family did not lose their grape farm because a local farmer named Bob Fletcher quit his job and managed the Tsukamoto grape farm. He paid the mortgage and the taxes and saved the profits until the Tsukamoto's were released in 1945. In 1943, Tsukamoto's brother-in-law and husband were permitted to leave the camp to take jobs. Mary and Marielle were released in November 1943, and moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan, to join them. After President Roosevelt lifted the ban on individuals of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast, they returned to their farm in Florin in 1945. Dedication to education Tsukamoto was encouraged by Isabell Jackson, the principal of her daughter's school, to pursue a teaching career. She went to Sacramento State to get her teaching credential while working as a substitute teacher. In 1949, She became one of the first certificated Japanese-American teachers by joining Florin Elementary School in the Elk Grove School District as a third grade teacher. She said that in her first year, the children were "climbing out the windows". She taught in the district for 26 years, proving to be a faculty member with a passion for education. After retiring in 1976, she continued working with schools and brought students of all ethnicities together. She directed a Japanese cultural heritage program called Jan Ken Po Gakko, which were similar to the Japanese language schools established before the War. She also organized lectures and displays; in 1994, she helped the California State University at Sacramento create a library collection called The Japanese American Archival Collection (JAAC), where she provided " an initial gift of photographs, documents and artifacts" which has since grown to over 4,000 original items from over 200 donors. In 1983, Tsukamoto launched the Time of Remembrance program, which was a way to bring Elk Grove students into contact with former internees. The students listened to stories from Japanese Internment camp victims, looked at photographs and artifacts, and learned what it means to be an American citizen. She created this curriculum as a way to shed light on the discrimination that the Japanese endured during World War II, and to enrich their knowledge of American history. Her daughter, Marielle, described this work of her mother's as a way to "tie this story to the Constitution. It’s every citizen’s responsibility to make sure our own civil rights and someone else’s rights are not denied." Dedication to