Category: Living in America

Mariko Wada Westbrook

The words Mariko Wada Westbrook often told her two children were “don’t cry, don’t ever cry.” There were many reasons they might cry — facing bullies, growing up in a housing project in Newark, New Jersey with a Japanese mother who had kicked out her abusive husband. She was tough, and she taught Peter and Vivian to be tough. But she had a deeply compassionate side, helping the homeless and always keeping an eye out for someone in need of something. When she was killed — an early, tragic death — her children put her death certificate occupation as “missionary worker.” Her legacy lives in the lessons she taught the two of them, the six-time Olympic fencer Peter Westbrook and his sister Vivian.

Fumiko Ohno Harris

Fumiko Ohno was the eldest of four sisters whose parents died shortly after the end of World War II. Their prospects were bleak. Their aunt, however, had a plan. Fumiko should get a job at Yokosuka Naval Base and marry an American. And then help her sisters do the same. That’s what she did. And after marrying Harry B. Harris Sr., a machinist mate in the U.S. Navy, Fumiko even attended a brides’ school to learn how to be an American housewife. Her great surprise, however, was their move to rural Tennessee where, as her son Admiral Harry Harris Jr. tells it, “You had to either grow your food, kill your food or catch your food.”

Kazuko Kanno Kingsbury

Three women from the local evangelical church showed Kazuko kindness and gave her a community, a place to belong. She called them her angels. Religious belief sustained her as she learned to become a farmer’s wife, sell Avon products and deliver mail for the US Postal Service.

Chiyohi Tajima Creef’s lifelong love of English, keen sense of outrage and ability to express herself made her a good fit for America.

Itsuko Okura Yoder

Itsuko Okura dreamed of a better life in America. She was quickly disillusioned by the financial struggle of raising a family in rural Illinois. But through faith, hard work and generosity, she finds her place.

Yoshiko Arakaki and Eugene Dale Skains

Yoshiko Arakaki said her face got longer and longer the closer they got to her American husband’s home in northern Louisiana. Trees everywhere. It looked to her like they were going to live in the woods. They settled in a small town and had six children. Then one day her husband did not return from hunting.

Robert Owen Smith and Kimie Tanaka

He was an orphan without relatives. She was far from home, knowing no one in the United States. Together, they made their own rules and created a family with a hybrid of cultures and always laughter.

Reiko Van Gelder

Reiko Teshima got a job as a telephone operator for the Americans, learning how to say “Number please,” and “Have you finished, Sir?” And that’s how she met John Van Gelder of Bath, N.Y. Today she believes that her problems with the English language made her seem more critical than she intended. She and her daughter Susan talk about language and relationships.

Hiroko Tokaji and Rudy Granado

During the U.S. Occupation of Japan, the favorite son of a close-knit Mexican-American family married a prominent Japanese family’s only daughter. It was an unlikely match, like so many of those post-war unions. Her grandfather was a Shinto priest. His family were devout Catholics. The ground had to shift under everyone.

Hiroe Shibata Hosna

Hiroe’s husband grew up on a farm in North Dakota, and that’s where he brought his Japanese bride in 1955. For a girl from Tokyo, it was like another planet.   No people, vast unbroken horizon, the routines of farm life and in-laws who, while initially opposed to their only son marrying a Japanese, welcomed her and tried to make her feel at home. The one thing that Hiroe yearned for, however, was rice. Her husband told his mother, and so at dinner the next day….