Toshiko Kubota oral history interview

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Toshiko Kubota oral history interview

Kubota, Toshiko: interviewee

Sato, Dale: interviewer

2004-03-31

Dale Sato interviewed Toshiko Kubota on March 31, 2004 at her home in Gardena, California. Yoko Okunishi monitored the recording equipment and both Okunishi and Sato took notes during the interview. Toshiko Kubota was born in Wilmington but spent most of her life in Gardena, California where she was a single career woman. She describes a comfortable life in a close-knit family of three daughters. Kubota's father worked as a car salesman in Los Angeles while her mother worked as a seamstress. In 1942, the family volunteered for early incarceration at an incarceration camp at Manzanar, California. While incarcerated, Kubota graduated from Manzanar High School. When Manzanar was closed, she moved to Seabrook Farms in New Jersey to join her parents and worked there. Her family returned to Los Angeles in March 1946. Kubota retired as a financial analyst after working 46 years for the Los Angeles Unified School District. Kubota was interviewed as part of the South Bay History Project created by the South Bay Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League.

Includes sixteen oral histories reflecting the various experiences of South Bay Issei and Nisei. Some grew up on farms and others in suburban area; some were incarcerated during WWII in incarceration camps and some spent all or part of the war working and living in other parts of the US or Japan. All of them returned to the South Bay after WWII and observed the changes that have occurred in area through the end of the twentieth century.

Identity and values--Nisei

Geographic communities--California

World War II--Mass removal ('Evacuation')

World War II--Incarceration camps

Geographic communities--New Jersey--Seabrook

World War II--Leaving camp--'Resettlement

Community activities--Associations and organizations--Japanese American Citizens League

California Digital Library

English

sound

http://cdm16855.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16855coll4/id/11794

3/31/04

California Digital Library

Identity and values--Nisei

Geographic communities--California

World War II--Mass removal ('Evacuation')

World War II--Incarceration camps

Geographic communities--New Jersey--Seabrook

World War II--Leaving camp--'Resettlement

Community activities--Associations and organizations--Japanese American Citizens League