Tsuyako Kitashima

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Tsuyako Kitashima
Born
Tsukayo May Kataoka

1918
DiedDecember 29, 2005(2005-12-29) (aged 86–87)
NationalityAmerican

Tsuyako "Sox" Kitashima (1918 – December 29, 2005) was a Japanese-American activist noted for her role in seeking reparations for Japanese American internment by the United States government during World War II,[1] particularly as investigated by the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians in the 1980s.[2]

Kitashima was born Tsuyako May Kataoka in 1918 in Hayward, California, to Masajiro Kataoka and Yumi Ishimaru, who had emigrated from Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan and owned a strawberry farm in Eden Township, Alameda County, California.[2] She had five siblings. At school, her classmates were unable to pronounce her name, calling her "Socko" instead; this in time was further shortened to "Sox". Kitashima's family moved from Eden to Centerville, Fresno County, California, where she graduated from Washington Union High School in 1936.[3]

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Kitashima and her family were among those 120,000 Japanese Americans interned into relocation camps.[2] They were kept in horse stalls at Tanforan, California, and later moved to a single room at Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah.[1] The Kataokas were also moved to Tule Lake while interned. In August 1945, Tsuyako married Tamotsu Kitashima in Salt Lake City, Utah.[1]

She later became a spokesperson for the , and fought for the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, by which the American government formally apologized and granted reparations to the wartime internees.[2] In 1998, The Freedom Forum awarded her a , which came with US$10,000.[2] She has also been recognized by the National Women's History Project as a National Women's History Month/Week honoree.[4]

Kitashima died of a heart attack in a care home in San Francisco, California on December 29, 2005, aged 87.[2]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c Taylor, Sandra C. (1993). "Nikkei Lives: The Impact of Internment". Jewel of the Desert: Japanese American Internment at Topaz. Berkeley: University of California Press. OCLC 214503960.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Johnson, Jason B. (January 10, 2006). "Tsuyako Kitashima – 'godmother' of Japantown". San Francisco Chronicle. Hearst Communications. p. B – 5. Retrieved September 30, 2009.
  3. ^ "U.S., School Yearbooks, 1900-1999, Washington Union High School, 1936". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 2020-08-28.
  4. ^ "Tsuyako "Sox" Kitashima (1919-)". nwhp.org. National Women's History Project. Retrieved October 2, 2009.

External links[]

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