Life at Manzanar: Rosie Maruki Kakuuchi

Rosie Maruki, who typically played catcher, is seen here playing third base, Manzanar 1942. (Photo by Francis L. Stewart, War Relocation Authority / UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library)

 

Like many teenagers in early 1940s Los Angeles, Rosie Kakuuchi (née Maruki) spent her days idolizing the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. She squirreled away photos, postcards, and letters from film stars, and she dreamed of being a “script girl.”1 Even when her family was incarcerated at Manzanar in 1942, the then-16-year-old Kakuuchi retained her starry-eyed naivety and filled her days with the other great American pastime: baseball.

Kakuuchi was born Keiko Maruki on December 21, 1925, in Florin, California, to George Shinkichi Maruki and Alice Koharu (née Ono). The Marukis were firmly established in Florin, outside of Sacramento, by the time of their youngest child’s arrival. George first immigrated to the area by way of Seattle in 1902 to join his older brother Shozaburo.2 In 1916, George obtained a lease for farmland, and he brought his new wife, Alice, to the United States two years later.3 By 1925, the Marukis had four children: Chizuko, Kiyoko, Kaoru, and Keiko. George Maruki dubbed each child with an English name—Ruby, Grace, George, and Rosie, respectively—prior to the children starting school.4

When Rosie was a toddler, her uncle persuaded George to relocate the family to Los Angeles. They opened a produce market where the two older daughters worked alongside their parents. Maruki, though, spent her days as a precocious tomboy who would “play marbles on the dirt on [her] hands and knees.” She also enjoyed drawing and attending film premieres.5

The 1940s brought significant changes to the family. Eldest daughter Ruby married Tom Watanabe in June 1940, and she began working in the Watanabe family restaurant. Rosie and her family moved to Boyle Heights, where she attended Roosevelt High School. Just a few months into the school year, the attack on Pearl Harbor shook the nation, and Maruki’s world became one of fear and uncertainty.

Still, the day of the family’s forced removal came. Rosie’s mother sold off many of their possessions, and they moved to the Watanabe family’s house temporarily. Shortly thereafter, both families were on the train to Manzanar. Rosie herself remembered having “less than three weeks to sell furniture” after removals were announced in February 1942.7

Rosie became involved in softball at Manzanar as soon as teams were established. She had grown up playing the sport and acknowledged that she would have rather been “playing baseball or listening to Glenn Miller [or] Tommy Dorsey” than focusing on her studies like her classmates at the high school in the camp.8

Softball enabled Maruki to retain a bit of her life prior to Manzanar. Her softball team from Los Angeles, the Chick-a-dees, remained intact and frequently appeared in photographs by the War Relocation Authority and by Maruki herself.9 Rosie was not the only athlete in the family. Her brother, George, played baseball and basketball with the Manzaknights and ran track during his time at the camp.

Maruki and her teammates caught the eye of pitcher Chiyo Sugimoto (married name Tashima), who organized one of the premier fastpitch teams in the camp: the Dusty Chicks.10 Tashima recruited Maruki to be the team’s catcher, although Rosie initially had reservations. “I nearly fell on my butt because she pitched so hard.”

At just 16, Maruki and her best friend PeeWee (Yoshiko Nakamura née Kusunoki) were among the youngest players and stood out from their “glamorous” older teammates.11 Still, Maruki and Kusunoki, who played center field, served as key pieces of the Dusty Chicks’ run to the Class-A championship in July 1942.12

Maruki had little time to celebrate her success on the diamond. Her eldest sister, Ruby, was pregnant with twins when she entered the camp. She went into labor prematurely on August 15. Rosie was at her sister’s bedside as Ruby passed away due to hemorrhage; the twin girls both died shortly after birth.

Maruki fell into a routine as school started at Manzanar High in September 1942. She came into her own as a ballplayer during the fall season with the Star Dusters. She batted .429, fourth highest in the league. Her success was rewarded with an all-star nod. She served as backstop for the American All-Stars in a 22–13 victory over the National All-Stars in October.13 The Dusty Chicks reunited for at least one game in the Spring 1943 season with Maruki as catcher.14

As she grew older, Maruki’s focus shifted to the social scene of high school, especially her social club, the Modernaires. The group, which consisted of many classmates in Manzanar High’s Class of 1944, held dances, played sports, and generally palled around. During the 1944 and ’45 softball seasons, they competed in the American League.15 Maruki finished the 1944 season among the top American League batters with a .333 batting average. Maruki also teamed up with the Modernaires on at least one occasion to play basketball.16

