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   Playing with Russian soldiers in China during World War II - 6,000 miles from a homeland you have never seen - is not a typical childhood experience. The early life of Rose Yoshiko ("good girl") Kimura was a world away from California, now her home for more than 50 years. She has vivid memories.

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    Rose was born in Dalian, Manchuria - a very large port city in the Northeast of China - and was an American at birth because her father had been born in Seattle. Her father, James, was regional sales manager for Mitsui, then Japan's largest conglomerate, responsible for the area from China to India. Rose had an older brother, Frank, and younger brother, George, who now lives in Southern California. They had a Chinese cook/housekeeper and Japanese nanny who helped her mother, Grace (Masako), care for their children while James was away on his many business trips.

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    During their four years in Dalian, Manchuria was a semi-autonomous province which - at various times - was occupied by four armies: Japanese, Nationalist Chinese, Communist Chinese, and Russian. As the senior resident - and (at first) a neutral American - Rose's father had unofficially represented the foreign business community in Dalian. He kept posters of the Emperor, Chiang Kai-shek, Chairman Mao, and Joseph Stalin under his bed and a stock of their liquors in his cabinet so he could greet their officers appropriately...and help protect his family.

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    As World War II became more intense in the Pacific - and especially after the U.S. declared war on Japan - Rose's family were in a precarious position. They saw bodies on the street and shells pockmarked the buildings. Many foreign residents had their homes plundered, the women taken away, and some of the men were executed. James decided his family must leave Manchuria. With her mother disguised as a man and Rose as a boy, they boarded a train late at night heading to the Korean border. Their family dog ran alongside the train until he could no longer keep up.

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    They moved to Japan for three years, first to a former mental hospital with other refugees and later with Rose's mother's family outside Yokohama, just South of Tokyo. World War II ended during their stay and U.S. troops occupied Japan. Rose's family had some special privileges - once riding in General MacArthur's private rail car - and faced discrimination from other Japanese. As an American citizen, James could use the commissary and get much needed items which were scarce in Japan. They then decided to move to the USA. Because Grace and her youngest son George were both born in Japan they were classified as enemy aliens and were not permitted to travel with James, Frank and Rose. They would be separated for five long years.

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    While Rose's family lived in Asia, her paternal grandparents were in Seattle. Her grandfather married in 1905 to a mail-order bride from his hometown in Kumamoto. They owned a grocery store in Pioneer Square and lived comfortably until after the Pearl Harbor attack. President Franklin Roosevelt then decreed that all people of Japanese ancestry who lived on the West Coast were to be interned for the duration of the war. Rose's grandparents were forced to move to Tulelake, a camp in Northern California, and received little compensation for their home and business. They moved to Los Angeles after their release, but her grandfather died of pneumonia shortly after Rose came to America. Her grandmother, then a Seventh Day Adventist, raised Frank and Rose until they reunited with their mother and George. Rose's two grandmothers lived into their 90's.

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    Rose and Frank were asked to leave church school in Los Angeles because they were too rowdy. When Rose started at public school, she spoke little English and few Japanese American students - and none of her teachers - spoke Japanese. Niseis, born in the U.S., disliked recent immigrants from Japan, blaming them for their own family's problems during the war. Rose was a tomboy and very athletic, playing sports with the boys and usually winning playground fights. In class she excelled at math, but had trouble reading and writing English. Rose later attended Theodore Roosevelt High School where she became a cheerleader.

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Her photo is from their 50th class reunion with members of the cheerleading team.  Rose is on the right.

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