From the Set of Gone With the Wind and Walt Disney Studios to an Internment Camp

Kate Kuzuhara was born in Santa Cruz, California on March 10, 1913 to Japanese immigrants. Her father, Haru Watanabe, left Japan as a young man in search of adventure. His travels took him to Australia and then to California, where he found work as a gardener and mechanic for a wealthy man in Santa Cruz.

Eventually, Haru’s thoughts turned to marriage, so he wrote to his family asking them to find him a wife. Excitedly they wrote and said that they had found a good match with a neighboring family. The girl’s name was Tsugi Ishikawa, and she had a desire to see America and be educated. Thus, Haru returned to Japan to marry her and then took her back to California with him. Together, Tsugi and Haru had ten children, six of whom died in childhood. Kate, who had been born a middle child, then became the oldest.

Kate attended San Jose State University and from there went to art school in Los Angeles. She was employed by Walt Disney Studios and also worked on the set of Gone With the Wind. Her career and future indeed seemed very promising until World War II broke out and she found herself “rounded up” and taken to a “relocation center” with thousands of other Japanese-Americans. She was separated from her family and sent to the Amache camp in Colorado.

As she was boarding the bus that would take her there, however, Kate found a beautifully packed lunch on each of the seats, put there by the Quakers in an attempt to “love thy enemy.” Kate was very touched by this, and it sparked her life-long interest in the Quakers.

Kate spent three long years in the camp and there met her husband, Chiaki Kuzuhara. As a very young man, Chiaki had developed TB and spent several years suffering with his condition, thinking he was going to die, when he miraculously recovered. Shortly afterwards, however, he, too, was sent to Amache, even though his brother was in the American air force.

At Amache, Chiaki had a special kind of compassion for the sick and eventually became a sort of chaplain-like figure, a role which shaped his decision to become a minister like his father. He also decided to propose to the young Kate he had gotten to know there. He guessed that she would be a good partner because she had perfect English, which he knew would help him in his work.

When they were finally released, Kate and Chiaki moved to Chicago where his father, the Reverend Sadaichi Kuzuhara had founded a church – the Lakeside Christian Church of Chicago. Many of the interred Japanese migrated to Chicago as well as to other parts of the Midwest where there hadn’t been a previous significant Japanese population. Though many Japanese were bitter about their experience, Chiaki says that neither he nor Kate held any grudges. Chiaki says he understands the popular sentiment of the day and doesn’t blame anyone, but was glad when the US government publically proclaimed their mistake and apologized.

Chiaki says that he threw himself into his ministry, and Kate became the breadwinner of the family, finding work as a successful commercial artist in Chicago. For whatever reason, they did not have any children.

Unfortunately, Kate was not able to provide any information for this interview, having suffered a series of strokes which has left her confused and not always able to respond appropriately. Chiaki says that Kate was an extremely smart woman, but that she was very modest and didn’t always like to show her intelligence. At age 45, she decided to go back to school to become an occupational therapist and worked in that capacity at Evanston Hospital for many years.

Chiaki reports that Kate was very honest and true, a good judge of character, and had very close friends. She was fascinated by Latin culture, loved food and traveling and entertaining. She was very active in the Quaker church and loved her two careers in art and therapy. Chiaki says that she never forgot her first big breaks, however, and corresponded with her fellow artists from her days on the set of Gone With the Wind for over fifty years.

 

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