E-mail seeks isle aid to
rename Jap Road
Hawaii residents are being urged to support a campaign to change the name of Jap Road in Jefferson County near Beaumont, Texas.
Alan Goto and Sandie Libby, both with the Hawaii Medical Service Association, received e-mail about a petition to the county commissioners to abolish the name of the 4-mile country lane.
"We're just blasting it out to anyone who would support the effort," Goto said.
The petition was created by the Japanese American Citizens League and is being circulated as an "Action Alert: 'Jap Road' Must Go!!" It's addressed to Jefferson County commissioners who will hold a hearing Monday on demands to rename the road.
Tomorrow is the deadline to sign the petition, available online at www.petitiononline.com/NOJapRd/petition.html .
It asks the commissioners "to erase the derogatory name of 'Jap Road' from the maps of Texas and replace it with 'Mayumi Road' to honor -- not tarnish -- the contributions of the Japanese community."
The road was named to honor the Mayumi family who lived on the road in the early 1900s, according to the petition. "Without removing that historical reference, we believe that 'Mayumi Road' is an appropriate substitution."
Japanese-American residents in the Beaumont area began campaigning in 1993 to have the name changed, but other local residents refused, the Japanese American Citizens League says.
Many of those living in the some 100 homes on the road maintain that "Jap Road" is not a racial slur, that it honors Japanese pioneers there, and they angrily oppose changing the name.
Over the years, hundreds of letters were sent to the commissioners from people lobbying for a name change, including U.S. senators and congressmen from Texas and other states, "but the affront remains," the league said.
Veterans of the Texas "Lost Battalion" (of the 36th Texas Division) wrote commissioners in Jefferson and Orange counties, Texas, urging them to change the names of Jap Road and Jap Lane to honor the all-Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team who "defied the odds and sacrificed life and limb to rescue them during WWII. But the disgrace remains," the league said.
The first signer of the petition was Sandra Nakata Tanamachi, an elementary school teacher whose family immigrated from Japan in the early 1900s and settled in Beaumont. She has tried for more than 10 years to have the road's name changed.
Goto said the online petition had more than 3,000 signatures when he signed it this week. "I hope it works."