Shirley Kazuko Endo Sadao

Shirley Kazuko Sadao was born to Hana and Gentaro Endo in Los Angeles on July 1, 1936 at the Japanese Hospital in Los Angeles. They lived on Cannery Street in Terminal Island until they were relocated to illegal prison camps at Santa Anita, Gila River Arizona and Jerome Arkansas during World War II.

There were many stories of being raised by Issei parents. Of growing up a girl in a pre-women’s liberation time, of being sisters, bilingual, interned, and being successful students in HS, college, graduate school and eventually as professionals Shirley as a school psychologist for the Los Angeles Unified School District and her sister Joyce Aiko Endo, after a stint as an elementary teacher, as a pharmacist.
She graduated with honors from Nathaniel A. Narbonne HS in Lomita in 1954. She was an excellent student earning recognition as a member of the Ephebian Society, a lifetime member and seal bearer of the California Scholarship Federation, the Jane Addams service club, the Lettergirls and GAA cabinet and board, Drill Team, Latin Club, Acapella and Senior Scholarship clubs. She graduated high school with perfect attendance and not a single tardy.

In 1954 she entered Long Beach State College. On her first day of registration she was frustrated to the point of tears over the confusing process. She looked over and saw another woman equally frustrated and tearful, a woman who would become her lifelong friend, Lolly Lee. As first-generation college students they were attempting to sign up for classes that were filled on their own without parental guidance or support. This pair of brilliant women graduated college, started careers, married and had families and raised their children together.

Shirley taught primary school for several years and earned a Master of Science in Education from USC in 1966. She worked as the school psychologist administering student testing and canvassed as a representative to the teachers’ union of LA School District.

As a working professional Shirley was able to cultivate her love of art and design and also flex her own creativity. She wore custom clothing made by designers connected to Hana, able to buy at cost items that sold at Bullocks Wilshire or other department stores. She bought and loved driving a series of sports cars including an Aston Martin, and a white convertible Porsche super 60 with a ghia body. She drove a convertible for many years (and had the sun damaged skin to show for it, often admonishing younger women to always use sunscreen and avoid tanning by showing the spots on her arm and face). She tied a scarf around her head and sported sunglasses while zooming around with the top down. On her way to classes at USC she would spit her gum out of the car straight up over her head. She loved to tell stories of driving with Lolly in the rain. And how everyone gawked on the freeway as the windshield sent the pouring rain over their heads and they continued on with the top down.

She and Lolly and Joyce took a VW Bug on road trips including a memorable camping trip to the Grand Canyon with a car packed to the roof. They loved to tell stories of the astonishment of small-town white folks when two Japanese Americans and a Black woman emerged from the little Bug looking for a motel room or a meal.

In her early career Shirley met a small group of extraordinary women who also made up her nearest and dearest lifelong friends, educators all: Helen Freidman, Carolyn Knupke, and Evelyn Araki. She lived in Lomita CA with Hana and Joyce until she married Frank Yuji in July 1967. They then moved to an apartment in Long Beach. They purchased a house in Huntington Beach CA in 1968 and the following year welcomed their first daughter Ellen Junko in 1969. Amy Rayko was born in 1971 and John Riichi in 1975.

Frank Yuji died in 2022 and Shirley in 2025. She lives on in the memories and hearts of her children, family, extended network of friends, and the children and families she taught and served.