I began my conversation with my grandma over the phone as she explained her origin and many other interesting things that I was not aware of prior to speaking to her. She is from a small village outside of Tokyo, Japan where she grew up. Her original name was Kazuko Hosoya but she married a polish man(my grandfather) so she did not keep her last name and it was changed to “Stern”. She decided to move to America after WWII, and after she finished most of her schooling in Japan. She started her new life in New York City in the 60s. When she met my grandfather in New York, she connected with him because they both shared the experience of being minorities(Polish-Jewish and Japanese), and immigrants; even though they were from opposite ends of the world. My grandma had told me countless stories of her struggle when she came to America and even now. She was never taken seriously and no one would even speak to her at her first accounting job. She described feeling constantly judged
Phoebe E