Noriko “Nikki” Sawada Bridges Flynn, former ILWU President Harry Bridges’ wife for the last 31 years of his life, died Feb. 7 at age 79 from complications of a chronic illness. But Nikki was much more than the spouse of a legendary labor leader—she was a civil rights activist and poet in her own right, an orator with quick wit and a sharp tongue.
Nikki was born in 1923 in Gardena, Calif., the daughter of Japanese immigrant farm workers. When President Roosevelt ordered the internment of all Japanese Americans on the West Coast into “relocation camps” in 1942, Nikki and her family were sent to live in Posten, Arizona for three years. The concentration camp was built on a poverty-ridden Indian reservation.
Nikki and her parents were assigned to share a 25 by 25 foot unpartitioned structure with what she described as a “stranger-bachelor” since the rules required four people in each shelter. When the war was over and the internees released, the camp’s officers warned them that once outside, they could not congregate in groups of more than five.
But now the family’s leased farm (Japanese immigrants weren’t allowed to own land or become citizens) and all their possessions were gone. They ended up in the Bay Area where Nikki supported them on her salary as a secretary. She
became politically active, working with the War Relocation Authority, the American Council on Race Relations, the Berkeley Interracial Committee and the CIO because of its anti-racist activities.
She met Harry Bridges while working for the famous radical attorney Charles Garry. Bridges and Garry were co-sponsoring a
fundraising event for the Mine, Mill and Smelters Union in 1958 when Garry introduced the two. Bridges asked her out and ten days after their first date they eloped to Reno, Nevada.
But even their wedding would become a political struggle. When they went to the marriage license bureau, the clerk told them there was a state law forbidding a Caucasian from marrying an Asian, Black or American Indian. Nikki, a self-described “smart ass,” responded, “What’s so sinister about a person of color seeking to marry a colorless individual?”
But this couple was not to be deterred. They filed a suit against the law and Bridges made the media aware of the situation. The case received national and international attention. Three days later the courtroom was packed with reporters and civil and ethnic rights proponents when the U.S. District Court judge ruled in their favor. They dashed to the clerk’s office with the
court order, received their marriage license and were married that day. In its next session the Nevada state legislature rescinded the racist law, but it wouldn’t be until 1967 that the U.S. Supreme Court would rule race- based marriage restrictions unconstitutional.
In 1959 Nikki gave birth to the couple’s daughter, Katherine.
Nikki had attended one year at Santa Ana Junior College before her internment. She went back to school at age 50, taking writing classes at San Francisco State University. She quickly blossomed into a writer, drawing on her personal experiences
and her cultural heritage for stories that were published in, among others, Harpers Magazine, Ms. Magazine and Reader’s Digest. She also received the University of Missouri’s “Penny Award” for literature.
Harry Bridges and Noriko Sawada wed in Reno after challenging Nevada’s law preventing interracial marriage, December 1958. Photo courtesy UPI.
Nikki continued her civil rights work and was an active member of the Japanese Women’s Group and the Pacific Asian American Women Bay Area Coalition, which awarded her its highest honor, the “Woman Warrior Award” for “Community
Advocacy and Politics.”
When the U.S. government finally formally apologized to Japanese Americans for the war time internment in 1990 at a congressional ceremony in San Francisco, Nikki read her poem “To Be or Not To Be: There is No Such Option.” The poem
is a wrenching exploration of the racism she and her parents were subjected to before, during and after the internment and her own internal struggle to come to grips with her identity as both an American and a woman of Japanese ancestry. Nikki later printed the poem and donated the proceeds from its sale to the Reparation Committee of the Japanese-American Citizens League.
Later that year her husband died. An IBU ferryboat brought his family, friends and colleagues out of the San Francisco Bay past the Golden Gate Bridge where his ashes were scattered. At the memorial, in her typical witty and frank way, Nikki told the gathered mourners, “It has been my honor, my privilege and a source of considerable irritation to have shared 31 years of Harry’s life.”
In 1994 Nikki remarried, wedding Ed Flynn, the retired president of the Pacific Maritime Association.
Although Flynn had been Harry’s adversary across the bargaining table for years, they had developed a friendship, which Nikki continued. This time Nikki chose May Day for the date and the Olympic Club in San Francisco for the site because
the city had just won a lawsuit forcing it to admit women as full members.
Nikki retained her connection with the ILWU throughout her last years, helping endow the Harry Bridges Chair at the University of Washington’s Center for Labor Studies and serving as honorary chair of the Harry Bridges Institute. She also offered her considerable prestige to the successful campaign to get the city and Port of San Francisco to name the plaza in front of the Ferry Building the Harry Bridges Plaza.
At her request, when Nikki died, she had her ashes taken out aboard an IBU ferryboat past the Golden Gate Bridge to be scattered like Harry’s. At the memorial Nikki’s grandchild Marie Shell read her poem “To Be or Not To Be: There is No Such Option.”
Nikki is survived by her husband Ed Flynn and five stepchildren, daughter Katherine Wiggins, stepson Robbie Bridges, grandchildren (on the Bridges side) Richard and Marie Shell, Kevin Fales, Nicole and Annie Bridges, and Hunter Wiggins.
Visitor counts up; January 2003 sees 12 percent increase in “visitor days”
HONOLULU—More visitors and longer stays resulted in a 12 percent increase in visitor days for January 2003 compared to the same month last year. Much of this increase is credited to the NFL Pro Bowl which attracted nearly 18,000 visitors to
Hawaii.
A total of 53,784 more visitors were in Hawaii in January 2003 then last January. Of this number, more than half or 27,289 were from Japan and other countries. The number of visitors from the main-land increased by 26,495. These visitors also stayed slightly longer, which translates into a 19.1 percent increase in international visitor days and a 9.9 percent increase in domestic (mainland) visitor days. These numbers are based on data collected by the States Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT). For more visitor data, see the DBEDT website at www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/monthly.
“Visitor days” is computed by multiplying the number of visitors by the length of their stay in Hawaii. This gives a better picture of the real impact of tourism then just the number of visitor arrivals. Lanai reported the biggest increase in arrivals with 30 percent more visitors than last January. Maui followed with an 18.7 percent increase. Oahu and Kauai had similar increases of around 10.9 percent. The Big Islands increase was a modest 9.3 percent and Molokai reported a decrease of 6.1
percent.
With the exception of the Big Island, the strong visitor counts resulted in higher occupancy and higher room rates for Oahu, Maui, and Kauai. As a result, hotels on these islands had a significant average increase of 18.5 percent in revenues per room for the three islands. Maui had the highest average room rates at $193 per night, while Oahu had the highest occupancy at 73.7 percent. These numbers are based on monthly surveys conducted by Smith Travel Research and includes hotels, condo, hotels, hostels, and bed and breakfast rooms.
The Big Island had slightly higher room rates ($2 more) which were offset by slightly lower occupancy rates (about one percent lower). The net result was January 2003 was almost the same as January 2002.