Our lovely Kazuko (Kakishita) Kuwabara passed away with family by her side on June 20, 2016 at the age of 97. Born in Los Angeles, California, on October 21, 1918, she was raised in Wakayama, Japan - where she graduated from the Wakayama Prefectural Shingu High School for Girls - and the Japanese fishing village on Terminal Island in San Pedro, California. A Kibei Nisei she commuted by ferry then "chin-chin densha" to the Taiheiyo Design School in Los Angeles where she became a skilled dressmaker. She was talented in the art of Ikebana flower arrangement and looked forward to playing the koto for a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. However Executive Order 9066 meant forced exile from home on Terminal Island, so her young family began life at Santa Anita (California) Assembly Center; Jerome (Arkansas) Relocation Center; and Tule Lake California Segregation Center. On July 22, 1944, her husband Masaaki was lead defendant in the only case judged in favor of the Nisei draft resisters who protested against military conscription while detained in WWII concentration centers for residents and citizens of Japanese ancestry. Judge Louis Goodman recognized the anti-Japanese racism of the concentration centers and asked his law school friend to properly defend the young men from Tule Lake SC by filing a motion to quash the indictments. The case brought against them by the United States was duly dismissed and was not appealed by the government.

Happily Kazuko made a special trip to Eureka last year to visit the old courthouse, jail as well as the new courthouse which takes pride in the case that led to a federal court for this outpost of San Francisco. The arrest warrant for Masaaki Kuwabara – the sole surviving document – is displayed next to the courtroom doors and there is a plan underway to rename the courthouse in honor of Judge Goodman.

She was amused by the backstory and depiction of her husband in a recent book that features the case – an historical novel by Theodore Roosevelt's great-great grandson, Kermit Roosevelt III. Her reminiscences informed us about the personal side of the court case, which we became aware of at the Tule Lake Pilgrimage of 2006, and in a spirit of "kei-ai" we are learing more and more the lasting significance of our family's unique American experience.

She was predeceased by her husband Masaaki Kuwabara and son-in-law Takuo Matsuoka.

She is survived and dearly missed by her children Hitomi Matsuoka, Hajime (Tomoko) Kuwabara, Hiroshi (Noriyo) Kuwabara; grandchildren Michelle Yoko Matsuoka, Audrey Mari Kuwabara, Karen Yoshiko Matsuoka, Denise Yumi (Derick) Yee, Robert Hajime Kuwabara; and loving pets Sassy, Sausage and Orbit.

A graveside service will occur on Saturday, December 17 ^th at 11:00 AM at the Inglewood Park Cemetery, 720 E. Florence Avenue, Inglewood, CA 90301.