Kumiko Love Instagram – History often focuses on the moment something was taken away. What I think about more is what people built afterward.
After my grandmother was released from the Tule Lake internment camp, she rebuilt her life. She met my grandfather, adopted my uncle and my mom in Osaka, Japan, and together they started a seed potato farm.
During World War II, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated under Executive Order 9066.
Tule Lake later became the largest and most restrictive camp, after it was converted into a segregation center in 1943. It held more than 18,000 people and was heavily militarized with guard towers, tanks, barbed wire, curfews, and constant armed surveillance.
Conditions there were considered some of the harshest in the entire incarceration system.
When families were eventually released, many returned to communities where their homes, businesses, and savings were gone.
Historians estimate Japanese American families lost more than $400 million in property and assets in the 1940s, which equals several billions of dollars today.
When I think about my grandma’s history, I think about how much resilience it took to rebuild from that level of loss.
For me, that perspective is one of the reasons financial stability matters so much. Money represents security, choice, and the ability to rebuild when life changes your path.
Stories like my grandmother’s remind me that building stability today is also about protecting opportunity for the generations that come after us.
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#thebudgetmom | Posted on 13/Mar/2026 01:05:35
