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Description
In this oral history, longtime Mill Valley resident, retired landscape architect, and memoirist George Omi shares the story of his life. George begins with the immigration story of his Japanese parents who came to America in the early 20th century and subsequently became naturalized citizens. George himself was born in San Francisco in 1930, a second-generation Japanese American. George describes his experience growing up in two languages - two different worlds, as he describes it - attending both American and Japanese schools until the outbreak of WWII. George recounts the relocation of his family to the Rohwer internment camp during the war and describes some of his experiences there. After the war, George and his family returned to San Francisco where he finished high school before going to U.C. Berkeley, where he entered the ROTC program. Upon graduation, George received an Army commission and served in Korea for 16 months. George recounts how he returned to Berkeley on the G.I. Bill to do a degree in landscape architect, which launched him on a long and successful career. In 1964, George moved to Mill Valley with his wife Kiyo and their children. At the age of 62, a decade before retiring, George began writing, and he discusses the process of writing and publishing his memoir American Yellow. Throughout this oral history, George talks about his family - his parents and grandparents, children and grandchildren - and he concludes this interview with a declaration that family has been the most important thing to him in his life.
Identifier
9F1BD843-2B2D-48A2-AB12-278916383200 2018.029.001
Subject
American Yellow Baseball Bonsai Businesses Design Discrimination Dry cleaners Education Executive Order 9066 Family Federal agencies Federal Bureau of Investigation Immigrants Immigration Immigration policy Internment camps Japanese internment Japanese language Landscape architecture drawings Language Military service MV history - WWI and WWII Omi Lang Associates Omi, George Oral History - Discrimination, segregation, and racism Oral history - Visual, performing, literary arts Racism Rohwer ROTC Strawberry Point School Tanforan UC Berkeley War World War II Writers Writing
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