Please contact the contributing institution for more information regarding the copyright status of this object.
Description
In this oral history, beloved kindergarten teacher and proud aikido black belt Janet Daijogo recounts a happy life despite a traumatic childhood experience of being among the 120,000 Japanese Americans interred by the federal government during World War II. Born in San Francisco in 1937 to second-generation Japanese American parents, Janet grew up on a farm in Pescadero until the age of five, when her family was detained and relocated to an internment camp in Topaz, Utah, where they were held for three years. After the war Janet's father got a job as a Navy translator and the family moved to Tokyo where she lived throughout her high school years before returning to California. As a student at the University of California, Berkeley, Janet met her future husband, Sam, a former Tamalpais High School student and Japanese American who had also been interred. Janet recounts moving to Mill Valley in the mid-1960s with her husband and newborn daughter (followed later by a second daughter) and making a home in this "village at the bottom of a mountain" despite an early experience of housing discrimination. She recounts her long and ongoing career as a kindergarten teacher at Marin Country Day School, her aikido and Zen meditation practices, her children's exploration and embrace of their Japanese cultural roots, and the changes Mill Valley has undergone over the past 50 years.
Identifier
559A03E2-AE08-4EBD-AC3C-595440789170 2016.020.001
Subject
Aikido of Tamalpais Bastian, Beverly Bremmerman, Fred Buddhism Daijogo, Maki Daijogo, Masami "Sam Daijogo, Tane Discrimination Internment camps Japanese camps Marin Country Day School Martial arts Nursery schools Racism Schools Teachers Teaching World War II
If you're wondering about permissions and what you can do with this item, a good starting point is the "rights information" on this page. See our terms of use for more tips.
Share your story
Has Calisphere helped you advance your research, complete a project, or find something meaningful? We'd love to hear about it; please send us a message.
