1948 with a degree in dietetics. From 1948 to 1950, Hisaye was a dietetic intern at Highland Hospital. In 1950, she accepted a job as dietitian for the University of California, San Francisco’s Metabolic Unit where she designed special diets for research protocols and oversaw the research kitchen for 33 years. She married Akio Mochizuki in 1951. Tara, their only child was born a year later. Hisaye was always grateful for the help she received from the American Friends Service Committee, “the Quakers” as she called it, without whose help she may never have attended university.

The Koh, Mitsu and Dr. Kotaro Murai Scholarship

established by the Murai Family
Koh and Mitsu Murai were the Issei parents of Dr. Kotaro Murai. When the war came, they were living in San Francisco and Kotaro was attending Berkeley. Because Koh was a newspaper owner and publisher, he was classified as a dangerous enemy alien, and sent to several detention centers — from Montana, to Santa Fe to Louisiana — before ending up at the Rohwer, AK internment camp. Kotaro and his mother were sent to Tanforan, but as one of the early students helped by the Student Relocation Council, he was released to continue his education at the University of Nebraska. He obtained his undergraduate and graduate degrees there. Kotaro was able to arrange for a job for his mother at the Franciscan Sisters Hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska. When Koh left Rohwer at war’s end, they settled in Denver, and Mitsu continued working for the Franciscan Sisters there until she retired. Kotaro went on to receive his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Minnesota, and began working at Pfizer in 1949. He spent his career there, and retired in 1988 as Senior Research Investigator in the Analytical Chemistry Department. He was part of the research group at Pfizer that developed the Terramycin and Tetracycline antibiotics, as well as several of the psychotropic drugs. In all their letters from camp — Kotaro’s parents kept repeating the theme of “study hard while you are young and always behave like a gentleman.”   

Kaizo and Shizue Naka Scholarship Fund

established in memory by their children, Fumio Robert and Patricia Neilon Naka

My father, Kaizo Naka, was the firstborn son (born in 1884) of the landed gentry in Yasutake Mura on Kyushu. He emigrated from Japan to the United States with the help of George Shima (Ushijima), “the potato king,” possibly to help the farm in Stockton, California, with its finances. He entered Stanford University but found the periodic trips to Stockton taking up too much time so he transferred to the University of California at Berkeley where he received his BA and MA in economics. After working in Stockton on the farm and in New York City for the Mitsui Trading Company he returned to Japan to marry Shizue Kamegawa.

Shizue Kamegawa (born in 1895) was the oldest daughter of a family of philosophers. My mother spent her childhood, as many girls of wealthy families did during that period, learning the arts, some of her work I still have today. Upon graduation she taught mathematics at a girls school. After marriage and a short time on the farm in Yasutake, my parents moved to San Francisco where my father began working for the transpacific freight and passenger steamship company Toyo Kisen Kaisha. In 1926, when I was two-and-a-half years old, the family moved to Los Angeles where my father opened the new office of TKK as its manager. In May 1942 we were sent to the Manzanar internment camp in southern California.  

I wanted to create this scholarship to honor my Issei parents and the emphasis they always placed on education and “giving back.” I remember my mother telling me that you can’t just take from society you have to give something back. But what she really said was, “You have to give back twice as much because someone won’t give anything.”  

The Lafayette and Mayme Noda Scholarship

established by Walter N. Frank
A tribute by David and Kesaya E. Noda

Our parents, Lafayette and Mayme Noda (1919–2006), were among the small group that originally founded the NSRC Fund. Born in California, in an intentional agricultural settlement of Japanese immigrants known as the Yamato Colony, they were imprisoned in Amache (Granada), Colorado and eventually settled in rural New Hampshire. Committed Quakers for more than 50 years, our parents are two people who — above all else — seek to live their faith, in matters large and small. They laugh, work, and have fun, but they never stop trying to make this world a better place. As a biochemist at Dartmouth Medical School, Lafayette successfully isolated and studied the enzymes that are now used to diagnose heart attacks and other diseases. Mayme was a gifted educator and musician who taught in several local schools and performed with a medieval consort. Longtime political activists, they “retired” but Lafayette continues to work hard on the pick-your-own blueberry and Christmas tree farm. As founders of the NSRC Fund, they, like so many who are involved, wanted to help others — as they were once helped. This is a responsibility they never questioned. It was always their deep pleasure.

