Yoko Ishikawa was born in 1930 in Yokohama, Japan. In September of 1952, through the support of a Fulbright Scholarship, the Service League of Women’s College in Greensboro, and the U.S. Department of State, Ishikawa was able to attend Woman’s College as an exchange student for a year. She enrolled in English and child psychology courses which she believed would help her when she returned to Japan as an English teacher. During her time at WC, she lived in Shaw Hall.