Garfield Golden Grads Hall of Fame

Garfield Golden Grads Hall of Fame

By Barbara Mizoguchi
NAP Contributor

One day I received a message from an NAP reader about Judy Kusakabe. What she wrote was of such accomplishments that I had to get in touch with Kusakabe.

 ◀︎ Judy Kusakabe giving her speech as she accepts the Garfield Golden Grad Hall of Fame award. Photo credit: Michael MacLeod.

Kusakabe recently received the Garfield Golden Grads Hall of Fame award from her alma mater Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington, for her volunteer work for the past 34 years. It was for the “unsung hero” work she does on her own educating children and adults about the incarceration of the Japanese and Japanese American community during World War II in 1942. (U.S. Executive Order 9066 cited that all Japanese and Japanese Americans on the West Coast be moved inland due to the potential threat that they were enemies and communicating with Japan.)

Kusakabe said she had always been involved in volunteering whether it was her children’s and grandchildren’s activities or with the Mercer Island community. She even took her children to meetings about the signing of the U.S. Civil Liberties Act. When it was enacted, Kusakabe said she became “… more aware of what happened. I began to ask questions, read books, and view filmed accounts” about the incarceration.

Judy Kusakabe amongst past Garfield Golden Grads Hall of Famers. Photo credit: Garfield Golden Grads.

Kusakabe was born while her parents were being wrongfully incarcerated during the war. Her parents were sent to the Puyallup “Assembly Center” located on the fairgrounds in Puyallup, Washington. As an infant, Kusakabe later joined her parents as they were being moved to a permanent incarceration camp called Minidoka in Jerome County, Idaho. The family was allowed to move from the Minidoka incarceration camp and live with relatives in Utah who were not incarcerated. After World War II, the family moved to Seattle, Washington and lived across from Garfield High School.

Kusakabe has been collecting stories from others for years. Her first talk was at a high school in 1990 then every year afterward. She has spoken to pre-school children through colleges and adult organizations. Kusakabe says, “I have been asked if this subject is too heavy for little children. I have not found this to be true. They ’get it.’ It is never too early to give children a chance to understand the importance of caring about others. I find children and even adults feel more engaged when they hear from a person who experienced the incarceration.” Kusakabe said, “I recently was told by a lady at one of my presentations, ‘I did not know that it was that bad.’ Yes, when you lose your homes, businesses, farms, possessions … but worse your freedom and liberties, it is bad. The stories have been internalized for many, many years because we did not learn about them from our families nor from schools. I also find that when people hear our stories, they are more ready to open up and tell me their stories … and this is so important. People/children need to learn to be compassionate, kind and caring about others. As I said before, it only took bad leadership in government and a signature on a piece of paper for 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans to be sent to a prison camp.”

Kusakabe maintains that “we are all different because we are all unique and special, and we are all also very much the same. I give each person who comes to my presentations a chance to choose one or two origami cranes that I make. One is for them to keep and remember what I have told them, and the other to give to someone that they would like to be kind to or to thank.”

Kusakabe does not charge a fee and requests are by word of mouth. This past year, Kusakabe spoke to approximately 3,400 people. (Last year, it was almost 1,500 people.) During her vacation, she also spoke at the Kamehameha School on Oahu in Hawaii.

Kusakabe says, “I do this for my parents and everyone who experienced having their liberties and freedom taken away. They survived and have worked hard to “rise up” from it … and succeeded. They have given me the life I am enjoying today.”