The segregation she endured fueled her fight to end it.
February 11, 1925: Aki Kurose was born in Seattle. She later became a central figure in school desegregation efforts and helped establish Washington state’s first Head Start program.
Kurose was raised in Seattle’s Central District, attending schools with a diverse mix of working-class children. Her upbringing was shaped by parents who quietly defied expectations. Her mother, who came from Kumamoto to the United States to study, held an engineer’s license and operated boiler rooms and furnaces. Her father baked on Fridays, entertained African American, Chinese American, and Jewish friends in their home, and encouraged curiosity rather than conformity.
From an early age, Kurose was pushed to think beyond prescribed gender roles and rigid cultural boundaries. Japanese traditions were not emphasized in her household. She grew up believing she was simply American. That belief was shattered after Pearl Harbor.
When her father expressed concern about what might follow, Kurose brushed it off. But at school the next day, a teacher confronted her with the words, “you people bombed Pearl Harbor.” The realization that she could be suddenly recast as an outsider made what followed all the more painful.
Courtesy of Museum of History and Industry
A Central District school orchestra, Seattle, circa 1922. This ensemble represents early music education in one of the city’s most diverse neighborhoods. 
December 7, 1941. In a matter of hours, the attack on Pearl Harbor reshaped American history, and altered the lives of Japanese Americans across the country.
In 1942, families from Puyallup, Washington — including future educator Aki Kurose — were forced onto trains bound for the Minidoka incarceration camp in Idaho.
Courtesy of National Park Service, Suzuki Family Collection
Children stand in the snow at Minidoka, Idaho, during the winter of incarceration. Behind them, thin wooden barracks offered little protection from the cold.
Photo by Takano Studio
Aki and Junelow Kurose on their wedding day, October 31, 1948. After incarceration during WWII, they built a life rooted in community, education, and civil rights.
Segregated and Incarcerated
During World War II, Kurose and her family were forcibly removed and incarcerated, first at Puyallup and then at Minidoka. The experience exposed her to state-sanctioned segregation at a formative age. Through the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), she helped deliver books to camp schools and assisted Nisei students seeking access to universities, even while living behind barbed wire herself.
After the war, Kurose married Junelow “Junks” Kurose, her best friend’s brother and her own brother’s closest friend. They moved briefly to Chicago, where they had their first son, Hugo, named after Junks’ older brother, who had been forcibly conscripted into the Japanese army and died in the Pacific Theater in 1940.
Discriminations in Seattle
Returning to Seattle was not easy. Discriminatory housing practices made it difficult to find a home, and the Kuroses initially lived with her parents while searching for one of their own.
Junks struggled to find work. Local unions were not admitting Japanese Americans, and Japanese workers had largely been displaced from the labor force.
Kurose’s father, Harutoshi, helped organize a union that brought together Black and Japanese workers. Aki was appointed its secretary, an early lesson in cross-racial solidarity.
The Kuroses raised six children and brought them along to marches and demonstrations, believing civic engagement was learned through participation.
After the incarceration of Japanese Americans from the Seattle region, barber G.S. Hante points to his bigoted sign reading, “We Don’t Want Any Japs Back Here... EVER!”
Courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives
Members of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) protest housing discrimination in Seattle, 1964. Activists challenged real estate practices that barred families of color.
Education and Activism
Kurose became an educator and advocate in Seattle, focusing on children most often left behind by the system. She was deeply involved in efforts to desegregate Seattle Public Schools, pushing for policies that acknowledged how race, housing, and income shaped access to education.
Her activism extended beyond schools. In the 1950s, she worked through the AFSC in the open housing movement. In the 1960s, through Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), she fought for racial equality across the city.
She also played a key role in establishing Washington state’s first Head Start program, expanding early childhood education for low-income families and emphasizing the importance of support in the earliest years of learning.
Integration and Desegregation
Later in her career, Kurose was transferred from Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary to Laurelhurst Elementary, an all-white school. Some parents resisted her presence. At one meeting, a parent told her it was “okay” to bring a rice bowl and chopsticks to work.
Over time, she earned their respect.
In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the National Advisory Council on the Education of Disadvantaged Children. She was later named Seattle Teacher of the Year and received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Her commitment to peace and justice was recognized internationally with a United Nations Human Rights Award.
Aki Kurose spent her life confronting the inequalities she once endured, working to ensure the next generation inherited something better than the one she had.
Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration
President Jimmy Carter greeting students. In 1977, he appointed Aki Kurose to the National Advisory Council on the Education of Disadvantaged Children.
Aki Kurose Middle School Academy, Seattle. Her name now stands where generations of children continue the work she began.
Aki Kurose (1925–1998). From wartime incarceration to national leadership in education reform, she spent her life fighting for children the system tried to overlook.