Tomi Nakatsu, Matriarch Pioneer
After years of talk (but no walk), I’ve decided to finally get moving on a documentary project that will depict the story of my grandmothers life. She came to America in the early 20th century as a Japanese picture pride.
Her story is one of courage, fortitude, and faith. Most of the literature concerning the World War II Japanese American experience has been written from the “relocation camp” perspective. Yet very few works exist dealing with the lives of those who were not sent to the camps.
Secondly, most of the early Japanese immigrants were male laborers who came initially with no plan for permanent residency. For the most part, they dreamed of earning enough money to return to Japan one day and live a comfortable life. As they gradually became accustomed to life in America, many of them successfully transformed themselves from common laborers into tenant farmers and small businessmen; they eventually abandoned their desire to return to their homeland.
As they began to settle, it became desirable for them to establish families. Interracial marriage in those days was a social taboo. Moreover, it would violate the anti-miscegenation laws that existed in many western states. The already married men could summon their wives from Japan, but many of the single one’s resorted to the practice of photo-marriage.
My grandmothers experience is a case in point. More forthcoming as this project progress’.