March is Women’s History Month. In addition to the notable and widely known women who impact our world, I want to celebrate our everyday female heroes. Maybe their names are not known “yet,” but their importance in our lives and their roles in our families, homes, neighborhoods, and communities is immense.

Just this year, I’ve met so many incredible women with great stories. We all have a story - or as New York Times best-selling author, Bob Goff, says, “there’s a book in everyone!” You might not write a book, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a great story of your life - the hard and easy, the grief and the joy - all intertwined!

Some of my everyday women heroes are included in my book, “The Kindness of Color.” Women like my grandmothers, Masako and Moto, who immigrated from Japan by ship in the early 1900s! Masako watched her husband, my grandfather, be unjustly arrested by the FBI in May 1942, falsely accused of being a spy for Japan in the midst of WWII. She did not see him again for nearly 2.5 years. Moto left her home to go to the incarceration camp, never realizing that she would never have freedom again. She died in the camp just 8 months later of an illness that couldn’t be treated in a small make-shift clinic “hospital.”

Felicitas Mendez, with other mothers of children who were unjustly forced into segregated “Mexican” schools, collaborated together as committed plaintiffs that persevered against the racism in education. Mendez, et al. v. Westminster, et al. led the way to desegregate California public schools in 1947, seven years before Brown v. Education nationally 1954.

My mother, Yone, and aunts, Rakumi, Aki and Kazi, also have rich stories of their life. You can read more about all these women in detail in the book. These women I know alot about - but here’s some really neat women I’ve met in the last year as we connected over my book.

Just last weekend, I reconnected with Mary Nomura, known as the “songbird of Manzanar.” As a young woman at the Manzanar incarceration camp, Mary used her voice to sing and bring something beautiful to the Japanese Americans behind barbed wire in the high Sierras. Mary lost both her parents by age 8 and was raised by her older teenage siblings. Together, they were known as the Kageyama Trio and she performed at age 12 pre-war for servicemen. As a child, we would shop at “Shi’s Fish Market” in Garden Grove, CA - probably one of the first Japanese food stores in the area. A fresh fish counter ran the length of the store and there were aisles of Japanese food canned and packaged foods too. Mary and her husband, Shi, ran the shop and in some ways it was like a Japanese American Community Center, a place where you would see other friends shopping for Japanese groceries. At age 97, Mary is as beautiful as ever!

In Poston AZ, I met Maxine Polacca Morris, a native Hopi woman who was among many who greeted our Japanese American pilgrimage back to the land of the incarceration camp. She was just 7 years old when she left Northeast Arizona with her family and relocated to the Colorado River Indian Tribe reservation. She remembers taking a bus with no idea where they were going as part of moving Native Americans to reservations. The bus stopped at Poston Incarceration Camp 2 - the Japanese Americans had left, so there were many empty barracks. The authorities told them “Take Your Pick.” She remembers all the kids running around the barracks to “pick a house.” “That was our beginning,” she said. She went on in nursing and education, and now in her 80s, a beautiful part of living history.

Back home in Orange County, I met Juana Elena Aranda, whose husband worked for my father on the farm. Can you call it a reunion when you have a lot in common but never met before? My dad Tad also helped her husband complete the paperwork to bring her to Orange County from Mexico. She came to California and then raised her family here; her daughter is now a librarian continuing their legacy with a high value of education! Another great story of coming to a strange land, not knowing the language and persevering to be another great American story!

I’ve also met so many dedicated and amazing teachers on this journey! Their excitement to share the story in “The Kindness of Color '' and encourage their students toward multicultural collaboration and active kindness is so heart-warming! Thank you TEACHERS! It’s been a delight to connect with each one of you!

Every woman has a meaningful story to share! Let me know your story of life and how the kindness of many encouraged you!

In the Press

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