Momoko Iko

Momoko Iko was born to Kyokuo and Natsuko (Kagawa) Iko on March 30, 1940, in Wapato, Washington. She was the youngest of six children, two older brothers (Tets and Kei) and three older sisters (Yae, Mina, and Sono. After the start of World War II, Iko was incarcerated, aged two, at the Portland Assembly Center before being transferred to the Heart Mountain Relocation Center following the signing of Executive Order 9066. Her family were the last to leave the camp in 1945, as they did not know where to go. The family initially worked as migrant farm workers in New Jersey before settling in Chicago. In Chicago, her father found work as a day laborer and her mother as a seamstress. She found writing inspiration from her life in Chicago, where she said her house was "like a center for young Nisei." == Career and Literature ==

Iko studied at Northern Illinois University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, graduating with a BA in English with honors in 1961. She also studied at the Instituto Allende in Mexico and started an MFA at the University of Iowa, where she met the writer Nelson Algren. Since then, her plays have been produced by the Pan Asian Prepertory, New York City; The Asian American Theater Company, San Francisco; The Northwest Asian Theater Company, Seattle; The East West Players, Los Angeles; and the Inner City Cultural Center, Los Angeles. Iko moved from Chicago to Los Angeles in the late 1970s. There she was a founder member of Pacific Asian American Women Writers West (PAAWWW). She died at her Los Angeles home on July 19, 2020. ==Works==

• Gold Watch, 1970. Produced at the Inner City Cultural Center, Los Angeles, 1972. Excerpted in Frank Chin et al. (ed.) Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers, 1974. Published in Roberta Uno (ed.) Unbroken thread: an anthology of plays by Asian American women. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1993. • Old Man, 1971. • When We Were Young, 1973. Produced by the East West Players, Los Angeles 1974 and at the Asian American Theater Company, San Francisco, 1976. • Flowers and Household Gods, 1975. Produced at the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, Perry Street Theatre (New York, N.Y.), June 24, 1981, and Northwest Asian American Theater, Seattle, 1984. Published in Roberta Uno (ed.) Asian American Playwrights Scripts Collection 1924-1992, Special Collections and Archives, W.E.B Du Bois Library, U of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1976. • Second City Flat, 1976. Produced at the Inner City Cultural Center, Los Angeles, 1978. Published in Roberta Uno (ed.) Asian American Playwrights Scripts Collection 1924-1992, Special Collections and Archives, W.E.B Du Bois Library, U of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1976. • Hollywood Mirrors, 1978. Produced at Asian American Theater Company, San Francisco, 1978. Asian American Theater Company Archives, U of California, Santa Barbara, 1978. • Boutique living and disposable icons: a family comedy in two acts, 1987. Produced at the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, Perry Street Theatre (New York, N.Y.), June 24, 1988. Library for the Performing Arts, New York Public Library, 1987. ==References==