Yokichi Kinoshita

Mitch Toda, "A Quest for the First Asian Employee," The Bigger Picture, May 10, 2012, http://siarchives.si.edu/blog/quest-first-asian-employee.

"Yokichi Kinoshita, from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is hired by the Freer Gallery of Art to work on the conservation of Japanese paintings. In 1932, when the East Asian Painting Conservation Studio was established, Kinoshita accepted a permanent position at the Freer where he remained until 1950. Kinoshita is the first known permanent Asian employee at the Smithsonian Institution."