By MARY UYEMATSU KAO
I received an email from Norrie, who happened to see a photo in Maddox Chen’s film “Grandpa Cherry Blossom.” She wrote:
“The older gentleman fourth from the left I believe to be my maternal grandfather, Kazumasa Kubota. Were there any notes on when that photo was taken and for what occasion? I would be grateful for any information. Thank you.”
The photo shows both of my grandfathers (they are the bookends) and Norrie’s in a line of committee members for Shizuoka-ken. Suddenly we were connected by an old photo that goes back to Shizuoka-ken picnics every summer at Elysian Park, somewhere in the mid-1960s.
Norrie continued: “I lived with my maternal grandparents for a while — my family was struggling financially so I was sent to live with them. My Issei grandfather spoke English so I was able to talk with him. My grandmother spoke mostly Japanese and broken English. I was exposed to Japanese food daily, and listened to Japanese-language radio and TV shows. I was given a culture immersion that other Sanseis didn’t always get. I did attend Japanese language school at the local Buddhist church— I can read and write hiragana and some kanji.”
More connections came up as we went back and forth over email. She was like a little sister of the ’70s Asian American Movement, Norrie being six years younger than me.
“I graduated from Gardena High 1973 and started CSULB (Cal State Long Beach) the same year. I had no car and was too young for a driver’s license. My rides to CSULB were arranged through Karl Nobuyuki, who ran the Youth Center in Gardena. A fellow student from Gardena drove me to and from school for my freshman year.
He introduced me to the people in Asian American Studies and that is where I hung out between classes and to meet up for the ride back home. Lloyd Inui and Franklin Odo had their offices there. It became my home away from home. I got involved in CSULB’s Multicultural Program, where we went to local elementary schools and introduced Asian American culture and history.”
“During college I lived an odd mix of school, dance parties, and a growing awareness of social issues. I was introduced to women’s studies as part of my sociology curriculum. It was these experiences and my sociology courses that formed my early political beliefs and how the world worked at that time.”
Norrie lived in the Gardena/South Bay area most of her life. “In 2012 I was hired at SpaceX on the recommendation of a friend. I had no experience in aerospace, but it was the most fun and interesting job I’ve ever had and my last job before retiring to Texas.”
“As a Baby Boomer I worked with mostly newly graduated engineers and returning military personnel who were mostly in their 20s and 30s. I was surprised to see so many women engineers and technicians at SpaceX. My decades of work experience in accounting, purchasing, shipping and supply chain greatly contributed to my success at SpaceX.
“Long hours were mandatory, but the work culture was amazing. No matter what I asked, I always got an answer — from engineers, technicians, machinists to quality engineers. I met so many truly gifted and talented people there. For all the bad press that SpaceX gets, it’s a job that I still miss to this day.
“Where I worked in F9 [Falcon 9], the head engineer was a woman. I was told Elon [Musk] didn’t care about gender, he cared about intelligence and what each person could contribute to the company. I heard in the early days he actually did the interviews himself.
“Being older I wasn’t afraid to ask more questions to get information to do my job. I think younger people are afraid they would look less capable asking so many questions. But the information I gathered helped me to make significant changes to how we worked in my department to increase productivity and efficiency. I received the KickAss Award three times for making significant contributions.
“In the beginning, pulling together the thousands of pieces of hardware to build the Falcon 9 Booster took almost 2 months. Elon wanted to build faster and we were given a goal to cut the time in half. By the time I left F9 Integration I could get my whole work order issued out, organized, and delivered to the shop floor in a week. My supervisor told me this improved our build time.
“The highlight was working on the Crew Demo that flew without astronauts and the Demo-1 that flew two astronauts to the ISS [International Space Station]. While I was only there 6.5 years, it was the most amazing job and one that really pushed my abilities to the max. I am very proud of my time at SpaceX and the vehicles I worked on: F9 Booster, F9 2nd Stage, Falcon Heavy and Crew Dragon.
“As a single mom I’ve struggled financially and I came to realize that retiring in California was not feasible. While I did have a good job at SpaceX in Hawthorne, I worked 12-hour shifts — pretty hard for someone my age trying to keep up with kids the same age as my son.
“My doctor highly recommended retiring or finding a less stressful job. Social Security would not support me, so I made the decision to move out of state. While Texas’ political climate is the polar opposite of California, financially it was a good move for me. I was able to sell my home in Gardena, pay for the one in Texas in cash, and the money left over made me debt-free. So it was a good setup for retirement.
“The biggest differences from living in California is the politics. I am a Democrat in a MAGA Republican state. The second is that Japanese Americans are a micro minority here — which is really weird after growing up in Gardena. Cows and horses outnumber people here. I always thought of Gardena as being a small city — Gardena’s population is 50K, Aubrey’s is 5K!
“I ended up in Aubrey due to the low cost of housing. The area is still rural. Most of the farming is gone now and this area is mostly cattle-raising and horse ranches. But more land is being sold off for new housing.
“The road into my community is only two lanes, no curbs and we finally got a traffic light. We are still hoping to get a Target here. We do get the occasional lost cattle, bison and coyotes roaming through our neighborhood.
“For the first couple of years it was very hard to buy Asian groceries but finally Weee.com now delivers in my area. Otherwise a trip to Hmart is a 1.5-hour round trip — compared to being 2 blocks from Tokyo Central in Gardena. During the pandemic, I had friends shipping me Asian groceries from California.”
(I had to look up Weee.com and Hmart — both unfamiliar to me. Weee.com is touted as the largest online Asian grocery market, and Hmart is an impressively large Korean-owned grocery chain boasting 89 stores in the U.S. and Canada.)
“Climate change and extreme weather are very evident here. Last summer we had 50+ days over 100+ temps. Tornados are a real threat here along with baseball-sized hail. If I had to do it over again, I’d have picked a state with milder climate and a more Democratic agenda. When I go to vote, almost all candidates are Republican with very few Democrats running for any kind of office.
“But still I was able to retire, have a roof over my head and food on the table without struggling. I’m still the city girl living in the country — not quite ‘Green Acres’ but I swear sometimes I hear that theme song in my head!”
So there you have it — local Gardena girl makes new home in rural Texas. Even her “KickAss” work record at SpaceX didn’t allow Norrie to retire where she grew up. The high cost of California real estate has made many people homeless, or like Norrie, pushes you out of state. Just one more sign that our Japanese American community is spreading into new spaces due to the economic times. From one Shizuoka-ken Sansei to another, keep kicking ass!
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Mary Uyematsu Kao worked at the UCLA Asian American Studies Center from 1987-2018. She received her MA from UCLA Asian American Studies in 2007. She can be reached for comments, questions, and/or criticisms at [email protected]. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those ofThe Rafu Shimpo.