Lillian Kimura Oral History Cassette Tapes, 2004

In this oral history interview conducted on November 15, 2004, Lillian Chieko Kimura, the first female president of the JASC, talks about her childhood in a “restricted” California town; life in Manzanar Relocation Center (California) from 1942 to 1945; and her growing involvement in the Chicago Resettlers Committee (CRC)/JASC, the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL), and the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) after she and her family moved to Chicago in August 1945. She touches on the early programs offered by the Chicago Resettlers Committee, and reminisces about Abe Hagiwara, one of the leaders in the Japanese American community in Chicago during the 1940s and 1950s, and the person who encouraged Ms. Kimura to become involved in the JACL. She also recalls the role she played, starting in the 1970s, in the YWCA’s national movement to eliminate racism in the United States.