Friends and Family of Tomoe and Daisho Tana

This scholarship was created in loving memory of Tomoe and Daisho Tana by her friends and family. Tomoe worked at Foothill in the Japanese Cultural Center.

TOMOE TANA and DAISHO TANA BIOGRAPHIES

TOMOE TANA (1913-1991)
Tomoe Tana was born in Hokkaido, Japan on April 16, 1913 to a family of Buddhist priests. She graduated from college in Hokkaido and taught elementary school until she married Daisho Tana and immigrated to the United States in 1939 when her husband was assigned by the Buddhist Jodo Shinshu headquarters in Kyoto, Japan to the Buddhist Church in Berkeley, California.

When World War II started , Tomoe Tana had two young sons, ages one and two. Her third son was born ten months after Pearl Harbor. She and her three children were separated from Daisho Tana during the war. Considered by the US government as a leader in the Japanese community as a minister, he was sent to a relocation center in Santa Fe, New Mexico for the duration of the war. Mrs. Tana and her three sons were sent to a relocation center in Gila Bend, Arizona.

After the war ended, Tomoe Tana and her three children moved to Richmond, CA in 1946 and her husband joined the family there. After a few years living in Richmond, the Buddhist headquarters in Kyoto assigned Daisho Tana to the Buddhist Church in Hilo, Hawaii around 1948. The family remained in Richmond until 1949 when Daisho Tana was assigned to the Buddhist main temple in Honolulu. Tomoe Tana and her three children joined Daisho Tana in Honolulu and the family lived in Honolulu for two years.

Around 1951, the Buddhist Church headquarters in Kyoto, Japan assigned Daisho Tana to become the minister for the Buddhist churches in Palo Alto and San Mateo, CA. The family moved to Palo Alto in 1951. Reverend and Mrs. Tana had a fourth son born in 1952.

Apart from raising a family, Tomoe Tana was a student of the Japanese form of poetry known as the tanka. She composed and submitted annual entries to the Japanese emperor’s annual poetry contest. One of her compositions was selected for reading at the emperor’s new year poetry reading event. She also compiled, edited and had published a collection of tankas written by Japanese living in the United States under the title “Sounds from the Unknown.” She also taught tanka to the late Lucille Nixon, an educator in the Palo Alto Unified School District. Ms. Nixon became the first non-Japanese to have a tanka selected for the emperor’s poetry reading.

In addition to publishing “Sounds from the Unknown”, Tomoe Tana edited and had published in Japan the Japanese language dairies that Daisho Tana had kept during his internment during World War II.

After her four children went off to college, Tomoe Tana resumed her education at Foothill College. While at Foothill, she was active in the Japanese programs at Foothill. Following her graduation from Foothill, she went on to study at and graduated from the then San Jose State College in her sixties.

DAISHO TANA (1901-1970)
Daisho Tana was born in Hokkaido, Japan on March 20, 1901 as the oldest son of a rice farmer family. He left the family to become a priest in the Buddhist Jodo Shinshu Sect of Buddhist by joining the Kyoto headquarters. After a few years in Kyoto, he was sent to the United States to the Buddhist Church in Berkeley, California in 1939.

When World War II broke out, Daisho Tana was incarcerated in an internment camp in Santa Fe, New Mexico for the duration of the war. During the war, he kept a diary of his life in the camp. The diary was published in several volumes in Japanese after his death.

After the war ended, he returned to Richmond, CA to join his family. In 1948, the Kyoto headquarters transferred him to the Buddhist Church in Hilo, Hawaii. After a short assignment in Hilo, he was transferred to the church’s Hawaiian headquarter church in Honolulu, Hawaii.

In 1951, the Kyoto headquarters transferred to become the minister of the Buddhist churches in Palo Alto and San Mateo. During his ministry, the two churches built facilities.

Failing health led to his retirement from the ministry.