Painful Experiences, Powerful Lessons

NEA Today, Feb 2004 by Simon, Matt

When retired California member Amy Tsubokawa was nine, her family-like thousands of Japanese-American families-was sent to an internment camp for the duration of World War II.

WHILE CONFINED TO A BARRACKS in Poston, Arizona, where temperatures reached 116 degrees in the summer, Tsubokawa watched her father weaken and eventually die of a kidney ailment.

"It was a difficult and sorrowful time for us," says Tsubokawa. "But my family was luckier than most. We were farmers, and when we were released, we were able to live and work on my uncle's farm. He was an American citizen, so he was able to own his land.

"Most Japanese-Americans at that time were not citizens, could not own land, and found after the war that their farms had been taken over by corporations."

Each year, Tsubokawa speaks on the Japanese-American war experience before the California Teachers Association Human Rights Conference. Her tireless work as a trainer in women's leadership, cultural diversity, and minority leadership development earned her the 2001 NEA Mary Hatwood Futrell Award for women's leadership.

"It's something I'm proud and grateful to be able to do," says Tsubokawa, who taught elementary school for 30 years in California's Norwalk-La Mirada School District. "I experienced injustice, but life is long, and I've also experienced the opportunity to attend college and enjoy the rewards of teaching. So I want to be able to turn my experience into positive lessons. When Japanese-Americans say, 'This happened to us,' we're helping to make sure it doesn't happen to someone else in the future."

-MATT SIMON

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