Author to Discuss ‘Nurse of Manzanar’
Samuel Nakamura will discuss his book “Nurse of Manzanar” on Saturday, March 13, at 2 p.m. at the Asian Community Center-Park City, 7375 Park City Dr. in Sacramento.
The book is based on a lost manuscript by Toshiko Eto Nakamura, who was a registered nurse when World War II broke out. Samuel Nakamura, her only son, discovered the manuscript after his mother’s death in 1994.
The manuscript was written shortly after the end of World War II, apparently compiled with hopes of it being published in a magazine. When that attempt was rejected, Toshiko put the manuscript aside and it was forgotten until after her death. Samuel then worked to edit the manuscript and turn it into a book.
Born the second of eight children of Tameji and Take Eto of San Luis Obispo, Toshiko was educated at Mills College and became a registered nurse. Her father was a pioneer of the local Japanese community (there was an Eto Street in the Japantown) and an acknowledged leader in the greater San Luis Obispo area.
World War II brought about the unconstitutional forced removal of all peoples of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast and parts of Hawaii by the U.S. government. Toshiko’s father, as a community leader, was separated from the family by the FBI, and part of the memoir recounts her efforts to locate him by visiting various government agencies.
Toshiko then dealt with her own incarceration when she and her family were forced to live in the Manzanar concentration camp, about 200 miles north of Los Angeles, near Death Valley, beginning in 1942. She adapted to the rigorous living conditions and to Manzanar’s limited medical facilities as a nurse, and much of her story delves into her observations of this period of her life.
Art Hansen, professor emeritus from CSU Fullerton’s Department of History and its Asian American Studies Department, observed, " ‘Nurse of Manzanar,’ the published version of Toshiko Eto Nakamura’s exquisitely modulated World War II memoir, is a compelling reminder that although the wartime eviction and incarceration of Japanese Americans was promulgated by the U.S. government on an indiscriminately corporate basis, it was nonetheless experienced by specific individuals, families, and communities."
Samuel Nakamura worked on making his mother’s manuscript into a published book. He did research, located historic photographs, newspaper articles and even government files on his mother and her family to enhance the text. Nakamura will discuss his efforts and present an exhibit and slides.
The event is open to the public and free. For more information, call NikkeiWest at (916) 837-4178.
