Riverside Museum Associates

The Museum of Riverside celebrates meeting its fundraising goal for Harada House all at once! A generous allocation from the state of California of $7 million ...ensures that the rehabilitation of the house and construction of its interpretive center will be completed in full and as quickly as practically possible. With Sumi Harada, Mark Rawitsch, author of "The House on Lemon Street," first nominated Harada House as a local historical landmark in 1977. The house earned its National Historic Landmark status in 1990. Rawitsch’s book tells the story of the Harada family’s struggle to realize their American Dream, from immigration to their challenge of the California Alien Land Law to their forced removal during World War II and beyond. Rawitsch states, This new support ... means that future generations will be able to learn from the Harada story in ways that should make our country a better place to live and to understand that our diverse history is something all Americans should be proud to know. See more

Jukichi Harada with his eldest child, Masa Atsu, 1909. Although Masa Atsu was born in 1899, he did not meet his father until late 1902, when Jukichi returned br...iefly to Japan from the United States. In 1903, Jukichi permanently moved to the United States, later reuniting with Masa Atsu at the Angel Island Immigration Station in 1904. Repost from the Museum of Riverside. We need to keep the story alive and save the Harada House.

What is Juneteenth? Some call it the real Fourth of July, as the holiday commemorates June 19, 1865, when the last enslaved people in the United States in Galve...ston, Texas, learned of their freedom. This happened more than two months after the end of the Civil War. During the War, some Black soldiers in the Union Army rode through Confederate states reading copies of the Emancipation Proclamation to spread the word to those who were still enslaved. This day honors the jubilant news and asks of Americans if this promise of equality has been kept. Just this week, Congress passed, and President Biden signed into law, new legislation making Juneteenth a federal holiday. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002719398/ See more

"The Haradas experienced tragedy in 1913 when son Tadao contracted diphtheria and died in the rooming house. Partially blaming his death on the conditions of th...e rooming house where they lived, the Haradas were eager to find a home of their own with more space. The Harada family moved to a new rooming house and in April 1916, Ken gave birth to Clark Kohei. A pivotal point in the Harada story occurred with the death of son, Tadao. Harold Harada recalled later, 'My dad told me many times how he had held Tadao in his arms . . . He cradled him and tried to help him with his breathing. He was choking to death . . . and did eventually die in my dad’s arms . . . I think that really changed his whole life because he wanted to get his family out of there and into a better environment. And I don’t think Heaven or Hell would stop him . . . from purchasing a home that he thought would be . . . in the best interests of this family.' [Rawitsch, Mark H., Interviews with Members of the Harada Family, Mark Rawitsch, 2003, p. 142] (Photograph, Tadao Harada's Funeral, November 1913. Riverside Metropolitan Museum, Harada Family Collection.)

High school class photograph of Mine Harada (third row, second from right). Mine graduated from Riverside Polytechnic High School in 1923 and attended Riverside Community College until 1926. Repost from the Museum of Riverside. We need to keep the story alive and save the Harada House.

Congratulations to our colleagues at the Trujillo Adobe for the inclusion of their site on the "11 Most Endangered Historic Places" list for 2021, issued by the... National Trust for Historic Preservation. Harada House was named to the 2020 list. This national distinction draws attention to the plight of notable historic sites across the country that are in danger of loss, attention that often leads toward rehabilitation and rescue. Historic image depicts the grand opening of the Trujillo School, circa 1875. See more

As we look ahead to California's Day of Inclusion next week, consider the history that lies behind it. From the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the Immigration Act of 1924 and on through decades of social unrest, our journey toward racial, religious, and cultural equity continues.

In August 1945, Sumi returned home to the Harada House on Lemon Street. Over the next several months, Sumi assisted other formerly incarcerated Japanese America...ns by making her home available to boarders, most of whom she knew from the Poston concentration camp. Sumi’s siblings also came to stay with her periodically, including brother Clark and his wife, Sonoko. For the rest of her life, Sumi, who never married, used her family home as the center of the Harada family. Sumi lived in the house until she suffered a fall in the late 1990s, after which she moved into a Los Angeles extended care facility, near her brother Harold. Sumi died of cancer in 2000, her funeral held in downtown Riverside. The home remained in the Harada family until 2003 when the Riverside City Council formally accepted ownership of the house and its contents. Image courtesy of the Harada Family Archival Collection, Museum of Riverside. We need to keep the story alive and save the Harada House https://www.haradahousefoundation.org/donate

Here’s some lesser-known Turkey Trivia for your Thanksgiving table! Turkeys are a native bird of the Americas domesticated by indigenous cultures thousands of... years ago. California is home to hundreds of thousands of wild turkeys! It’s the same species of bird you’ll find on today’s Thanksgiving table. While these turkeys seem right at home nearly everywhere, from rural to urban areas, this species of turkey didn’t make its way to California until the 19th century. Many years ago, California had its own wild turkey species! The California Wild Turkey (Meleagris californica) is one of the most common species of fossilized birds found at Rancho La Brea (La Brea Tar Pits), and went extinct about 10,000 years ago during the Pleistocene era. See more

Animal bones, shell, and teeth turn to stone after eons of infusion of minerals, but not all fossils are changed. This coprolite the scientific name for ancie...nt poop in the Museum of Riverside’s collections is from a giant ground sloth nearly 12,000 years ago. Deposited in the cool, dry, dark conditions of a cave in the Mojave Desert, this dung reveals the sloth's last meal in the form of fibers from leaves of a Joshua Tree. Giant ground sloths, some species exceeding 10 feet in height and several hundred pounds, migrated into California from South America several million years ago. Their extinction has been linked with the receding range of Joshua Trees, since their consumption of the trees' seeds and later defecation helped to disperse the plants widely over the landscape. Without the sloths, there are fewer opportunities for Joshua Trees to distribute their seeds. #Fossilfriday See more