The Gladys Ishida Stone Scholarship

established by Gladys Ishida Stone
Gladys Ishida Stone, a longtime NSRC Fund supporter, was helped by the Student Relocation Council to attend Washington University in St. Louis. The following is an excerpt from a tribute given in her memory by Mead Stone, 2/17/95

Gladys came into my life 33 years ago in marriage to my father, Greg Stone. To me, in 1962, Gladys was a beautiful woman of depth and understanding; the chairperson of the department of History and the Social Sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. She possessed a political strength that eventually succeeded through endurance and the absolute correctness of her sense of both social and personal injustice and responsibility — for others. She brought fun into our home, softened our humor and lived with a variety of nicknames running from Grady to Griddles and back again — as if we were endlessly trying to find a label, word, name, or symbol to express the woman she was. Dr. Gladys Stone, Professor Emeritus of Sociology: we came home to Gladys. She was a woman who endured many personal and social hardships without complaint, with dignity, discipline and love.  

The Michi Nishiura Weglyn Scholarship

established by the NSRC board of directors
Michi Nishiura Weglyn (1926–1999), author of Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America’s Concentration Camps, was an ardent supporter of the NSRC Fund. She was born in Stockton, California and interned at Gila River, Arizona. With the help of the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council, she was able to leave Gila River to attend college. In 1997 Mrs. Weglyn wrote about the NSRC Fund awards ceremony held in New York City the year before:  

As I sat there watching the radiant faces of the youthful awardees, I found myself being transported back in time to the desert prison camp of Gila and recalling the joy I myself had felt a half century back, on being told that, thanks to the resolute efforts of countless dedicated Caucasians who cared, I had received a scholarship to Mount Holyoke College. In that audience filled with proud family members and friends of those being honored, I sat with my heart full. As I watched some of the now legendary leaders of the NSRC Fund, I felt immense pride in the caliber of our own extraordinary Nisei, like Nobu Hibino and Lafayette Noda, who, through decades of hard work and sacrifice, have kept alive that legacy of giving and caring, exemplifying — like those wartime benefactors who had once come to our rescue — the finer ideals of mankind.  

Michi Weglyn herself exemplified the “extraordinary Nisei” by nearly single-handedly giving impetus to the national movement for redress and reparations for the wartime internment with the publication of her book. Up until her passing she continued to lobby for compensation for Japanese American railroad workers, Japanese Latin Americans and anyone else who was denied redress for any reason. May her contributions to the struggle for justice never be forgotten.

The Kay Yamashita Scholarship

established by Yutaka Kobayashi
Kay Yamashita was interned first at Tanforan, then at Topaz, Utah. She was one of the first Nisei to join the staff of the Student Relocation Council, and played a key role in it. After the war Kay settled in Chicago, working with the World Student Service Fund and as registrar at the Univ. of Illinois. The following is an excerpt written by Yutaka Kobayashi in remembrance of Kay, 5/30/95.

I remember Kay as a friend, as a mother confessor, as a cheerleader and as a mover. I was only a kid of 18 in Tanforan when she told me that I could go to college in New York when I did not have a dime in pocket. I was to leave in September of 1942, but could not get clearance from the armed services. My dilemma continued until January of 1943 when Kay managed to get an emergency clearance for me to go to Alfred University in New York. She escorted me out of camp amid all the dust and cold and ushered me into an unknown world. I think about how Kay quietly and tirelessly went about planting the seeds that were to change the status of the Nisei generation in our society forever. This thin slip of a woman who had the vision, the conviction and the hopes of our success. This woman who had the faith that the Nisei would overcome the adversities thrust upon us by the circumstances of war. She was the one who gave us hope, calmed our fears, and showed us the way. In my history book, Kay Yamashita is the patron saint of the Nisei collegians of World War II. She is truly a legend in our time.