Obon Dancing in America: Reverend Yoshio Iwanaga Photo Album
1940-1950
In 1940, Iwanaga led a group of approximately one thousand bon odori dancers in a Buddhist Day Parade as part of the International Exposition at Treasure Island in San Francisco. After the signing of Executive Order 9066 and the forced eviction of Japanese Americans from the West Coast, Iwanaga and his family were interned at the Poston concentration camp in Arizona. Iwanaga suffered from ill health in the camp but resumed his ministerial duties after the war at the Watsonville Buddhist Temple. He organized another gathering of bon odori dancers outside the San Francisco Civic Center in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary (“Golden Jubilee”) of the Buddhist Churches of America in 1948. Iwanaga and his wife were appointed the directors of the Music and Recording Department of the BCA and completed a collection of gatha (Buddhist hymn) records just months before he passed away from a heart attack on 26 May 1950.
Buddhist Day Parade during the International Exposition at Treasure Island, San Francisco, California, August 1940.
Iwanaga leading bon odori practice for Sunday School teachers in San Jose, California in preparation for the fiftieth anniversary of the Buddhist Churches of America ("Golden Jubilee), 1948.
Iwanaga dancing at an obon festival, late 1940s.
Iwanaga scrapbook, newspaper clippings.
Iwanaga scrapbook, newspaper clippings.
Iwanaga scrapbook, Sangha newsletter and Y.B.A. conference program, 1950.
Iwanaga funeral photo at the Pajaro Valley Mausoleum in Watsonville, California, 1 June 1950.
Linda Akiyama, “Reverend Yoshio Iwanaga and the Early History of Doyo Buyo and Bon Odori in California” (MA thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1989).
