Little predisposed Teru Hasegawa to a life of political resistance.
Born in 1912 to a conservative middle class family, she grew up in comfortable circumstances during the Taisho Era (1912-26), a thrilling period of political liberalization and cultural experimentation. After completing her elementary and secondary studies in Tokyo, Hasegawa moved to the Kansai region to attend the Nara Higher Normal School for Girls, now Nara Women’s University, where she trained to become a teacher. She was smart and witty; she was expected to breeze through.
But internally, Hasegawa was burning. As a child, her older sister later recalled, she had been “stubborn and staunchly rebellious.” Things got worse during her teenage years, when she grew distrustful of authority. Her sense of alienation became so acute that she briefly contemplated suicide. More trouble awaited in Nara, where Hasegawa made friends among leftwing groups. This led to her arrest, in 1932, for harboring “dangerous thoughts,” a catch-all describing beliefs running counter to established political norms. The result was a week behind bars and expulsion from school. Suddenly, her future looked a lot darker.
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