Yuriko Domoto Tsukada

Yuriko Domoto Tsukada 1946MSW received her master’s in Social Work from Simmons College and in the early 1970s established the first Emergency Room Rape Crisis Program in New York state at Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx. Tsukada later became the Director of Services for the Abused and Sexually Assaulted, within the Department of Social Work at Bronx Municipal Hospital Center. There, Tsukada created social work protocols to support victims of sexual assault, which became a model for future trauma care programs.

Tsukada was also a passionate advocate for Japanese victims of internment during World War II. In the 1980s, she offered testimony to the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians concerning the hardships Japanese American families endured due to forced relocation and incarceration in the 1940s. As a result of her testimony and report, a Congressional action signed by President Reagan formally apologized for the United States’ actions committed against Japanese American citizens between 1942 and 1945. Tsukada’s advocacy also helped survivors of internment receive historic reparations.

Photo courtesy of the Wakako Domoto Collection, Densho, and Creative Commons.