gotohealth's Blog

The Fudeko two-day conference was headed by Professor Hana Maruyama. My purpose in attending is because I have gathered stories of our Japanese in the Pacific Northwest stories since 1970 when I was hired by the U of Washington library archives to help start the Japanese Collection of documenting the Japanese experience . I did over 20 taped interviews of the Issei - first generation stories until the funding for the grant ran out. 

 

Twenty years later in 1991, I decided it would be a good idea to create some documents with a writing group. Four of us, Chuck, Margaret Del and me, met in my kitchen once a week to get started; just talking around the table and sharing memories. 

 

Hana has a grant for a national effort to collect stories and the technological staff to record, digitize and store the stories with a national archive. I am agreeing to be an ambassador. I believe there is a short window of time left for recording first person stories of those of us who have lived through WWII and the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese heritage individuals living in the West Coast States.

 

My goal is to see the story as part of the middle school history curriculum in all the USA schools. There are many books with the facts about this history, but personal story telling/sharing/writing is important and I am committed to that purpose for the rest of my life.