Maruki also filled her time with leadership positions at Manzanar High. She served as class secretary during the first semester of her senior year as well as secretary of the Boosters Club of the school’s Girls’ League. Maruki revisited her Hollywood dreams by directing the senior play Growing Pains by Aurania Rouverol, and she took the stage in a one-act play written by a classmate.17

Toward the end of Maruki’s time in Manzanar, she joined her parents as a dishwasher in the mess hall on her block. Upon graduation, she moved to the personnel office and eventually became a full-time clerk. These skills allowed Maruki to successfully transition out of the camp in September 1945. Rosie and her sister Grace followed their brother, who had returned to Los Angeles in August. Grace found work in the LA City School District while Rosie worked as a payroll clerk for the county library. The sisters helped their parents, who left the camp in October, find work as cleaners at the Commercial Hotel where the family also lived. The foursome pooled their money to eventually buy a house in Boyle Heights.18

In Maruki’s life after Manzanar, sports featured less prominently, but they did serve as a shared interest with her husband, Jack Kakuuchi.19 He had enlisted in the Army prior to the United States joining World War II and spent the war at Camp Grant in Illinois while his family was incarcerated at Heart Mountain in Wyoming. Kakuuchi played guard for the Camp Grant football team and third base for the baseball team.

At Camp Grant, Kakuuchi faced some of the best teams of his day on both the gridiron and the diamond. In 1943, he played in front of 12,000 fans in the Michigan Wolverines’ opening game. The soldiers fell, 26–0.20 Camp Grant also played powerhouses such as Purdue and the University of Minnesota. In baseball, Kakuuchi played against the Chicago Cubs and White Sox.21 Kakuuchi continued playing baseball when he moved to Fort Snelling, Minnesota, in 1945 to train recruits for the Military Intelligence Service.22

 

 

Kakuuchi enrolled at San Jose State, where he continued to play football and baseball. During this time, his friend set him up on a date with Maruki. The pair hit it off, and after Kakuuchi finished his studies, they married on March 20, 1949, and moved to Montebello, California.23

Rosie worked as a secretary in various school settings, including in the Montebello School District for 28 years. Jack, meanwhile, coached football for semipro teams and community college squads before settling in at Citrus College near Los Angeles, where he coached football and tennis.24 In 1986, he became a professor emeritus in physical education at Citrus.25 The couple had three children: Michael, born in 1950; Judy, born in 1952; and Christine, born in 1965. As of 2009, they had five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

As she did in Manzanar, Rosie maintained close ties with her childhood friends. As early as 1947, she regularly organized reunions of her classmates from Lafayette Junior High School.26 As the 20th anniversary of her graduation from Manzanar High School approached, Kakuuchi helped organize a Class of 1944 reunion at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Over time, the class reunion morphed into an all-camp affair, and Rosie had a hand in planning each one.27

Although pilgrimages to Manzanar began in 1969, Rosie did not participate in one until the 1980s.28 She attended her second pilgrimage in 1990.29 She worked closely with National Park Service educators from the Manzanar National Historic Site to preserve her memories and information about the camp. In 2007, she participated in an electronic field trip organized by Ball State University, the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and the National Park Foundation, which was attended virtually by millions.30 Rosie also visited local schools to share her story and a message that “if there is a block, use it as a stepping stone to do what’s good.”31

Rosie retired from the Montebello School District in 1991 and subsequently moved with her husband to Las Vegas, Nevada.32 Jack passed away on February 5, 2009.33 Rosie Maruki Kakuuchi died on September 7, 2024, at the age of 98.34

ABIGAIL MISKOWIEC is a lifelong fan of all things baseball, despite an inauspicious start when she was inches away from being struck by a line-drive foul as an infant. She has written for numerous baseball blogs and worked for parts of three seasons as an editorial producer for MLB.com. With SABR, she has contributed to the BioProject and to the first two volumes of the Baseball’s Business: The Winter Meetings series. Abigail lives with her wife and daughter in Louisville, Kentucky.

 

NOTES

1 Rosie M. Kakuuchi, oral history interview conducted by Alisa Lynch, 2006, Manzanar Oral History Project Interview #MANZ 1083 (transcript), Manzanar National Historic Site, National Park Service. (Now known as script supervisors, script girls oversaw the dialogue and continuity on a film set.)

