Honoring Two Generations of Extraordinary Women

My maternal grandmother, Kane Tomizawa, was the first girl in her family to ever go to college. She firmly believed that girls needed the ability to be economically independent. In 1926, she founded a sewing school/technical high school for women in Yamagata City, a remote town in northern Japan. 

On this International Women’s Day—with its theme of pressing for progress—I think about my grandmother and her goals, achievements, and courage. I may be biased, but, to me, they are extraordinary.

By 1946, she had transformed the technical trade school into a full-fledged girls’ high school. By 1966, she further expanded her educational mission to start a women’s junior college with an affiliated kindergarten. Although my grandfather was right there with her as the dean of these educational institutions, it was my grandmother who really ran the show as president and founder.

My mother, Eiko Uchida, and my father, Eiichi, picked up this family tradition and legacy in 1997. They had both had other careers up until that point, but after the passing of my grandparents—as well as my uncle and aunt who had been running the school —they made this mission their own.

The two of them as a team opened a four-year college, in addition to the existing two-year college, and launched a group of nursery schools. And they made the college and high school co-ed, to further their educational mission and expand the student base to maintain an economically viable enterprise amid a steadily decreasing national population. Today the various schools boast a total of 2,000 students and 300 faculty.

So on this International Women’s Day, I also think of my 80-year-old mother, who is retiring this month after 21 years of service, the last ten as president. 

My mom has been an amazing role model on so many fronts—the school she grew, the young women and men whose lives she touched, and the way she raised me and my sister to become the professional working women that we are today.