Colorado's Japanese Americans: From 1886 to the Present

8: The Buddhists

T H E B U D D H I S T S P A G E 65 Formalized Buddhism in Colorado can be traced back to the arrival of Rev. Tessho Ono from San Francisco in 1916. The year before, he and two other priests had visited Pueblo, Rocky Ford, Denver, Brighton, Fort Lupton, and other areas where Japanese had settled and had found a great yearning among them for a priest who could provide spiritual guidance and conduct traditional services. The decision was made to establish a presence in Colorado, and Ono came to Denver and was feted at a happy welcome party on March 13 of the following year. Two days later his hosts organized committees in various parts of Colorado to raise funds for leasing a building in Denver to serve as a temple. Rev. Kanya Okamoto, now head priest, explains the importance of the temple: “In Japan a person by law had to be registered with a local temple at birth, so nominally every Issei was a Buddhist. In the c h a p t e r e i g h t T H E B U D D H I S T S T H E B U D D H I S T S P A G E 66 streets of Denver an Issei could be called Jap or Chink, but at the temple—where they felt at home—they were human beings. The Issei felt at peace. The temple offered the immigrants a safe place, spiritually and culturally.” On April 16 the leaders rented the People’s Tabernacle on Lawrence Street for the Denver Buddhist Temple’s first service. Some 250 persons attended. It was called the largest gathering up to that time in the history of the Denver Japanese community. On Memorial Day six weeks later, services were held in memory of the approximately one hundred Japanese whose names were recorded—but whose graves were not always identified—at Riverside Cemetery. Meanwhile, Ono was busy establishing Kyudokai (support groups) wherever there were settlements of Japanese immigrants, including places like Pueblo, Fort Lupton, Brighton, Henderson and Wattenburg, Eaton and Ault. The priest made his rounds by train or motorcycle; an automobile was considered too costly because income for the first six months was only $1,063.35 with expenditures of $1,204.55. By summer 1917 the temple, in modest rented quarters at 1917 Market Street, could claim membership of some 850 full and supporting members although this most likely included members of the Kyudokai from all over the state. Two years later the members were optimistic enough about the future to agree to buy the more spacious but notorious “House of Mirrors,” a one-time establishment of ill repute, at 1942 Market Street for $10,000. That seemed to be an attractive price until, a few years later, they discovered that the building would require about $15,000 worth of repairs. The temple remained at this site until 1947. In spring 1929 Ono was succeeded by an energetic younger man, Rev. Yoshinao Ouchi. In 1930, Buddhism in Colorado entered a new era when a stocky, smiling young man named Yoshitaka Tamai, T H E B U D D H I S T S P A G E 67 with virtually no experience in the priesthood, arrived as assistant to Ouchi. Born October 10, 1900, in Toyama-ken on the largely rural west side of Japan’s main island, Tamai had majored in philosophy at Toyo University, completing postgraduate studies in 1926. After four years in the editorial department of the Kodansha Magazine Company in Tokyo, he came to Denver. How he happened to be assigned to Denver is not known. He knew nothing about America and had never headed a temple. He must have been staggered by what he found. One of the first problems he discovered was that the temple’s finances were in deplorable shape. He was to be paid $60 per month but there was no money in the bank to cover his paycheck. If he was shocked that the temple was housed in a rickety old building where the notorious Mattie Silks had conducted a thriving business in commercialized sin, it was the least The Denver Buddhist Temple seen from Lawrence Street, with Tamai Tower low-rent housing project in background. T H E B U D D H I S T S P A G...