Wakako, Haruko, Kazuko
The Japanese women who came with their American husbands to northwest Montana in the 1950s and early ’60s were unprepared for its winters, vast empty spaces and, for some, lives as single mothers.
Category: Making a Name
A Barber in Maine (4:02)
Keiko Endo Ingerson
In Japan after World War II, Keiko’s mother thought she was acting in her daughter’s best interests when she pushed Keiko to get training as a barber and to marry the young U.S. Air Force man who kept coming around. The first was good advice; the second more complicated. Keiko followed Norman to Maine, where the marriage failed but her work as a barber flourished. She raises three children and becomes a local institution. Then Norman reappears.
Passing the Exam (8:40)
Yoko Sasaki Breckenridge
Yoko arrived in Minnesota in 1963 with her husband, Roger, and wanted to work. But her English was very poor and her options limited. She had been trained as a barber in Japan, so she decided to try her hand in the United States. But first she had to pass the licensing exam, in English.