[3] Her father travelled to the United States in order to study at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific[1] but was interned after the attack on Pearl Harbor as an enemy alien.
He became an ordained minister while interned and was transferred to the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho where he met his future wife who was a sociologist working for the United States government doing statistical research.
[3] Kitagawa spoke some words of Japanese at home as a child but did not learn to speak the language fluently until she was at college.
[3] Kitagawa's interest in Asian art was kindled by travelling to Japan and Asia as a child with her parents.
She joined the Jordan Schnitzer museum at the University of Oregon in 2010,[3] where she is chief curator of collections and Asian art and director of academic programs.