Kyoko Sato hit bottom soon after arriving in New York in 2002 to be with the man who was to become her husband (since divorced). "I had been able to work freely in Japanese society, so I really suffered when I came (to the States) since I couldn't do that anymore," she says. "I had really loved my job in Japan, so it was tough; I wondered if I had made a stupid decision."
In the three long, difficult years until she received her green card in 2005, Sato says, "I couldn't work and felt I was gradually losing all my energy."
That energy had been considerable. A graduate of Waseda University's School of Literature, where she studied art history, Sato entered the NHK group after graduation. Assigned to manage an exhibition on the culture and art of the Jomon Period (10,000-200 B.C.), she memorized every detail of the nearly 1,000 pieces, including in some cases the phone numbers of the owners, and became known to her team as a "walking CD-ROM."