Crisis Helpline Worker Retires After 29 Years of Service

In 1985, a tragic event shook the Southern California Nikkei community. A monolingual Japanese-speaking woman, at the end of her rope, walked into the waters off Santa Monica with two infant children in tow. The mother survived, but her children drowned.

Convinced the incident could have been avoided had the mother possessed a proper support system, members of the Japanese American community decided to create a crisis hotline to assist callers facing difficult times.

published on August 30, 2018