Our People of the Century Ellen Noguchi: Japanese American Helped Internment Refugees Adjust to Wrenching Changes

Ellen Noguchi Nakamura, the first Japanese American woman to settle in Seabrook, has been a leader in her community for more than 50 years.

Born in 1919, she was raised on her parents’ Tulare, Calif., farm. In 1939, she graduated from college with a degree in journalism.

In early 1942, the path of Nakamura’s life changed with the signing of Executive Order No. 9066. During the early days of World War II, it gave the military authority to relocate Japanese Americans to 10 remote US internment camps in the U.S.

Nakamura and her family were sent to Jerome, Ark., where they remained under cramped conditions in crude barracks for the next two years.

In 1944, Nakamure was chosen to serve as part of a three-person relocation planning commission for the Jerome camp. The only woman on the commission, she traveled to Seabrook Farms in Upper Deerfield at the invitation of Charles F. Seabrook, who was seeking labor to help meet wartime demand for his food products.

Discovering that the green farmlands of New Jersey were similar to Tulare and after a thorough study of the area, Nakamura felt Seabrook was the right place for her people.”

“Soon after, I was asked to marry but I said, ‘Only if we go to Seabrook,” she said in a recent interview.

Persuading others from the camp to move to South Jersey was not an easy task at first.

“These people who were confined behind barbed wire fences and surrounded by watchtowers felt insecure about going out to face the possibility of more discrimination,” said Nakamura.

However, Nakamura helped make the transition easier. Newly married, she and her husband, Kiyomi Nakamura, resettled in Seabrook. For the next three years, she served as a liaison between Charles F. Seabrook and camp refugees.

On call 24 hours a day, Nakamura met with arrivals from all ten internment camps. She saw that their cares were met, translated, responded to emergencies, and helped to provide housing, medical care, education, and recreation.

The Nakamuras eventually moved to a Pittsgrove farm. However, she continued her employment working as a rental clerk for Seabrook Housing Corp. until 1983.

Nakamura is a past president of the Japanese American Citizens League. She and her husband, who is now deceased, were among the originators of the Seabrook Jodo Shim Buddhist Temple. In 1991, Nakamura helped found the Seabrook Educational and Cultural Center.

In 1996 she was honored by both Gov. Christie Whitman, and the Emperor of Japan for her lifetime achievements.

She served as a camp representative at the groundbreaking of the National Japanese American Memorial in Washington, D.C.