Browse Items (92 total)

Barbara (Sunnie) Hikawa is a sansei born in Chicago in 1949, whose family has a rich history and strong roots in the local Japanese American community. In this interview, she is joined by her daughter Chelsea Dolinar-Hikawa, a yonsei hapa who was…

Lourdes Nicholls is a fourth-generation Japanese American born and raised in California. Her maternal grandfather, Kiyotsugu Tsuchiya was one of the few Japanese Americans in the Chicagoland area prior to World War II, and after completing his…

Yoko Doi was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1935. The oldest of four children, she recalls an early childhood spent close to Tokyo Bay, rising patriotism in Japan, and harrowing wartime experiences of family and friends. Rather than being evacuated to a…

Sisters Sono and Midori "Dori" Fujii were born and raised in Chicago in the 1950s and 60s. Their father was born in Gifu, Japan and their mother, a nisei, was born in San Jose, California. In this interview, they discuss their mother's experiences…

Ross Harano, a sansei, was born in 1942 at the Fresno Assembly Center in California before being moved with his mother's family to the Jerome incarceration site in Arkansas. His father's family was incarcerated at Poston. Ross shares what he knows…

Sachiko Kano, a nisei born in Sacramento, CA in 1935, shares childhood memories of FBI raids and pervasive fear in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. She describes her family dressing in their best clothes to report to the Sacramento Assembly Center,…

Ken Oba, a Chicago-born sansei, shares memories of growing up on the South Side in the Hyde Park and Avalon Park neighborhoods. His parents, born in Los Angeles, CA and Honolulu, HI, were both incarcerated at Poston during WWII before resettling in…

Edith Maeda, a nisei, was born in El Centro, CA in 1927. In this interview, she shares memories of her life before WWII and her family's experiences as early arrivals at the WRA incarceration site at Poston, AZ. She recalls the pervasive dust in…

Jason Matsumoto is a yonsei born in Chicago to sansei parents who were also born in Chicago. His maternal grandparents were incarcerated at Rohwer, paternal grandmother was incarcerated at Gila River, and paternal grandfather served in the MIS. In…

Yoko Morita, a nisei born in Canada in 1935, discusses her family's pre-WWII movements between Vancouver, Japan, and Portland and their forced removal to Minidoka after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. After incarceration, the family returned to…