Oral history interview with Tsuruko Nakamura, 2011 July 19.

Tsuruko Nakamura was born in 1939. She remembers seeing B-29s in the sky when she was in elementary school, and she talks about having to go to the bomb shelter every time the air raid sirens would sound. She and her family fled to the countryside the day before the bombing, but her father was in the city when the bomb was dropped; he survived, but her uncle did not. She remembers seeing people who had lost their hair due to radiation, and her own father collapsed at an outing a few years after the bombing. She talks about her marriage to a Nisei who was in an interment camp for three years during the war; they both agree that Nikkei in the camps often had access to food, shelter, and supplies that many people in Japan did not. They moved to San Francisco in 1963. She talks about attending the biennial medical checkups beginning in 1980 and how important they are to her and discusses the complexities of applying for a genbaku techō in a situation where many hibakusha wanted to hide their experience for fear of reduced employment or marriage opportunities; she was a nyūshi hibakusha, but she wasn't able to get her genbaku techō because she didn't have proof. She talks about her experiences working for Sumitomo Bank in the U.S. and Charles Schwab after her children were grown.

Recorded 2011 July 19