{"id":27699,"date":"2025-08-18T15:14:24","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T15:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=27699"},"modified":"2026-03-17T20:53:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T20:53:23","slug":"shigeru-ochis-long-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2025\/08\/shigeru-ochis-long-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Shigeru Ochi\u2019s Long History"},"content":{"rendered":"

In December 1941, Shigeru Ochi \u201949 was in the middle of his senior year of high school in south central Los Angeles when the Japanese military attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II. Soon after, in February 1942, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal from the West Coast to inland \u201crelocation centers\u201d those deemed a threat to national security. Japanese Americans were swiftly targeted and interned.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few months later, Ochi became one of the first Japanese Americans ordered by the federal government to Manzanar, an internment camp in the remote California desert. Government officials told Ochi\u2014who\u2019d been born in Los Angeles to Japanese-born parents\u2014and the other young men who arrived early that if they helped construct the camp, they would be allowed to come and go as they pleased.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This turned out to be untrue, and eventually 10,000 people\u2014mostly American citizens\u2014were crammed into one square mile with extreme and harsh conditions: up to 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer, below zero in the winter, and always windy and dusty. By the war\u2019s end, more than 120,000 people would be interned in a total of ten camps across the country.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ochi\u2019s
Ochi\u2019s ID card upon release from Manzanar in 1943.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ochi was held at Manzanar for one year and one day before being released into the custody of the Church of the Brethren, based in Chicago, in March 1943. The religious group was sponsoring people like Ochi who were eligible to leave the camp, and they helped him find a job in a Chicago model airplane factory, which allowed him to save enough money to pay for a year of tuition at Macalester.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMac was my first exposure to Minnesota,\u201d Ochi says, recalling how the Twin Cities at the time, with its Scandinavian influences, were so different from where he grew up in south central Los Angeles, surrounded by Mexican and Japanese immigrants. Mac was the right fit for him, Ochi\u2019s son Jim says, because of its academically rigorous yet welcoming environment.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Esther Torii Suzuki \u201946, one of the namesakes of the current Lealtad-Suzuki Center for Social Justice on campus and the first Japanese American student at Mac, had arrived in 1942. Ochi remembers there being about a dozen other Japanese American students at Mac when he was there.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
A group of students sits and chats in this black and white photo. Ochi (far right) served as secretary-treasurer of the Macalester Christian Association in 1947.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While Ochi had earned enough money for tuition, that didn\u2019t cover all of college\u2019s expenses. In exchange for a cot next to the coal furnace in the Bigelow basement, he stoked the dorm\u2019s fire every morning at 5 a.m. and again after classes. To earn money for bread and peanut butter, he washed dishes at a nearby restaurant.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ochi\u2019s Macalester education was interrupted after his first year, when he was drafted into the Army in July 1944. He completed basic training at Fort Hood in Texas, where he met members of the 442nd regimental combat team, a segregated Japanese American regiment that became one of the most decorated teams in US military history. Ochi graduated from the US Military Intelligence School at Fort Snelling in St. Paul, where he took Japanese language classes before being sent to the Pacific theatre. He\u2019d never attended any formal Japanese language classes as a child growing up in California, but spoke a mixture of Japanese and English with his parents.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1945, Ochi was sent to Hiroshima\u2014where his family had lived for centuries\u2014with the American occupational forces after the city had been leveled by the atomic bomb. He sent a letter back to Macalester that was printed in a December 1945 issue of the Mac Weekly, reporting on the dire effects of war he was witnessing. Miraculously, he tracked down members of the Ochi family\u2014who had survived the blast but were suffering from radiation sickness, burns, and malnutrition\u2014and delivered high-protein meals and other supplies.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ochi\u2019s
Ochi\u2019s Macalester Homecoming pin from 1946.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After being honorably discharged in October 1946, Ochi resumed his studies at Macalester\u2014well into the fall semester. Despite his late arrival, he aced his courses that semester, going on to double-major in math and chemistry. \u201cAs far as I was concerned, math was one of the easier subjects, and a good way to get along,\u201d he says. Thanks to the GI Bill, he was able to live in a dorm room like most Mac students. He would play active roles in the Macalester Christian Association and the Junior Toastmasters, and his name frequently appeared on academic honor rolls.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the spring of his senior year, the Graduate Record Exam was administered nationally for the first time. A perfect score in its math section and his outstanding grades earned him a full scholarship to MIT for graduate school.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, his son Jim \u201980 would marvel at Ochi\u2019s academic success, especially during an era when there was so much anti-Japanese sentiment. Whenever Jim asked his father about it he would, in Jim\u2019s words, \u201cjust shrug his shoulders and say, \u2018I don\u2019t know, I tried really hard and I got good letters of recommendation.\u2019\u201d The widespread standardization of the GRE may have also worked in Ochi\u2019s favor. \u201cFor the first time ever schools had an opportunity to objectively evaluate applicants from throughout the country,\u201d Jim says. \u201cAnd I believe that\u2019s how Dad got MIT\u2019s attention.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"From
From left: Shigeru Ochi \u201949, son Jim Ochi \u201980, great-granddaughter Naomi Ochi and grandson Derek Ochi \u201912 on Ochi\u2019s 101st birthday.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ochi and his wife Virginia raised their four children in New Brighton, a Twin Cities suburb a short drive from Macalester. He was an engineer at UNIVAC, one of the first computer companies in America, and later formed a startup with several other engineers called Comten that went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 1968.    <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ochi was the first person in his family to attend Macalester, but he wasn\u2019t the last. Six others followed him, including his younger sister, Midori \u201948, who\u2019d graduated from Manzanar High School while interned. A niece, Meloni Hallock \u201970, serves on the college\u2019s Board of Trustees. His sons Jim \u201980 and Bob \u201985 and grandson Derek \u201912 all majored in biology at Mac, and all three became physicians inspired by Shigeru\u2019s determination to receive an education. Bob also met his wife, Amy Shapiro Ochi \u201985, at Mac.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, Derek accompanied his grandfather to Ochi\u2019s 70th Reunion. \u201cHe was so elated to go back to the place that provided him those opportunities and memories,\u201d Derek says. \u201cI could tell from the way Grandpa always spoke about Macalester that it was one of the most important experiences in his life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Shigeru
Shigeru Ochi \u201949<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now 101, Ochi lives outside Sacramento, in a memory care facility not far from several family members.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy grandpa really set an example of pursuing an education even when it\u2019s not the easiest thing to do. He had to face a lot of challenges,\u201d Derek says. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t come out and really talk that much about all the details of his story\u2014he\u2019s an open guy, but he\u2019s very humble. As I learned more I realized that it\u2019s important to take advantage of the opportunities you\u2019re given. That inspired me to try to do the same.\u201d  <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hillary Moses Mohaupt \u201908 earned a master\u2019s degree in public history and is a freelance writer in the greater Philadelphia area.<\/span><\/i><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Shigeru Ochi \u201949 approaches 102 years old, he and his family reflect on his path from an internment camp to Macalester to MIT and beyond.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":881,"featured_media":27843,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[41,46],"class_list":["post-27699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","tag-american-studies","tag-history","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"Hillary Moses Mohaupt \u201908","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/881"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27699"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31755,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27699\/revisions\/31755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}