2 Passenger List, accessed via FamilySearch on April 4, 2025, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KYK5-DDN?lang=en.

3 Passenger List, accessed via FamilySearch, on April 4, 2025, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KYKB-HH8?lang=en.

4 Kakuuchi interview, 2006.

5 Kakuuchi interview, 2006.

6 Kakuuchi interview, 2006.

7 “Rosie M. Kakuuchi,” National Park Service, accessed May 22, 2025. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/rosie-m-kakuuchi.htm.

8 Kakuuchi interview, 2006.

9 Francis Stewart, “Manzanar, Calif.—A close play.” 1942. War Relocation Authority Photographs of Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement. UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California, https://oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft196n9990/?order=3; “Women playing softball.” 1942. Manzanar National Historic Site and the Rosie Maruki Kakuuchi Collection, https://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-37-332/.

10 It is likely that the Chick-a-dees and the Dusty Chicks were one and the same, with the former being absorbed into the latter. The dust of Manzanar was a common irritant, and Chicks and Chick-a-dees do bear a strong resemblance. The local newspaper, the Manzanar Free Press, indicates that this may be the case. “Chicks Peck On Term-ites,” Manzanar Free Press, June 6, 1942: 5.

11 Kakuuchi interview, 2006.

12 “Dusty Chicks, Manzanar ‘Class A’ softball champs, July 1942,” Gerth Archives and Special Collections, Shiro and Mary Namura Collection, California State University, Dominguez Hills, California. https://cdm16855.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16855coll4/id/56974.

13 “Haru Hamamoto Leads American All-Star to Victory,” Manzanar Free Press, October 8, 1942: 4.

14 “Duster Softballers Tip Gremlins; Chick Vets Triumph Over TNT, 7–1,” Manzanar Free Press, May 5, 1943: 4.

15 “‘Naires Trip Wee-Necks, 8 To 5,” Manzanar Free Press, June 28, 1944: 4; “Slaps Maps, 15–16,” Manzanar Free Press, June 2, 1945: 4.

16 “Stardusters Dust ‘Aires, 27 to 12,” Manzanar Free Press, April 19, 1944: 4.

17 Our World, 1943-1944, Manzanar High. UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

18 Kakuuchi interview, 2006.

19 Jack, also known as Jake, was born Hideyo Alexander Kakuuchi on May 5, 1920, in San Francisco, California.

20 Tommy Devine, “Michigan U winner over Camp Grant,” Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal Star, September 20, 1943: 1-B.

21 “Here and There,” Topaz (Utah) Times, August 3, 1943: 3.

22 “Gets Single on Home Run, Fort Loses,” Minneapolis Star-Journal, July 19, 1945: 21.

23 Kakuuchi interview, 2006.

24 “Kakuuchi Named Ass’t Grid Mentor,” Pacific Citizen, May 25, 1962: 3.

25 “Faculty and Administrators Emeriti,” Citrus College, accessed May 22, 2025. https://catalog.citruscollege.edu/welcome-citrus-college/faculty-administrators-emeriti/.

26 Jessie Mae Brown, “What’s Doing in the Social Set,” (Los Angeles) California Eagle, May 8, 1947: 10, 12.

27 Kakuuchi interview, 2006.

28 Kakuuchi interview, 2006.

29 Kakuuchi recollected in her 2006 oral history that her second trip occurred during Ralph Lazo’s final trip back to Manzanar. Lazo, a Mexican American, is “believed to be the only non-Japanese person, who didn’t have a Nikkei [Japanese American] spouse, to voluntarily enter a camp for Japanese Americans.” Takeshi Nakayama, “Nikkei Community Loses Loyal Friend,” Rafu Shimpo: Los Angeles Japanese Daily News, January 9, 1992: 1.

30 Theodore Catton and Diane L. Krahe, The Sands of Manzanar: Japanese American Confinement, Public Memory, and the National Park Service, National Park Service, 2018: 201, https://www.oah.org/site/assets/files/10217/manz_admin_history.pdf.

31 Kakuuchi interview, 2006.

32 “Rosie M. Kakuuchi.”

33 “Jack Hideya Kakuuchi Obituary,” Fukui Mortuary, accessed May 22, 2025. https://www.fukuimortuary.com/obituary/327664.

34 “Rosie Maruki Kakuuchi Obituary,” Dignity Memorial, accessed May 22, 2025. https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/las-vegas-nv/rosie-kakuuchi-11981149.