Cost: FEW Members ¥2,000 / Guests ¥5,000 (supper and drinks included)

Venue: Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan (FCCJ), Yurakucho Denki Building, 20th Floor (map)

Speaker: Mary Matsuda Gruenewald, Author of “Looking Like The Enemy” NewSage Press

In 2005 Mary Matsuda Gruenewald celebrated her eightieth birthday as well as the publication of her first book. She began writing her story in her seventies, no longer willing to stay within what she describes as "the self-imposed barbed-wire fenced built around my experiences in the camps." With her book, Gruenewald breaks her silence as a Nisei, American-born, second generation child of Isseis.

After her release from an internment camp, Gruenewald entered nursing school and became a registered nurse. She worked as an R.N. for more than twenty-five years. She established the Consulting Nurse Service within the Group Health Cooperative in 1971, which has become a national model for numerous health care providers. In 2002 she was a medical delegate representing seniors on behalf of Medicare Plus Choice. At that meeting she was selected along with ten other delegates to speak with President George W. Bush on health care issues.

Her articles on internment during WW II have appeared in newspapers nationally, and she has presented radio commentaries for NPR, KPLU. Gruenewald also consulted with the National Park Service during its establishment of Minidoka Internment Camp as a National Park. She speaks to many schools and community groups about her internment. Gruenewald received an Asian American Living Pioneer Award in 2003.

As Mary has never visited Japan, this trip in promoting her books “Looking Like The Enemy” will bring her family members and herself come face-to-face with her roots, and also seeing some of her relatives for the first time.

Topic:

When Mary Matsuda Gruenewald was seventeen years old, she and her family were evacuated from their home on Vashon Island, Washington and sent to an internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II. Along with nearly 120,000 other people of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast, the Matsudas faced an indefinite sentence behind barbed wire in crowded, primitive camps. They struggled for survival and dignity, and endured psychological scarring that has lasted a lifetime.

At this presentation, Mary will share with the audience the emotional and psychological essence of what it was like to grow up in the midst of this profound dislocation and injustice in the United States, the challenges and wounds of her internment at a crucial point in her development as a young adult…what she learns from her experience and what she is able to do with her life.

After the presentation, Mary will sign her books for FEW members and guests.

Contact: few@gol.com

No advance reservation required. Please note this is a women only event.