Hatsuko Mary Higuchi Art Collection

Mary Higuchi was born Hatusko Yoshiko (née Yoshiko) in 1939 to Goro and Kiyoko Yoshiko, the oldest of four children. When Executive Order 9066 was issued, she and her family were forced to leave their home and relocate from Los Angeles to Poston, Arizona. Where they were incarcerated for three years After the war, the family returned to their farm in Lawndale, Californian to find that their belongings were gone. The family struggled to rebuild their lives. In 1950, Higuchi’s father eventually saved enough to put a down payment on a new 10-acre farm. He died in 1951, leaving Higuchi’s mother to raise four kids alone, along with managing the farm.

During Mary's time in elementary school, her teachers struggled to pronounce her and her siblings' names. This led to the teachers renaming the children. Hatsuko was renamed Mary and continued to use Mary as her name for most of her professional career.

Mary Higuchi earned a teaching credential from the University of California, Los Angeles, and later she obtained a master's degree from Pepperdine University. She went on to have a career as an elementary school teacher in Torrance, California, from 1962 to 2003. After retiring, Higuchi pursued an artistic career, which was fueled by meeting and being mentored by Henry Fukuhara in 1989. Her work is inspired by her family’s experiences. She paints using watercolor, acrylic, mixed media, and collage.

Several years after their release, Mary and her mother returned to Poston, and upon their return, Mary began her “EO 9066” series. These works feature faces with anonymous or missing features in order to symbolize the way in which Japanese Americans were dehumanized. Her paintings have won several awards at major exhibitions and have been displayed in a vast array of galleries and libraries.