Nobuko Fujioka was born in Hiroshima in 1926. Her father was drafted into the Japanese Navy during World War II and died when his ship was sunk. She recalls receiving a nationalistic and pro-imperial education beginning in elementary school, and she remembers feeling enmity for the U.S. after the start of the war since they were an enemy nation. However, after the war she ended up marrying an American and living in the U.S. She remembers thinking that Japanese people who came back to Hiroshima from the U.S. before the war were wealthy, with large houses and luxurious lifestyles. She was around 15 or 16 years old when the war began and almost 20 when the bombing occurred; she was working in a hospital as a nurse at the time. She was the only member of her family in the city during the bombing; her mother and siblings were on the outskirts of Hiroshima and were surprised to see her when she managed to return home alive about three or four days later. She moved to Tokyo after the war to work as a nurse, which she did until she came to the U.S. in 1960. She talks about working at a restaurant for three years and at Phillips Electronics for 23 years after coming to the U.S.; she also worked by helping to look after people with medical conditions until the age of 84. She tells the story about being introduced to her husband, an engineer from the U.S., by a friend; they eloped before they told either of their families, which helped the marriage be accepted by both sides. She remembers having a positive impression of the U.S. when she arrived, and she recalls that her husband's grandparents told her she was the first Asian person they had ever seen. She talks about being alone in the U.S. after her husband died and her reasons for not having children. She talks about her experiences going to the biennial medical check-ups in San Francisco provided by doctors from Hiroshima.
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