The Three Tamori Sisters

While my grandmother had an abiding and fundamental influence on who I am, my mother was my heart — and the soul of my immediate family. An immigrant from Japan, she brought her culture and values with her as all immigrants do. Those influences are deep rooted and have nurtured not only her children but her grandchildren. Like the life of my grandmother, details about my mother’s youth and young adulthood are murky, as is the information about the Tamori line of my family and the 14 generations that preceded my mother and her siblings.

My mother had one brother and two sisters. Her brother died young serving in the war. My mother and her sisters all married American GIs — black and white. What motivated these three beautiful young Japanese women? How did they acclimate to their new country and new cultures? How did they navigate bigotry and hatred not only against them as Asians, but against their African American families? I may never know all the facts, but the lives of these women as wives, mothers, friends and sisters have always captured my imagination.