The Rev’d Hiram Kano
[Episcopal News Service] People passing by the Church of Our Savior in North Platte, Nebraska, now can learn more about the remarkable life of a former priest of that church, thanks to a state historical marker that has been installed on the church grounds.
The marker recognizes The Rev’d Hiram Kano, a native of Japan who conducted services for a Japanese mission congregation there and for other churches in the Diocese of Nebraska during his ministry from 1928 to 1957. And it was after a service in that church that Kano was arrested just hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and spent time in three internment camps over the next two years—the only Japanese person in Nebraska to be interned.
Stephen Kay, an attorney and member of Our Savior—and an ardent historian and advocate for keeping Kano’s memory alive—told Episcopal News Service he first envisioned the marker in late 2020, shortly after his bid to have Kano added to the Nebraska Hall of Fame was denied. (Malcolm X was chosen instead.)
Kay contacted the Nebraska State Historical Society and began the process of having his wording for a marker approved. He also learned of a program offered by the historical society that covered the cost of historical markers that tell “underserved stories.” The cost for markers like the one honoring Kano otherwise would have been $7,000.
It took until earlier this year for the marker to be approved and manufactured, but it still was up to the church to have the 585-pound marker installed. Kay contacted the mayor of North Platte for suggestions on how to do that, and the mayor offered the help of a city crew. The marker was finally in place on July 16.
Kay said Kano’s life and ministry are what make this marker so important. “He’s going to be remembered, and that’s important to me,” he said. “I knew his son and daughter.”
Nebraska Bishop Scott Barker told ENS, “I am very proud of the efforts of Stephen Kay and the people of the Church of Our Savior in North Platte to share his story with the larger community and to pay tribute to his deep faith and courageous life.”
While the marker centers on his contributions to the state more than his service as a priest, both are key to who Kano was, Kay said. He was born in Japan in 1889 to aristocratic parents and moved to Nebraska in 1916 to study farming at the suggestion of his father’s friend, William Jennings Bryan, the American politician. Kano earned a master’s degree in agricultural economics from the University of Nebraska and also farmed. In 1919 he married his wife, Ai, and they had two children, Cyrus and Addie.
Kano and his wife were among several hundred Japanese immigrants to Nebraska in the early 20th century, and he quickly became a leader—helping others learn English, interpreting documents and contracts and leading the Japanese Americanization Society, an organization to help Japanese immigrants assimilate. At that time, federal laws prevented anyone of Asian heritage from becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen, something that wasn’t changed until 1952.
Kano, then a Presbyterian, met Western Nebraska Bishop George Beecher in 1921 when they both opposed a proposed state law to prevent immigrants from owning land. From those encounters, Kano became an Episcopalian and began studying for Holy Orders. He was ordained a deacon in 1928 and a priest in 1936, serving Japanese mission congregations in North Platte and Mitchell.
While in the internment camps—his wife and two children were left at their home in Scottsbluff—he regularly celebrated the Eucharist, offered Morning and Evening Prayer and also taught science classes.
After his release, Kano and his family were urged to move for a while to Wisconsin, where he earned divinity degrees at Nashotah House Theological Seminary. When they returned to Nebraska in 1946, he resumed his ministry, and he and his wife became naturalized citizens in 1953. They also taught citizenship classes to others.
Kay said that Kano never blamed anyone for his arrest and internment but rather said God had sent him to preach the Gospel to people who never had heard it. He also refused eventual reparations from the U.S. government.
When Kano retired in 1957, he and his wife moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, where he assisted at St. Paul’s Church. He died there on Octpber 24, 1988, at age 99, and his ashes were interred in Scottsbluff.
In 2015, a General Convention action added Kano to the proposed revision of the church calendar entitled Holy Women, Holy Men, but that revision never was authorized by a subsequent General Convention.
Even so, Barker told ENS, “Nebraska Episcopalians have celebrated Father Kano as a saint for many, many years.”
He added that while Kano had led an exemplary life as a farmer, teacher and priest, “it’s his witness to the power of Christ’s love in the face of the xenophobia and racialized brutality directed against Japanese Americans during World War II that exalts him to a special place that deserves wider recognition. I know of no other Nebraskan who has more fully embraced the way of the cross than Father Kano.”
—Melodie Woerman is an Episcopal News Service freelance reporter based in Kansas.