SEATTLE— They immigrated to America seeking new lives. Instead they re-discovered their old religion.

Grandmothers Junko Nakano and Aiko Fujii were new brides in those early years after World War II. Etsu Shimbo lived with family and studied in Seattle. All were in their early 20s and, for the most part, lived secular lives when they came to this country.

In Japan, where the three women grew up, Buddhism was “entwined in every day life,” explained Shimbo, a retired accountant whose religious training didn’t really begin until after she had children. “We didn’t have structure like we do here.”

Their families were required to belong to a Buddhist temple. For weddings, Nakano said, they would go to the Shinto shrine. For funerals, to the Buddhist temple.

But it was only in America that they discovered Buddhist teachings.

Maybe it was loneliness or searching for a meaning and identity that drove them back to their old religious roots. But immigrating to America somehow sparked in them a need to go deeper into their Buddhist beliefs.

At the Seattle Betsuin Buddhist Temple, all three women found a sangha, or community that helped ease their transition to American life. Shimbo, who lives in Kirkland, Wash.; Fujii, of Mercer Island, Wash.; and Nakano, of Seattle, have studied Buddhist scripture and thought together under various teachers for decades. They attend temple every week, some of their children went to Buddhist schools, and they each retain their traditional religious practices.

They try to keep their Buddhist traditions and beliefs alive in their lives and the lives of their families as their American-born children and grandchildren grow up, get married and start families of their own.

Shimbo started attending Buddhist services when her son was three. Hers was the only Japanese family in her suburban neighborhood, and children in the neighborhood asked him if he was black.

“My oldest son, when he was three, didn’t know what he was,” she said. She wanted to give him a sense of the religious and cultural identity she grew up with.

Keeping that continuity hasn’t been easy.

“My children all felt alone because they were surrounded by Christian families,” said Shimbo.

As a teacher of Japanese language, the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, and Japanese flower arranging techniques, Fujii is the keeper and sharer of ancient traditions. Buddhism awakened in her a connection to gratitude and peace, what Fujii calls an “awakening” that she wants to share with her family.

She tries to encourage them to find their way but say she recognizes that there are “many paths to the mountaintop.” Most of all, she wishes them peace.

Through their religious practices, all three women walk in their foremothers’ footsteps – a feat that has become both easier but more complicated in America.

Nakano’s daughter-in-law is a Christian, a decision Nakano respects. But she tries to teach her granddaughter her Buddhist heritage as well. Every month, she holds a ceremony in her house with just her and her grandchildren. The children help ring the bell and chant.

These small services at home help keep her own Buddhist posture “straight,” Nakano says. At the same time, they also serve as an invitation to her grandchildren -- a bridge across generations in a country where religious choices are all around them.

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