Monica Sone

Monica Sone (September 1, 1919 – September 5, 2011), born Kazuko Itoi, was a Japanese American writer, best known for her 1953 autobiographical memoir Nisei Daughter, which tells of the Japanese American experience in Seattle during the 1920s and 1930s and in the World War II internment camps, and is an important text in Asian American and Women's Studies courses.

Early life

Sone grew up in Seattle, where her parents, immigrants from Japan, managed a hotel. Like many Nisei children, her education included American classes and extra Japanese language and cultural courses, the latter of which were held at Seattle's Nihon Go Gakko; later, she and her family visited relatives in Japan. After graduating from Broadway High School she attended secretarial school, completing the two-year course in just one year. Soon after, she contracted tuberculosis and spent nine months at Firland Sanatorium with future best-selling author of The Egg and I, Betty MacDonald. Upon her release from the sanatorium, Sone discovered that her family had moved to a house in Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood.

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing military commanders to designate areas from which "any or all persons may be excluded" and paving the way for the removal of all Japanese Americans from the West Coast. Sone was 21 when she and her family were "evacuated" from their home in Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood to the Puyallup Assembly Center, in May 1942. Three months later, the Itois were transferred to the War Relocation Authority camp at Minidoka, Idaho. She finished her undergraduate degree at Hanover and in 1949 received a master's degree in clinical psychology from Case Western Reserve University.

After finishing her postgraduate work at Case Western, Sone became a clinical psychologist and social worker for the Catholic Community League, practicing for 38 years. She married Geary Sone, and the couple settled in Canton, Ohio, where they raised four children. She died in Canton shortly after she turned 92.

Published works Sone, M. (1996). Introduction: S. Maret, "The desert years: An annotated bibliography of Japanese American internment in Arizona during World War II." Bulletin of Bibliography (53: 2), pp 71–108. Sone, M. (1953). Nisei daughter. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.