Northwest University will posthumously award an honorary bachelor’s degree to Yeiko Ogata at its May 10 commencement, the university’s first Japanese American student.

Research on the school’s multicultural history will be revealed during the ceremony including how the university assisted Ogata in defiance of popular anti-Japanese sentiment during World War II.

“Our records show that Northwest highly valued Yeiko as a student,” Northwest University president Dr. Joseph Castleberry said. “Her race was seen as a benefit, not as a problem for the school.”

Ogata was born in Wapato, Wash. during 1921 to immigrants Rinzo and Toriye Ogata. Her childhood was spent in Helena, Mont. By January of 1942 Yeiko was a student in the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle attending what was then called Northwest Bible Institute. Although Yeiko sought education in Christian ministry, larger events of the war would threaten to cut her studies short.

During February of 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 forcing relocation of all Japanese people along the West Coast to internment camps. Bainbridge Island received notice for Japanese evacuation on March 24, 1942, and a Seattle notice followed on April 21. Basic rights for U.S. citizens of Japanese descent were set aside as they were seen as potential enemies. After just one quarter of study, Yeiko Ogata’s grades were excellent while despite taking a double class load. Photos in the school’s yearbook and a terse final note in her academic records clips her Northwest Bible Institute story: “Dropped Mar. 30 Japanese Evacuation.”

A new story developed in January 2014 as graduate student and independent historian Devin Cabanilla began researching NU’s archives. Online histories strangely found Ogata as a student in Minneapolis, MN. Cabanilla theorized that NBI enabled Ogata’s transfer to sister-school North Central Bible Institute (NCBI) in Minneapolis. Requests were sent to North Central and it was verified that Ogata was a transfer student there and finished a three-year diploma in ministry.

“Our first president Henry Ness was also a founder of North Central and likely arranged for her to be accepted as a student,” Castleberry said.

Yeiko’s surviving relatives also confirm her presence in 1942 Minneapolis.

“It’s important to recognize that Yeiko would have graduated in Seattle if it hadn’t been for internment,” Cabanilla said.

At Cabanilla’s suggestion, Castleberry petitioned the Board of Directors of Northwest University to confer a post humous four-year Bachelor of Arts degree on Ogata. The Board unanimously accepted.

This new history of inclusion in a segregated Seattle shows that Northwest University’s early Christian community provided an oasis for diversity. Cabanilla’s research of the 1930s and 1940s has uncovered Northwest Bible Institute’s diverse student body including: Native Americans, several African Americans, and many Filipinos who lived together in non-segregated housing despite the city’s racial codes.

“We do not frame this honoring of Yeiko as an apology, but rather as a ‘fulfillment of all righteousness,’” Castleberry said. “This is a celebration and reclaiming of a long forgotten NU heritage.”