Mary (Matsuda) Gruenewald

Graduated from Seattle Pacific University in 1980, with a BS in Nursing.

Recently wrote, Looking Like the Enemy: My Story of Imprisonment in Japanese American Internment Camps.

Her biography is provided by Newsagepress.com (http://www.newsagepress.com/lookingliketheenemy.html#author),

“ In 2005 Mary Matsuda Gruenewald celebrated her eightieth birthday as well as the publication of her first book. She began writing her story in her seventies, no longer willing to stay within what she describes as "the self-imposed barbed-wire fenced built around my experiences in the camps." With her book, Gruenewald breaks her silence as a Nisei, American-born, second generation child of Isseis.

After her release from an internment camp, Gruenewald entered nursing school and became a registered nurse. She worked as an R.N. for more than twenty-five years. She established the Consulting Nurse Service within the Group Health Cooperative in 1971, which has become a national model for numerous health care providers. In 2002 she was a medical delegate representing seniors on behalf of Medicare Plus Choice. At that meeting she was selected along with ten other delegates to speak with President George W. Bush on health care issues.

Her articles on internment during WW II have appeared in newspapers nationally, and she has presented radio commentaries for NPR, KPLU. Gruenewald also consulted with the National Park Service during its establishment of Minidoka Internment Camp as a National Park. She speaks to many schools and community groups about her internment. Gruenewald received an Asian American Living Pioneer Award in 2003.”

Seattle Pacific University Students,
who were interned in 1942