Mary Adams Urashima is a historian and author of Historic Wintersburg in Huntington Beach. She chairs the grassroots preservation effort to save the Furuta Gold Fish Farm and Wintersburg Japanese Mission property in Huntington Beach, known as Historic Wintersburg. Mary identified and named the historic property, which was designated one of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2014 and one of America’s National Treasures in 2015. Historic Wintersburg marks more than a century of Japanese American history and represents pioneer arrival and settlement in the American West, Orange County’s agricultural history, pioneer achievement, and the struggle for civil liberties. Mary is a former journalist and freelance writer, with thirty years in media, governmental and public affairs.

Jonelle Strickland teaches research writing and first-year composition in the School of Criminal Justice at California State University Long Beach and in the English department at Santiago Canyon College, respectively. She is proud to be a Dreamer Ally and an advocate for all of her students.

Producer: Heritage Future
Host: Jonelle Strickland
Guest: Mary Adams Urashima
Audio: Brew Sessions Live
Creative + Cultural Podcast music composed and performed by Dan Reckard

Chapters is a five-part Creative + Cultural Podcast series dedicated to stories surrounding the exclusion, forced removal, and internment of Japanese-Americans. The program also parallels a narrative thread through Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

This project was made possible with support from Chapman University, The California Civil Liberties Public Education Program, a state-funded grant project of the California State Library and from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit chapman.edu, library.ca.gov and calhum.org.

This episode was recorded live on December 10 at the OC Fair & Event Center in Costa Mesa, CA.