Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, who died this past December at the age of 90, was a Santa Cruz literary icon.
With her loving, radiant smile, she lit up various cultural corners of Santa Cruz County for the better part of seven decades. There was no one in the community quite like her.
Houston’s remarkable life will be celebrated this coming Saturday (March 1)at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk’s Cocoanut Grove (400 Beach St.), with doors opening at 12:30 p.m., and the celebration beginning at 1. The public is invited. Given her intense and eternal love of the Hawaiian Islands, Aloha attire is strongly encouraged.
Houston, who in 2019 was inducted into California Hall of Fame by Governor Gavin Newsom, is best known as the trailblazing author of a Farewell to Manzanar, a California classic written with her late husband, author James D. Houston, and which chronicled her family’s forced incarceration (along with 100,000 other Japanese Americans) at various concentration centers scattered throughout the western United States during World War II.
Houston’s poignant memoir, later made into an NBC Movie of the Week directed by John Korte.
Three years later, when Manzanar was made into an NBC Movie of the Week with the Houstons and director John Korte penning the screenplay. Houston followed up Manzanar with a collaborative book on the Vietnam War, Don’t Cry It’s only Thunder, and a critically acclaimed novel,The Legend of Fire Horse Woman, all while raising her three beloved children Cori, Josh and Gabby.
Houston’s awards were numerous: In 1984, she received the Wonder Woman Award for her “outstanding achievements in the pursuit of truth and social change.” The National Women’s Political Caucus honored her with a Women of Achievement Award; the California Studies Association with a Carey McWilliams Award; and the national Japanese American Citizens League graced her with a Japanese American of the Biennium Award for “her achievement in arts, literature and communication.”
For all her international accolades and the gravitas of the stories she chronicled, Houston’s passionate presence was a constant in the community—whether she served as the unofficial hostess of the Pacific Rim Pacific Rim Film Festival or as an exuberant fan of the Cabrillo College women’s volleyball team, coached by her daughter Gabby.
Houston possessed an indomitable spirit—full of joy and wisdom and strength and a love of all things cultural—one that will no doubt be felt strongly at the celebration of her life on Saturday.
A celebration of Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston’s life will be held Saturday, March 1, 2025 at 1pm at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk’s Cocoanut Grove, 400 Beach St., Santa Cruz. The public is invited. Aloha attire. Doors open at 12:30pm.
