Aki Kurose facts for kids

Aki Kurose (1925–1998) was an amazing American teacher and activist who worked hard for social justice. She helped start Washington state's first Head Start program. This program helps young children from low-income families get ready for school. Aki also worked to make sure everyone, especially low-income and minority families, had access to good education and affordable homes.

During World War II, Aki and many other Japanese Americans were forced to live in special camps. While in the camp, she learned about the Quaker values of peace and solving problems without violence. After the war, she joined groups in Seattle that worked for peace, equal rights for all races, and fair housing for everyone. She became a highly respected elementary school teacher in the Seattle Public Schools system for 25 years. Today, a middle school, a housing community, and a peace garden in Seattle are named after her. Also, the local Japanese American Citizens League gives out the Aki Kurose Memorial Scholarship every year to honor her.

A Young Life in Seattle

Aki Kurose was born Akiko Kato in Seattle on February 11, 1925. She was the third of four children. Her parents came to America separately. Her father, Harutoshi, came from Miyagi Prefecture looking for work. Her mother, Murako, came from Kumamoto to study. They met in Berkeley, California and soon moved to Seattle.

In Seattle, her mother managed an apartment building they leased. Her father worked as a porter at Union Station. At that time, laws called "alien land laws" stopped Asian immigrants from owning land or property in Washington. This was because they were not allowed to become citizens.

Aki's parents had a very equal and modern relationship. Her mother had an engineer's license and took care of the building's maintenance. Her father often baked for friends and neighbors. This showed Aki from a young age that people could do whatever they wanted, no matter their gender.

Aki grew up in a diverse, working-class neighborhood in Seattle's Central District. Because of unfair housing rules like red-lining and restrictive covenants, many neighborhoods were closed off to Jewish people and people of color. So, the Katos often invited African American, Chinese American, and Jewish neighbors to their home. Aki remembered that she and her friends "went in and out of each other's homes all the time." Unlike many other Nisei (second-generation Japanese Americans), Aki and her siblings only went to Japanese language school once a week. Aki spent her free time with the Girl Scouts and her high school's band and drama club.

Life During World War II

The attack on Pearl Harbor happened on December 7, 1941, when Aki was a senior at Garfield High School. She remembered her father worrying, but she wasn't concerned because she and her siblings were American citizens. However, the next day at school, a teacher told her, "You people bombed Pearl Harbor." This made her feel different and unequal.

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. This order allowed military leaders to create zones where certain people could be removed. Over the next few months, about 112,000 Japanese Americans were "evacuated" from their homes.

The Kato family was first sent to the Puyallup Assembly Center, also known as "Camp Harmony." There, Aki and her family lived in a small, one-room "apartment" in a barracks. This was on a parking lot at the fairgrounds. Later, the family was moved to the War Relocation Authority camp at Minidoka, Idaho.

Aki finished high school in Minidoka. She got involved with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). This group gave books to the camp schools and helped young Japanese Americans go to universities outside the exclusion zone. Aki left the camp to attend the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. After some problems, she moved to the LDS Business College.

When the West Coast reopened to Japanese Americans after the war, Aki briefly returned to Seattle. But she soon moved to Wichita, Kansas, and enrolled at Friends University. She graduated in 1948. Then, she returned to Seattle to marry Junelow (Junks) Kurose. Junks had been living in Chicago after being released from camp. The couple moved to Chicago together.

A Life of Teaching and Activism

In 1950, Aki and Junks had their first child. Soon after, the new family moved back to Seattle. Finding a home was hard because of unfair real estate practices and a shortage of houses. So, the family stayed with Aki's parents for a while. Junks, an electrician, struggled to find work because local unions would not accept Japanese Americans. He eventually got a job as a machinist at Boeing.

During this time, Aki worked for a union her father started. It was for porters of different races. Many Japanese American workers had been replaced by African Americans during the war. When former camp inmates returned, employers tried to create tension between the groups. Harutoshi helped organize the union, and Aki became its secretary.

Aki and her husband faced discrimination when they looked for a home. This made Aki passionate about the "open housing" movement, which fought for fair housing for everyone. She worked with the AFSC and later joined the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in the 1960s.

Aki and Junks had five more children. Aki sent them to Freedom Schools, which offered special education for civil rights. She also took her children with her to civil rights marches and anti-war protests. Aki became very interested in early childhood education. She started taking classes and working in preschool programs. In 1965, she joined other parents to create Washington state's first Head Start program.

Aki began teaching for Seattle Public Schools through Head Start. In 1974, she started teaching at an elementary school. Two years later, the city began to desegregate its public schools. Aki was moved from Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary, a mostly African American school, to Laurelhurst Elementary in North Seattle. This school had been all white.

Many parents at Laurelhurst were not happy about her arrival. Aki was called to a meeting with forty parents to defend her qualifications before she even started teaching. She later said it felt like being "on trial." One parent even told her, "If you want to bring your rice bowl and chopsticks, it's okay." For her first month, two parents watched her in the classroom every day. But Aki slowly won over the Laurelhurst community. When students of color were bused to Laurelhurst in 1978, Aki helped them fit in. She also encouraged other teachers to teach about different cultures.

Even with the initial resistance, Aki became one of the most loved and respected teachers. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to a national council on educating disadvantaged children. She continued her own education, earning a Master's degree in Early Childhood Education from the University of Washington in 1985.

In her classroom, Aki encouraged students to learn by doing things, not just by memorizing facts. She won many awards for her creative teaching style. In 1985, she was named Seattle Teacher of the Year. In 1990, she received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Her work combining peace advocacy with education was recognized internationally in 1992. She received the United Nations Human Rights Award.

A Lasting Legacy

When Aki retired in 1997, students and parents at Laurelhurst dedicated the Aki Kurose Peace Garden on the school grounds. Aki passed away the next year, on May 24, after fighting cancer for sixteen years.

Aki Kurose Village, a community with affordable housing for families, opened in North Seattle in 1999. In 2000, the Casper W. Sharples Junior High was renamed the Aki Kurose Middle School Academy. It was the first Seattle school named after an Asian American woman. Also, the Seattle JACL created the Aki Kurose Memorial Scholarship after her death. It is given each year to a Seattle Public Schools graduate going to a Seattle community college or a Washington state public university.

See also

• List of people from Seattle