Life and Times in Leschi

Shiro Kashino (1922-1997)

I first learned of Shiro “Kash” Kashino while researching the life of the Filipino immigrant and labor activist Carlos Bulosan, who lived in various places in today’s International District, as well as in Leschi. I found the movie “East of Occidental” (free to Seattle Public Library cardholders on the Kanopy.com website). Eighteen minutes into the film there is a photo of a child in a Leschi School baseball uniform. That was Kash, who was interviewed for the video.

Kash was the son of Japanese immigrants, a Nisei (the first generation born in the US). As I searched for more information about him, I learned that he was born in Leschi in 1922, the youngest of six children, at 512 32nd Avenue, which his parents had rented when they moved to Seattle from Denver in about 1918.

Shiro Kashino (next to man in suit), with Leschi School baseball team, 1935. Courtesy of Kashino family collection.

After both of his parents died within a year (1934 and 1935), the older children moved the family to what was once called Renton Hill – now thought of as the southern part of Capitol Hill, near 18th and Columbia. (In 1941, the Leschi house was sold to the parents of a college classmate of mine.)

Life moved along. Kash was a star player on the Garfield High School football team that won the all-city championship. But everything changed, of course, after Pearl Harbor. By May 1942, every person of Japanese descent on the West Coast, whether a citizen or not, had been ordered to report to “assembly centers” and then relocated to concentration camps inland. Most Japanese Americans in the Puget Sound area were first sent to makeshift camps at the Puyallup Fairgrounds, and then to Minidoka, Idaho, a barren desert tract that was soon fashioned to primitive quarters for many thousands.

Shiro Kashino (rear, center) at Hawaii reunion with fellow combat veterans, 1961. His wife, Louise, is on the far right. Courtesy of Kashino family collection.

Kash had lived most of his young life in what he referred to as “all-white” Leschi, which it pretty much was in those days. He later said that growing up among whites, and then attending multi-racial Garfield, taught him how to get along with people of different backgrounds and to assimilate. He was unreserved – atypical of Nisei males, his daughter told me – and stood up for what he thought was right. He was short, but if bullied by bigger students at Garfield, he fought back.

The concentration camp was his first exposure to a Japanese community. Before the war, most Japanese Americans in Seattle lived in Nihonmachi (Japantown), centered from Yesler Way to Jackson Street, from today’s International District up to about 18th Avenue.

A couple years into World War II, the Nisei were offered the opportunity to enlist in the US military. Many joined, anxious to demonstrate their loyalty to the land of their birth and citizenship. Kash was among them, assigned to the all-Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which fought the Nazis valiantly in France and Italy. He took on a leadership role and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, six Purple Hearts, two Bronze Stars, and one Silver Star, along with other commendations.

After the war, Kash married and returned to Seattle, where he became an esteemed community leader. He helped establish the Nisei Veterans Committee’s memorial hall, in Seattle’s historic Japantown, which, to this day, honors this son of Leschi.

An important achievement of Kash’s was raising the money to erect the memorial monument at Lakeview Cemetery in honor of those Washington state veterans who were killed in action. This was accomplished around 1949.

Kashino, left, walks the line during the car salesmen’s strike, Seattle, 1958. He sold cars at Smith-Gandy Ford for many years. Courtesy of Kashino family collection

In his leadership of the committee, Kash steered it as not only a veterans’ group but also a community organization. He encouraged sponsorship of youth athletic programs for basketball and baseball. He was the organizer for many community events that encouraged the families and community members to engage in social interactions such as dances, bazaars, and picnics. Because of the discrimination at the time, these social events were important in rebuilding a Japanese American community.

Shiro Kashino died in 1997. The funeral of this important and beloved Japanese American community leader was attended by 750 people.

His story has been told in the Seattle Channel video “Community Stories: Shiro Kashino” (20 minutes, 2015); in the movie “Kash, the Legend and Legacy of Shiro Kashino,” by Vince Matsudaira (2011); and the book “American Grit,” by John Suzuki (2023). Showings of the movie can be arranged through the Nisei Veterans’ Committee in Seattle.

See also the PBS video “Betrayed: Surviving An American Concentration Camp.” (2022, 57 minutes)

Special thanks for their assistance to Kash’s daughter Debbie Kashino; Michael J. Yaguchi, Lt Col, USAF, retired, presently Commander of the Nisei Veterans Committee of Seattle; and Vince Matsudaira, movie director.

~Roger Lippman

The author writes monthly about Leschi history and his experiences over his 48 years in the neighborhood.