Daniel Watanabe
In 2003, Dr. Daniel Watanabe started the “100 Years of Japanese Texas” project, commemorating the 100th anniversay of Saibara Seito’s arrival in Houston in 1903. As part of this project, Dr. Watanabe collaborated with Dr. George Hirasaki and Dr. Thomas Walls, among others, to compile histories of Japanese and Japanese Americans in Texas. The archive that they created is the foundation for our Fondren Fellows project and this exhibition. Dr. Watanabe unfortunately passed away in 2014, but the Houston Asian American Archive was lucky to have conducted an interview with him for our oral history project. Listen to Dr. Watanabe tell his own story of moving to Japan from the US, being an interpreter during WWII, and engaging with the Houston Japanese American community. Below you can read a retelling of an article related to Watanabe's WW2 Experience.