Anna in her Girl Scout uniform.

Anna Nakada: A Different Type of Camp

Interviewed by Ashlene Nand

To celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we took a history lesson from a former Girl Scout who went through war camps and hardship to come out on top!

When Anna Nakada, an expert and teacher in Ikebana (the Japanese art of flower arranging), was just a girl she was sent to a war camp for Japanese Americans with her family. After she was released, her mother put her in the Girl Scouts. Here is a fascinating story of a former Girl Scout who talks about what Girl Scouting means to her, her daughters, and yes, even her granddaughters!

How did you get into the Girl Scouts?

The whole movement was very prominent back in the late 1940s. I was around 9 years old when I joined. When there was a 4th of July parade, we were very prominent in that parade. It was so big. I joined in Connecticut. That's where I grew up after the war.

Were you the only Asian in your troop?

Yes! In a city of 120,000 there were only three Japanese families at that time and maybe a few families from China as well. We were a 'curiosity.' My father's sister was in New York before the war. She was not affected by the internment. After the war, we joined my Aunt's family in that area.

How did you end up in the camps? Tell us a bit about life at these camps.

I was 4 at the time. I was born in San Francisco and my parents had been in San Francisco since my father had arrived in 1902, when he was 12. By Executive Order 9066, an order by the President at the time, Roosevelt, that all people of 1/15th Japanese ancestry were to be sent to these camps. In other words, if you can trace your blood line down to 1/15th Japanese blood you were sent there. We were under curfew immediately after Pearl Harbor in 1941. And then the order executed four months later in 1942. Within three months, all the Japanese Americans were sent to these camps.

I can't say it was a sad thing because it was the way it was. As a little kid, it didn't matter. We were poor to begin with. It was a camp in the middle of the desert. There were army type barracks and each camp housed approximately 10,000 people. We had a wash house; but no facilities to cook, clean or anything. It was a lot like camping but it lasted for four years.

When your family settled in Connecticut, what made your parents put you in the Girl Scouts?

It was the thing to do! My mother was a cosmopolitan lady. My parents were people of the world rather than old Japan. At home they would speak to us in Japanese but we replied in English. But whether we had spaghetti or potatoes, we always had rice. You never forget your roots.

I think the Girl Scouts helped me with personal leadership. After I got married and had three kids, and they were all grown, my husband got an assignment to go to Tokyo. We spent six years there. That's where I discovered Ikebana. I studied it and then brought it back to Jersey. Somehow, along the way, I became more serious about it. Once you reach a certain competency level, you push yourself to the next level and you keep going. After I came back here, I started up my own classes and wanted to share what I knew.

What role do you think the Girl Scouts played in your daughter's and granddaughter's lives?

My daughter is very community-spirited. She had two daughters and they are Girl Scouts. My daughter is a resident Cookie Chairman. Her house is filled with cookies. So it does carry through generations. Back in my time, we were so close to the roots of Girl Scouts that we could have basically touched the founders.

My daughter is a biologist yet she still finds time to do the Girl Scouts. From the few experiences that I recall as a kid, and when I was helping with my daughter's troop, I remember thinking how things haven't changed. Society has changed but the core values remain the same. Cultural diversity is in the works and has been for over a century now; I think programs such as Girl Scouts help to put a focus on it.

There are so many family situations where the boy is favored and their education is more important. Very subtly, there is always this kind of favoritism and bias. Many families think the woman doesn't need a career; they'll get married and then the husbands will take care of them. But something like Girl Scouting gives the early experience of leadership that girls need. And girls are tough. We are a tough gender. Through the Girl Scouts, there was nothing that I couldn't conquer.