Before reaching the age of 21, Natsuko had to decide to settle the dual-citizenship issue.

Friday, September 03, 1999

Before reaching the age of 21, Natsuko had to decide to settle the dual-citizenship issue.

Natsuko Totani was born in Austin 20 years ago.

When she was three months old, she moved with her parents to Germany and when she was three years old, she returned with her family to their native Japan.

Two decades later, she returned to her birthplace, Austin.

Virginia Larson made that possible and Reiko Kime helped.

Their’s is a story of a growing multi-cultural friendship, that originated, literally, at birth.

Ronald Kime met his wife, Reiko, when he was stationed in Okinawa as a member of the U.S. Air Force. The couple moved to Oklahoma and later Austin, Ronald’s hometown in 1962 and raised a family of two sons and a daughter.

"People would come and go at the Hormel Institute," said Reiko, "and somebody would call and ask me to help with the Japanese families. I would help them get adjusted in Austin."

It was the late 1970s, when Nagao and Yoko Totani came to Austin, where Nagao worked as a biochemist at Hormel Institute.

On April 1, 1979, Yoko gave birth to the couple’s first child, a daughter.

At the mother’s bedside was Reiko.

"She was such a beautiful baby," Reiko said. "So round and big. I had a baby shower in my home for Yoko, too, and when they needed a doctor, I called Dr. Hesla (Inman A.) and he delivered the baby. I always recommended Dr. Hesla when the Japanese women would come to Austin."

Mrs. Kime, as she did so many times before for other Japanese families, became an intermediary for the Totani family. Her services were needed. Yoko, the mother, spoke no English,. so mother and her 8-pound baby daughter needed the services of Mrs. Kime for many important reasons.

Virginia Larson, a French and German languages teachers at then-Austin Junior College, would enter the extended family scene, too.

When Dr. Totani’s stint at a biochemist came to an end at Hormel Institute, he sought a position in Germany. "Dr. Totani realized he needed another job," said Larson, "and he was quite sure he would be getting the job in Germany. However, he didn’t know the language, so he came to me and asked if I would teach him."

Larson did just that, tutoring Dr. Totani in her home until he became fluent in the German language.

All this occurred in 1979: Natsuko Totani is born …… Reiko Kime helps her mother, Yoko, deal with the language and culture barrier in Austin …… Virginia Larson teaches Dr. Totani to speak German …… the Totani family moved from Austin to Germany.

That would seem to be the end of a happy story of multi-cultural strings attaching several people in friendship.

However, still another chapter would unfold, but not until two decades would pass.

After leaving America for Germany, when she was three years old, Natsuko Totani returned to her homeland, Japan, when she was three years old.

Her father became a professor of nutrition at the University of Kobe and she is now a junior at the Tokyo Christian Women’s University, studying philosophy. She has a younger sister, who is 16.

Early this year, Natsuko Totani wrote Virginia Larson and a friendship via correspondence began. Before reaching the age of 21, Natsuko had to decide to settle the dual-citizenship issue. Born in the USA meant she could claim American citizenship. Being Japanese meant she could renounce American citizenship in lieu of Japanese.

She wanted to visit America before that question would be decided.

On August 12, she arrived for a three-week visit to America and specifically to visit her birthplace one more or one last time.

"There is a lot of open space and land to see," she said. "It is so beautiful and the people have been so nice to me."

Larson has taken the young woman on a whirlwind tour of the Upper Midwest, including her own hometown in North Dakota, stops in Iowa and all over southeastern Minnesota.

She has taken her house guest to visit the Hormel Institute, where her father worked, Ronald and Reiko Kime’s to recall her birth and look over photographs, Dr. Inman Hesla and even where the Totani family’s apartment in a house was located along West Oakland Avenue. Of course, the host and her house guest visited the Mall of America, too, but also toured the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to sample another portion of Americana.

"People have been so friendly; so very friendly to me, that I am very grateful for their hospitality," Totani said. "Every house is so big and so nice. Mrs. Kim’s house is just wonderful."

"I have enjoyed, most of all, meeting so many people in Austin, where I was born. Mrs. Larson has been very kind to me," she said.

The young woman also made a pilgrimage for her father and visited the memorial to Dr. Jacques Chipault, now deceased, but a well-known and highly-respected biochemist at the Hormel Institute, where the elder Totani worked there. The Jacques Chipault Memorial Trail is located at the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center.

She returned with souvenirs courtesy of her host, including the requisite SPAM® hat and a Cure 81 canned ham.

"We had a great time. We laughed a lot and I explained a lot of things about America to her and she explained a lot of things to me about her country," Larson said. "There was a lot of interaction between us."

The afternoon before departing for Japan, Totani and Larson visited Reiko Kime for a reunion of the child and the woman who helped that event take place and became a friend with her family.

The night before she left Austin, Totani and Larson enjoyed grilled salmon at a friend of Larson’s.

"I saw so many sights while I was here that it is hard to remember them all," Natsuko Totani said.

"Everything was so beautiful and I made good friends. I want to come back."