Chapter 23, ‘Legacy’ At the time of her death Mizuko had twenty-six grandchildren and twenty (the number grew to a total of forty in the ...

From 1956 to 1976, Mizuko continued living with Yoshiko and Sam on their San Ysidro farm with her four grandchildren, Harumi, Ann, Jane, ...

Mizuko’s return to the Henry household turned out to be brief. Hatsu Nakadegawa, Henry’s mother-in-law, suddenly appeared on the Nomura’...

In February 1946, during a respite between the Idaho winter storms, Sam Hasegawa the 442nd WWII veteran and his sixteen year-old brother-...

Ayako applied to ten different nursing schools throughout the U.S. Unfortunately, because she was working long hours at the hospital an...

Mizuko, with her job experience in tofu and natto production, was hired in January 1945 to work in the camp soy products factory. Shoyu,...

On Mar 27, 1944 Jiro left Manzanar for Rupert, Idaho on yet another work furlough. While in Idaho he received notice that he had been dr...

By 1943, Henry Nomura’s love of movies and photography finally found expression within the confines of Manzanar. The opportunity arose wh...

On Jan 1, 1943, the first New Year’s Day to be celebrated in Manzanar Concentration Camp, residents flocked to the camp mess halls for tw...

Mizuko’s next door neighbors in unit 15-6-2 also posed a problem. While the majority of inmates were employed in one of the 70+ work uni...

True to his word, Kaworu found a way to leave Manzanar. In mid-June, 1942 he and his older brother Jiro signed up for work ‘furloughs’ in...

In the early morning before sunrise, on Tuesday, May 2, 1942, Mizuko woke with a start. Disoriented in the dim half-light, it took her a ...

In April, Ayako was asked to leave North Hollywood High School. Of the scores of Japanese Americans that were present at the school when...

Mercifully, a few days later, a notice came to the Nomura household stating that high school students from certain Laurel Canyon addresse...

Spring 1941 Mizuko stood at the kitchen sink rinsing the last of the dinner dishes. The warm glow from the kitchen window rapidly dimini...

One day during the summer of 1935, a letter arrived from Onorimura, Japan. Nine year-old Ayako, sitting on the entry steps to the house,...

By 1934, the Great Depression had obliterated any dreams that Mizuko and her family had had about the Cash and Carry enterprise. She and...

In the spring of 1930, Mizuko’s oldest stepdaughter Chiyoko, her husband Junji Kaneko, and their two daughters came south from Montana to...

Despite his lack of reaction to the mismanaged visit by Nagai-san, Kazuichi’s behavior in general became more volatile. Even with their ...

Leaving the Terminal Island cannery after a year of working at the cannery proved a more difficult transition for Mizuko than Kazuichi ha...