03-05-2025
Henry Sakamoto, Portland's ‘George Washington'
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The cherry trees along Portland's waterfront bring color, joy and a sense of spring every year they bloom. The trees were donated to the city and planted in time for the dedication of the on the north end of Waterfront Park in 1990.
But those trees and the yearly cherry blossoms that announce the end of each winter would not be in Portland without Henry Sakamoto.
Now 98, was born in Portland and went to Lincoln High School. More than 35 years ago, he was president of the , which raised the $500,000 needed to make landscape architect Robert Murase's vision a reality.
The plaza's inscriptions, haikyu poems and the Bill of Rights also remind us of a dark time in American history.
In the early part of the 20th Century, Portland had a vibrant Japanese business community. But after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japanese Americans were rounded up and detained at what is now the Portland Expo Center.
That included Henry Sakamoto and his family.
'I was too young at 15 years old and I didn't realize the seriousness of erasing our citizenship, our American citizenship and forcing us into internment, or jail, so to speak,' Sakamoto said. 'We were behind barbed wire fences and under the security guard of the United States Army.'
The Sakamotos were sent to the Minidoka Internment Camp in Idaho and held there for two years.
But once the internment ended, Henry Sakamoto joined the US Army, earned a degree from the University of Oregon and worked for the US Department of Agriculture.
'I don't know how to put it,' he said, but it was his way of 'forgiving the United States government for the incarceration. I could appreciate being a citizen of the United States.'
With the Agriculture Department, Sakamoto nurtured economic relationships between Portland and Japan.
'Japanese businesses, corporations, so to speak, they sent representatives to Portland to work as part of the economy, and they did a tremendous job,' he said.
Henry Sakamoto was the catalyst for the cherry trees. But he's a living legend in Portland's Japanese American community.
In 2021, Japan awarded Henry Sakamoto one of its highest civilian honors, The Order of the Rising Sun. It acknowledges the bridges he built between Portland and Japan.
The cherry trees, he said, were a gift 'by the Japanese businesses in recognition of the great treatment that the Japanese businessmen received while working here.' The actually donated the trees.
More than that, the cherry trees are a reminder that once-bitter enemies can become friends.
'A peace accord, so to speak,' he said. 'That's how it was taken. And that's how it's been received.'
Connie Masuoka with the said Henry Sakamoto has been 'one of our greatest leaders of our generation.'
'It started out as the Oregon Nikkei Endowment,' Masuoka said. 'I'd like to think he was our George Washington.'
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