Beate Sirota Gordon

Beate Sirota Gordon was an Austrian and American performing arts presenter and women's rights advocate. Born in Vienna, Austria, she moved to the Empire of Japan in 1929 with her father, the pianist Leo Sirota. After graduating from the American School in Japan, she moved to Oakland, California, where she enrolled at Mills College. Being one of the few people not of Japanese descent who was fluent in Japanese, she obtained work at the Office of War Information in the Foreign Broadcast Information Service of the Federal Communications Commission.