Supplement: The Article that Revealed Okei to the World
The Wakamatsu Colony, born of the dreams and labor of the new immigrants, collapsed in only two years. One of the members of the group – a young woman whose first name was Okei – was taken in by a local farming family named Veerkamp. As described in a previous installment in this series, Okei came from the town of Aizu Wakamatsu at the age of 17. Her life in California was cut short when she fell suddenly ill and died in 1871. She was only 19 years old.
Okei is believed to be the first Japanese woman to be …