When Dorothy Fukutaki Potter was handed the roster of students who attended Pasadena Junior College (now Pasadena City College) in 1942, the first name she looked for — and found — was that of her father, Edgar Fukutaki. Fukutaki Potter has been a librarian at Pasadena City College for 14 years and she is also an alumni. Her father attended the same campus but he didn’t quite complete his PJC career. A few months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which resulted in the uprooting of Japanese Americans like Edgar. Edgar and his family were confined in a concentration camp in Gila River, Ariz. His family lost their Meiji Hand Laundry in West Pasadena.
Edgar returned to Pasadena after World War II and worked at Eaton’s Restaurant in Arcadia before he was drafted. This June, Edgar is receiving his honorary degree from PCC thanks to AB 37. Dorothy will be beaming and applauding both as a faculty member and as a daughter.
On the 1942 PJC roster, Dorothy found 137 names of students of Japanese descent who were incarcerated. Assemblymember Warren Furutani authored AB 37 which was signed into state law in October of 2009. AB 37 allows colleges and universities to confer honorary degrees to Japanese Americans who were forcibly removed from their homes during World War II due to their ancestry. Juan Gutierrez, PCC’s public relations coordinator said, “We are doing many things to find our alumni. We want them to register on our website at www.pasadena.edu/pccnisei/. We are planning