Educator led drive to save community newspaper.
By P.C. Staff
Ikuko Lillian Kiriyama
Ikuko Kiriyama, a lifelong educator and Japanese American community leader who co-founded the Japanese American Historical Society of Southern California and led the quixotic “Save the Rafu” campaign in the late 2010s to help keep extant a privately owned Los Angeles Japanese American community newspaper (see tinyurl.com/25r4j5h8), died June 28. She was 86.
Kiriyama had been homebound for the past few years as she dealt with aging-related health challenges.
“Mom was a teacher, a community leader and friend to many,” shared her son, George Kiriyama, via Facebook and who had helped with her caregiving during her final years. “She gave so much of herself to make a difference in people’s lives.”
Born Ikuko Kato to a Nisei mother and Issei father — Shizuko (née: Mori) and Takashi Kato — on Nov. 12, 1939 in Los Angeles, as a child she was incarcerated with her family at the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California as a result Japan’s Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. That lead to the U.S. declaration of war on Japan the next day and, by Feb. 19, 1942, President Roosevelt’s issuance of an executive order that led to the forced removal of all ethnic Japanese, regardless of U.S. citizenship, from the West Coast to several government-operated detention centers.
Iku Kiriyama and longtime Pacific Citizen staffer Harry Honda at the Save the Rafu meeting in 2010 (Photo: George Toshio Johnston)
Postwar, the Kato family resettled in the South Bay area of Los Angeles County. Iku would be elected president of Torrance’s North High School student body. She entered University of Southern California in 1957, and after graduating and earning her teaching credential, subsequently began her career in education. She would marry fellow educator George Kiriyama, and they would later co-found the JAHSSC.
Family friend Kiyo Fukumoto described Iku Kiriyama as “a doer, somebody who did things,” and said he “got to know her real well” because of his close friendship with her late husband, George Kiriyama, who died in 2005 and co-founded Japanese American Historical Society of Southern California with his wife.
Reminiscing on the Society meetings the Kiriyamas would hold at their home, Fukumoto said, “We used to meet over there along with Sue Embrey and a lot of other people,” Fukumoto said, “and a thing I remember, besides going to Japan with her family and the group, was she was a really good cook. So whenever we had meetings at their place, I knew we were in for a treat.”
According to her daughter, Traci Kato-Kiriyama (Joyce), in addition to herself and brother George, Iku Kiriyama is also survived by stepsons William (Miho) and Bob (Judy); grandsons Bryce (Kyra); Kyle and Cullen (Alyson); brother Roy Kato (Christine) and an aunt, Marguerite Tanaka.
A service for Ikuko Kiriyama will be held at 12 noon on Sunday, Aug.16 at Senshin Buddhist Temple, 1311 W. 37th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007. She requested no flowers.
A link to Densho.org’s interview with Kiriyama may be viewed at tinyurl.com/4xczcynr.