Hisako Betty Ozawa

Hisako was a beloved wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, sister, and friend. She was also a proud Nisei, or second-generation Japanese American. Hisako Tamaki grew up working on a farm in El Monte with her eight siblings and parents — Issei from Naha, Okinawa. She and her family were among the more than 120,000 people of Japanese descent ordered into internment camps in 1942 after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. They were sent to Gila River in Arizona. Under the Ex parte Endo Supreme Court ruling in 1944, she and other loyal Japanese Americans were allowed to leave camps to go back east or to the midwest. She went to Chicago and was hired as the housekeeper for Myrtle Walgreen of Walgreens Pharmacy. She returned to Southern California two years later and continued to work for wealthy families from Pasadena to Newport Beach, including Oscar-winning actor Ray Milland. In 1966, she started working at Bullock’s department store in Torrance, where she quickly became the top saleswoman with $200k sales in a year. She retired after 20 years to help care for her grandson.

Hisako married Yoki “Larry” Kohatsu in 1951 and had two children. Yoki died in 1969. She remarried James Ozawa in 1971, who died in 2004. Two days before she passed away of cancer at the age of 101, she met her first and only great grandchild, a 3-month-old from Philadelphia. Hisako is preceded in death by sisters Hatsuko, Yoshiko, Setsuko and Rose and brothers Kiho and Tom. She is survived by sisters Tomiko and Toyoko; children Gary and Maureen; grandchildren Randy and Marie; and great grandson Robert III “Tre”.

The Graveside Service for Urn Placement will be held at Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, on July 31, 2026, at 11:30 am.