Chimi Miskow on “Japanese-Americans in Japan during World War II”

The plight of the Japanese Americans during World War II has been well chronicled in the past, but the lives of Japanese-Americans in Japan during this same era is almost unknown to many people. Perhaps you can peek into that era from Chimi’s family tale. She was born in 1939 to Hideo and Michiko Naganuma in Los Angeles; they were called back to Japan in 1940, intending to return to the United States, but the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 had put everything in the pause mode. The Naganuma family spent the war years as Americans in Japan. Chimi finished her high school education in Japan in 1959, then came back to the States to go to college. After college, she was hired by Pan Am as a stewardess for her language skills in Japanese, Chinese, and English. During her time of employment with Pan Am, Chimi met Ken and they have been here raising their daughter Catherine.