Forget Me Not Archive

Yoshiko Tanaka (1919-1965) and Gabe deLeon (1907-1989) met in the 1930s in Guadalupe, California, where they were both working at a Japanese store. Gabe came to the U.S. from the Philippines in 1926, first working in the agricultural fields. Yoshiko was born outside of Sacramento, California, to Japanese immigrants. Her mother divorced her father "on the grounds of dereliction" (Ho). After her mother remarries, the new family moves to farm in Edna. It was a hard life, and Yoshiko runs away, finding work at at the grocery store where she meets then marries Gabe. 

In 1938, the couple move to the Philippines, where their first child is born. A year later, they return to the U.S., settling in Pismo Beach then Watsonville, until after the start of WWII, when Gabe was able to purchase farm property. 

On February 19, 1942, Executive Order 9066 was signed and the process of interning anyone of Japanese descent begins. However, Yoshiko is one of about 90 women of Japanese ancestry living in the exclusion area on the West Coast, exempted by the military's 1942 "Mixed-Marriage Policy." This program exempted from internment Japanese women married to non-Japanese men with children under 18 years old, based on an assumption that women assimilate the culture of their husbands (the policy specifically did not apply to Japanese men married to non-Japanese women). 

For many reasons, Yoshiko became integrated into the Filipino American community, where "Pork adobo rather than mochi pounding became an annual tradition among the second and third generation deLeons" (Ho). 

Thanks to Jennifer Ho for sharing her manuscript discussing Yoshiko deLeon and the Mixed-Marriage Policy. Thanks also to Aida Betita for the news clipping with the biography of Gabe deLeon.

References

"Gabe deLeon Celebrates 80th Birthday." Five Cities Times-Press-Recorder. 18 March 1987.

Ho, Jennifer. Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture (forthcoming from Rutgers University Press).