[2] While in the United States, she became friends with writers Pearl S. Buck, Helen Kuo, and Agnes Smedley and artist Yasuo Kuniyoshi.

[6] In the spring of 1937, she moved to Los Angeles, where she contributed a biweekly column to the Japanese American newspaper Rafu Shimpo, writing under the pen name May Tanaka.

[7] Ishigaki's memoir Restless Wave: A Life in Two Worlds, published as Haru Matsui in January 1940, and was widely reviewed in publications such as The New Yorker and The New Republic.

Although they were not incarcerated due to their residence on the East Coast of the United States, they were subject to curfews and random searches, and lost their jobs.

[12] In the late 1940s, as the Cold War took hold and McCarthyism became dominant in the U.S., Ayako and Eitaro were placed under government surveillance due to their left-wing activism.