America is a land of immigrants, and the U.S. is unusual in world history because people from all ethnic groups try to live peacefully side by side. One of those immigrants was Harry Imai, who, on this date in 1891 was born in Kyoto, Japan.
Harry Imai faced discrimination in his life and overcame it. When he was young, his parents sent him to a Christian mission school, where he learned to speak English. When Japanese officials censured the Imai family for abandoning traditional schooling, Harry left Japan. He was only 13 when he reached Seattle.
There, he got a job as a houseboy for a family, who soon enrolled him in an elementary school. Again, Harry Imai faced discrimination when schoolboys ganged up on him and stoned him. After he recovered, Harry Imai moved to Minnesota for work. In Minneapolis, Harry advanced, first working as a hotel bellboy, and then moving north to work at a hotel in Detroit Lakes. People were kind to him, and he made many friends.
After graduating from Detroit Lakes High School, Harry moved to Fargo to work at the Waldorf Hotel, first as a bellboy, then as a bookkeeper. All the while, Mr. Imai spent his spare time drawing, sketching, and painting. After some time, he attended the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts and gained skills as a commercial artist, which he put to good use at the Fargo Courier-News (1917-1923), illustrating the newspaper.
Harry Imai soon became an artist for Fargo’s Dakota Photo Engraving Company and became its manager in the mid-1920s, serving in that position for the rest of his life. His artwork became well known in the Fargo Forum, and he had his own business, “Harry Imai Commercial Art Service,” as a sideline.
Mr. Imai helped schools produce yearbooks and student newspapers, passing on his knowledge of printing to young people at workshops in North Dakota.
In 1927, Harry Imai received letters from his family in Japan about a catastrophic earthquake. He never learned what happened to them. But he was able to move on because the people of Fargo were his family.
Imai’s sense of belonging in Fargo was reinforced by gaining membership in the Rotary Club and the Fargo Country Club. After being abused in Seattle, he found inclusion in North Dakota.
This true friend and talented commercial artist died in 1947 at age 55 from a heart attack. He was buried in Riverside Cemetery in Fargo, the city this Japanese-American immigrant called ‘home.’
Dakota Datebook by Steve Hoffbeck, retired MSUM History Professor
Sources:
- “Harry Imai Of Dakota Photo Dies Following Heart Attack,” Fargo Forum, January 20, 1947, p. 1.
- Les Skoropat, “Life of Harry Imai,” including files from N.D. State Archives.
- “A Bookkeeper And An Artist,” Fargo Forum, December 24, 1910, p. 20.
- “Trade Envoys of Mikado,” Fargo Forum, September 16, 1909, p. 9.
- “Harry Imai Commercial Art Service,” advertisement, Fargo Forum, July 25, 1928, p. 11.
- “Good-Bye, Harry Imai,” Fargo Forum, January 22, 1947, p. 4.
- “Harry Imai Rites Held,” Fargo Forum, January 23, 1947, p. 16.
- “Attorney Joseph M. Powers,” Fargo Forum, February 17, 1947, p. 3.
- “Harry Imai,” Fargo Forum, September 15, 1926, p. 3.
- “Harry Imai,” death certificate, N.D., State Death Certificates, 1908-2007; World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942, Ancestry.Com, accessed July 30, 2024.
