Ai Tanaka carries herself with the same grace as she did when she performed traditional Japanese dance in her youth.
She was born in Loomis, CA, in November 1918. Her family returned to Japan to take care of her grandparents. Her father had a fish farm there. She worked for the telephone company.
Ai longed to return to her birthplace in Loomis, but the Asian Exclusion Act of 1924 prevented this. When she was 18, she finally returned to the U.S. by ship. “I was sick the whole time,” she says.
The purpose of the trip was to meet her future husband, Mitsuo Tanaka, a farm laborer. “I picked him myself,” she said but most likely the marriage was arranged by her father who had many friends in the U.S.
The Tanakas had three daughters – Carole, Judy and Rory. During World War II, they were sent to Camp Amache in the southeastern part of Colorado. “Living in the camp was okay. I was busy taking care of the kids.”
After the war, Ai and her family returned to Sacramento. They slept on cots at the Buddhist Church of Sacramento located on O Street until they could find permanent housing. They eventually settled into a home in the Hollywood Park neighborhood.
Ai’s husband found work as a projectionist, and she continued being a homemaker. Her daughter Judy Miyao admires her mother’s many talents. “Over the years, she honed her skills in flower arranging and doing traditional Japanese dancing,” she says.
Ai has been blessed with a large, extended family. Per her count, she has maybe 17 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. Laughing, she says, “I don’t know anymore. There are too many to count!”