Interviews

1. The Origin of my Name (Japanese)

2. Attending Kindergarten in Panama (Japanese)

3. My father who returned by prisoner of war exchange ship (Japanese)

4. Meeting Harry for the first time (Japanese)

5. On international marriages (Japanese)

6. Masao-san (Japanese)

7. Conflicted about immigrating to America (Japanese)

8. You can’t be loyal to two countries (Japanese)

9. Respecting the will of a five-year-old daughter (Japanese)

10. Why I’m glad I immigrated to America (Japanese)

Schneider,Jean Hamako

(b. 1925) War bride

Meeting Harry for the first time (Japanese)

(Japanese) I had gone to Kamakura to undergo eye surgery. I had heard that there was a good eye doctor there, so I went. I have…what would you call it…inverse eyelashes? Normal eyelashes grow outward, right? Well, mine all grow inward. When I went that time, I met him. It was 1946.

We started talking about how there was a really great place in the area called Enoshima. Then, we started saying,“Hey, actually Enoshima’s right on the way from Kamakura to Fujisawa – that’s really close. Shall we go there?”

He remembers that time well. Eating shellfish cooked whole in its shell really left an impression on him. On my way back, I couldn’t believe what I had done. I’d spoken with a foreigner I’d never even met before and gone off somewhere together to have fun. I couldn’t believe it.

1940s Japan Kamakura Kanagawa Prefecture postwar World War II

Date: January 26, 2012

Location: California, US

Interviewer: John Esaki, Yoko Nishimura

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Jean Hamako Schneider (former name: Amano) was born in 1925 in Yokohama. In 1933, she went with her father, who was to run a business in Latin America, to Panama where she stayed for two years. Her father remained in Panama after her, but came back to Japan in 1942 on a prisoner of war exchange ship. While working at a radio station after the war, Hamako met Harry Schneider, who was stationed in Japan with the U.S. Military Intelligence Service (MIS). In 1948, the two married in Japan, and, in 1950, Hamako left for America as a war bride. After that, she gave birth to a daughter and quickly acquired American citizenship. Currently, she lives in Encinitas, California. (September 2014)