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Coronado Japanese community, a Tea Garden, and a Movie Star
Before World War II, there were sixteen Japanese families (including children, about 100 individuals) living in the resort town of Coronado on a peninsula in San Diego Bay, California. These were Issei who were mostly from Kagoshima, Japan and their Nisei children. Many of the Issei worked at the luxurious Hotel Del Coronado as gardeners, maids, or cooks, or at the nearby North Island naval base as cleaners or doing laundry.
Shizue Koba was the only Coronado Issei woman who knew how to drive and was able to pick up and deliver laundry. Najiro Nakamura worked as a chef for the “sugar ki…
