Margaret Suyuko Adamson (nee Kimura) talks about her name and her family history and emigration to the United States. She talks about her family's farm and the Japanese American community in Washington State. Margaret talks about her childhood growing up during the Great Depression and celebrations like New Years when they would eat mochi. She talks about her sibling's employments and moving to Chicago, being aware of the rise of the anti-Japanese movement in the United States. She talks about how Japanese Americans were not allowed to own property, and her family's farm and the produce it yielded. Margaret talks about curfew imposed on Japanese Americans, Japanese language schools closing, and leaving everything in a locked barn knowing it would be broken into. She talks about taking her kimono with her during the mass removal and her brother's photography equipment being confiscated by police. During WWII, her family was removed to Fresno and she described the barbed wires, armed guards. After that they were interned in Tule Lake Internment Camp. Margaret talks about what life was like in Tule Lake including communal farming, dangers of the desert, education, and housings. She recalls having to fill out the "loyalty questionnaire" asking whose side they were on and if they wanted to return to Japan. Her family decided to stay in the US so they were sent to Wyoming before joining her brother in Chicago and she talks about the discrimination they faced in Chicago. She talks about her brother's role as "interpreter" of the outside world to his family. Margaret talks about her education at the University of Chicago and moving to New York. She talks about her marriage, going to Europe for his education and having to learn German. After the divorce she decided not to marry a Japanese man because she was too strong of a woman to conform to life in Japan. Eventually, she married a man from Toronto where she relocated to. She talks about her employment in Toronto, moving to BC, and moving back to Toronto to be with her children and grandchildren.
Clip from Japanese Canadian Experience Conference: https://vimeo.com/338320395