Tokyo Rose: Iva Ikoku Toguri

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Born on July 4, 1916, in Los Angeles, California, to the parents of Jun and Fumi Toguri, Iva Ikoku Toguri was an American citizen with Japanese heritage (Lerner 163; Tokyo1). Toguri and her three siblings were raised in a predominantly white neighborhood in Compton, California, where their father disapproved of them learning the Japanese language so they could better fit into American society. Toguri eventually went on to attend Compton Junior College after finishing high school and then transferred to University of California, Los Angeles where she graduated in 1941 with a zoology degree (Iva 1; Tokyo 1). Soon after college, Toguri left America to tend to an extremely ill aunt in Japan on July 5, 1941. Unfortunately, she only acquired a certificate of identification from the US State Department and not an actual passport. After six months, Toguri planned to return home on a ship on December 2 but missed it due to passport complications (Lerner 163; Tokyo1, 2).
As a result, Toguri was still in Japan when their military bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, launching the United States into war with Japan (Lerner 163; Tokyo 2). Refusing to deny her American citizenship, she was classified as an enemy alien and kicked out of her relative’s home. Her request to go back to her home country or even to be quartered with other American civilians was denied because of her gender and Japanese descent (Iva 1; Lerner
163). That was not the least of her worries for the Japanese government not only refused to give Toguri a food ration card but also kept her under consistent brutal inspection by the military (Tokyo 2; Lerner 163). However, she was not alone in her hardships because, little to her
Smith 2 knowledge, Toguri’s family had been ...

... middle of paper ...

...l. Toguri unenthusiastically and grudgingly divorced her husband in 1980 (Tokyo 5). All her suffering was rewarded in January 2006, when Toguri received the Edward J. Herlihy citizenship award given by the World War II Veterans Committee (Iva 2). Eight months later, Toguri died at the age of ninety from natural causes at the Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago on September 26, 2006 (Tokyo 5).

Works Cited

“Iva Toguri.” Newsmakers. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 2007. World History in Context. Web. 19 Mar.
2014.
Lerner, Adrienne Wilmoth. “Tokyo Rose.” Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and
Security. Ed. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 2004.
163-164. World History in Context. Web. 7 Mar. 2014.
“Tokyo Rose.” Encyclopedia of World Biography. Vol.27. Detroit: Gale, 2007. World History in
Context. Web. 7 Mar. 2014.

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