Cherry Chieko (Tanaka) Kinoshita (1923 - 2008)

Born 13 Oct 1923 in Seattle, King, Washington, United States

Died 29 Jul 2008 at age 84 in Seattle, King, Washington, United States

Biography

Cherry (Tanaka) Kinoshita was a Washingtonian.

Cherry (Tanaka) Kinoshita is Notable.

Cherry Chieko Tanaka was born in Seattle, Washington on 13 October 1923, the only daughter of Japanese immigrants Eiichi Tanaka and Yo Ikegami. She graduated from Lincoln High School in 1941. During World War II, she was removed to Puyallup Assembly Center and then incarcerated at Minidoka War Relocation Center with her Japanese American family. There, Cherry met her future husband, Masao Kinoshita. They married in 1948, years after their release, and moved back to Seattle in 1950. They had one son during their marriage.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Cherry was involved in petitioning for the redress and apology to Japanese Americans for the unjust removal and subsequent incarceration in concentration camps by the United States government. In 1977, she presided over the Seattle chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League. In 1984, she obtained a college degree from the University of Washington. Cherry recounted her experiences with internment and her subsequent actions for redress in an interview with Densho in Seattle on 26 September 1997. In her spare time she ran a successful campaign to force the Seattle school district to compensate Nikkei clerks they’d fired in response to Pearl Harbor. She died in Seattle on 29 July 2008.

Sources

• Wallace, Nina. 5 Japanese American Women Activists Left Out of History Books," Yes! Magazine, 27 Mar 2016.
• "United States Public Records, 1970-2009," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2MWP-M1M : 23 May 2014), Cherry Chieko Kinoshita, Residence, Seattle, Washington, United States; a third party aggregator of publicly available information.
• "United States Public Records, 1970-2009," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2MW8-762 : 23 May 2014), Cherry T Kinoshita, Residence, Seattle, Washington, United States; a third party aggregator of publicly available information.