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Description
A new year's greeting letter from Ayame Okine in Bartlett, Illinois, to her parents-in-law, Seiichi and Tomeyo Okines in Hawthorne, California. This letter is mailed from Fred S. Tange's place where Ayame stays. In the letter, she appreciates the monetary gift from her parents-in-law while she feels ashamed to have them to still worry about her family and regrets not being able to help them. She also writes about the catastrophic conditions in Japan after the war. She has received letters from her husband, Makoto Okine, who is stationed in Japan as a US military soldier, and learned that Japanese civilians are starving after the war. She has learned that U.S. military provides him adequate meals but she plans to ship candies to him. She is also concerns about her sister-in-law, Hatsuno Hotty Okine, who is going to Japan with her husband. She also informs of the address of her parents, the Tanimoto, in Lodi, California. The handwritten notes on the back of the envelope read: Arrived on January 12, 1946, replied on 14 [in Japanese]. The Okine Collection contains materials collected by Seiichi and Tomeyo Okine who were Issei flower growers in Whittier, California. It includes correspondence, photographs, financial documents, and a photo album. A large portion of the collection consists of family correspondence with Seiichi and Tomeyo Okine, including letters from their Nisei children, Masao and Makoto Okine, both soldiers overseas during World War II, to their Issei parents incarcerated in the Rohwer incarceration camp in McGehee, Arkansas. The correspondence also includes letters from their relatives and friends who are former incarcerees in the camps during the war and have “resettled” in Chicago, Illinois as well as letters from the Okines’ family members in Hiroshima, Japan during the Allied occupation of Japan. In addition, the collection includes a family photo album compiled by Dorothy Ai Aoki, a Nisei daughter to the Okines.
Geographic communities--Illinois World War II--Leaving Camp--Returning Home Japan--Post-World War II Military service--Postwar occupation of Japan Identity and values--Nisei
Place
Bartlett, Illinois Incarceration Camps--Rohwer
Source
CSU Dominguez Hills Department of Archives and Special Collections
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