Reflections From the 1980 Women’s Silicon Valley Leadership Class

When we met as a group in the fall of 1980 none of us knew each other and we came from very diverse backgrounds.

Bobbi was a Sunnyvale community organizer/activist. Jeanne had founded a school arts program in Palo Alto. Donna managed a Great Society project in Salinas and Mary and Corky were Santa Clara County Social Workers. Mary was also an active union organizer and feminista. Elaine was the founder and CEO of a childcare agency and Joyce was a partner in a Silicon Valley start-up company. Marian had just returned from a ten year “vacation” in Hawaii where her husband was a University administrator while Cynthia was a community volunteer and environmental consultant. Karen worked for a San Jose insurance agency, Christel was in community relations at General Electric and Beth was a member of the Morgan Hill City Council.

We were the lucky ones, the specially selected members of the first of three, Coro-sponsored Women’s Leadership Programs in Silicon Valley. We were fortunate to have as our coordinator and guide the amazingly patient, even-tempered and totally unflappable Grace Hughes who competently put us through our paces.

Now, 28 years later, we recently found ourselves gathered at Cynthia’s Mountain View home to mourn the unexpected passing of Karen Shiraki. As we fondly reminisced about our Coro time together and our subsequent lives, we readily recalled amusing Karen stories, with an abundance of laughter and tears.

Karen Shiraki

For all of us, our Coro experience led to interesting and important employment.
Mary, Joyce, Marian, Karen and Cynthia went on to serve as aides to San Jose City Council members during the Santa Clara Valley’s heyday - those dizzying years we experienced as The Feminist Capital of the World. Bobbi matriculated from Stanford and became a financial advisor. Jeanne joined the community relations team at Lockheed. Corky, Joyce, Cynthia and Beth segued into positions with the County Executive’s office. Joyce was later elected to the Saratoga City Council. Donna, our bon professeur, returned to teaching high school French. Elaine’s childcare agency expanded all over the state. Marian served a controversial term as president of Santa Clara County Planned Parenthood and Christel moved away for a promising position at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

Over the years we stayed around, stayed involved, and supported each other through illnesses, divorces and deaths -- the assorted vicissitudes of life. We were always there for each other.

Although Karen had been ill since 2003, she did not reveal this, even to her closest friend. When she died in November 2008, she was only 64 years old and her death was a shock.

Born in 1943 at Heart Mountain, Wyoming, one of the infamous WWII Japanese internment camps, Karen was the only child of Frank and Yoshiko Shiraki who were second generation Japanese-American Nisei and longtime residents of San Jose. Karen attended Jefferson Elementary School (no longer extant), Peter Burnett Jr. Middle School, graduated from San Jose High School and attended San Jose City College. Chizuko, a friend since 7^th grade, succinctly describes Karen as small and meticulous with a strong personality. A longtime friend and advisor, Yosh Uchida, the legendary San Jose State University Judo coach, portrays Karen as very loyal; one who was particularly concerned about community.

Marian recollects a spontaneous city-hall elevator discussion about Japanese Internment Camps during which Karen let it slip that she had been born at Heart Mountain, something she immediately regretted because, of course, this inadvertently revealed her age which would never have happened intentionally.

Mary remembers Karen as a super mentor who introduced her around and explained the city hall ropes which, by the way, included making selective choices about whom to join for dinner before evening meetings - those with city credit cards!

Joyce found it amusing that Karen, who had no children, was vitally interested in Joyce’s progeny who were 10 and 7 at the time. “So-o-o, did Jeff lose his swimming goggles again?” she would ask sarcastically, with emphasis on the again. And when Joyce phoned in for pizza, Karen would pointedly inquire “do those kids ever eat anything else?” Nonetheless, she was perpetually proud of their achievements.

After her time as an aide to San Jose city council member/vice-mayor Shirley Lewis, Karen was hired as the chief assistant to San Jose Sharks CEO, Art Savage. After Lewis retired from council and became President/CEO of the San Jose Symphony, she again reached out for Karen’s expertise.

Karen was the glue that kept the rest of us informed, our self-appointed secretary who held us together and reminded us of our “assignments.” A long-time board member of the local Japanese American Citizen’s League (JACL) and affiliated with Yu Ai Kai, she remained a dependable contributor to Coro. This dictated a group donation in her memory. She is buried at San Jose’s Oak Hill Cemetery.

Our next gathering will be in the spring of 2009 at Elaine’s Almaden Valley home. A summer event is planned at Beth’s place in Morgan Hill.

But it will never be the same without our Karen.