For Jeanne Toyo Wakatsuki, childhood security flowed naturally from the loving, accepting kin who made up her household. Born in Inglewood, California, on September 26, 1934, to native Japanese parents, Ko and Riku Sugai Wakatsuki, Jeanne, the youngest of four boys and six girls, moved with her family to Ocean Park in 1936. In an interview, she recalled the pier as a magical place, "my nursery school, the amusement attendants my sitters." She grew up admiring the strutting self-confidence of her father, a farmer and commercial fisherman, and her pragmatic, low-key mother, who worked in a Long Beach fish cannery. Prophetic of Jeanne's individualism, the Wakatsukis had met in Spokane, Washington, eloped, and married for love, defying an arranged engagement between Riku and a farmer.
Jeanne's female role models, evolved from two previous generations, helped develop a sense of self, a concept deeply rooted in the Japanese separation of male and female roles. Her maternal grandmother, although restricted by blindness and speaking no English, served as a link with Japan, as demonstrated by old country treasures she handled delicately — the lacquered tables and fragile blue and white porcelain tea service, reminiscent of a genteel culture incompatible with her new home in the United States. Jeanne's mother understood and accepted her place in a patriarchal marriage. With less time to devote to the niceties of serving tea than her aged mother enjoyed, she resigned herself to the thankless jobs of scrubbing floors, washing clothes, cooking, waiting on Ko, and tending her ten children. When Jeanne expressed terror that her Oka-San might drop dead from overwork, Riku soothed, "I'm not a washerwoman. This is just a chore, something I must do because I'm a woman, but foremost, I'm your mother."
