Tsuyako "Sox" Kitashima (July 14 1918 – December 29, 2005)

Tsuyako "Sox" Kitashima (July 14 1918 – December 29, 2005)

was a leader in the successful movement to win reparations for Japanese-Americans who had lost their homes and possessions and were forced to live in internment camps during WWII. After years of pressure from Kitashima and other activists, in 1989 Congress passed the Entitlement Bill, providing $20,000 to each surviving internee and an official apology for the internment.

Born in Hayward, California, in 1918, she grew up on her parents' strawberry farm. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, her family was forced to leave their home to live in "relocation camps." Initially, they were housed in hastily converted horse stalls at the Tanforan racetrack, just south of San Francisco.

When more long-term camps were opened up, the family was split, with Sox and her sister Lillian going to the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah, and her mother and three brothers were housed at Tule Lake, California.

The humiliation and terrible conditions they were forced to live in stayed with her long after the war was over and they were were freed to attempt to resume a normal life. She married Tom Kitashima, and they raised a family, while remaining active in the Japanese-American community in San Francisco, where they encouraged other former internees to join them.

In 1980, Kitashima became involved in the National Coalition for Redress and Reparations and the Japanese American Citizens' League. She talked with other internees, spoke about her personal experience, lobbied Congress, and wrote letters. She wrote A LOT of letters -- over 8,000 letters to President Reagan!

After President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act in 1988, in which the American government formally apologized and granted reparations to the wartime internees, she continued to share her story with community groups and young people, inspiring them to continue fighting for justice.

Tsuyako "Sox" Kitashima was one of our Women's History Honorees in 1995.

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