Paul Ohtaki

Paul T. Ohtaki, businessman and journalist, passed away on April 27, 2008. He was 83 years old. He grew up near Seattle on Bainbridge Island, Wash., and at age 17 was relocated with his family and other Japanese Americans to the Manzanar internment camp in east-central California during World War II.

The local newspaper publisher, Walt Woodward, asked him to write a weekly column about the daily lives of Bainbridge Island Japanese Americans in the camp. In his editorials in the Bainbridge Review, Woodward argued for the civil rights of these Japanese Americans, reinforced by the non-threatening, routine dispatches written by Ohtaki.

Woodward wrote to Ohtaki, "You'll be welcomed back by the vast majority of us, but those who don't or won't understand ... may actually try to stir up trouble. But they'll have a hell of a hard time of it if, in the meantime, you've been creating the impression every week and every year that the Japanese are down there for just a short while ..."

As the Bainbridge Review noted in a 2004 article, this relationship between Woodward and Ohtaki became "a friendship that made island history." As a tribute to Woodward, Ohtaki compiled the stories and letters in an anthology titled "It Was the Right Thing to Do!" in 2001.

Ohtaki enlisted in the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Service (MIS) and served in the Pacific Theater during the latter part of World War II. He graduated from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., where he met his wife, Katherine ("Kitty"). Paul and Kitty were married in 1960.

They moved to San Francisco, where Ohtaki started a successful printing business, Diversified Business Forms. Ohtaki was active in the Optimist Club, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and various Bainbridge Island historical efforts.

He is survived by his wife, Kitty, his brother-in-law, Mas Ishikawa, his sister-in-law, Rose Ohtaki, and their families.

A memorial service will be held on Sunday, May 18, at 2 p.m. at Ashley & McMullen Mortuary, 4200 Geary Blvd. in San Francisco. In lieu of flowers or koden, donations in his memory may be made to the Bainbridge Island Nikkei Memorial, P.O. Box 10355, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110.