a mixed plate of Japanese American news and culture
Franz Schurmann, the foremost scholar of communist China during the Cold War, an early opponent of the U.S. war in Indochina, and the co-founder of Pacific News Service, died at his home in San Francisco on Aug. 20. The cause was advanced Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. He was 84. Schurmann taught history and sociology [...]
World War II is the defining period of Japanese American history. There’s the concentration camps, the resisters, the no-no boys and, of course, the 442nd and 100th infantries. Anyone with an interest in Nikkei culture and history should be familiar with the story of the all-Japanese American combat units — they were so important to [...]
“Distillation: Meditations on the Japanese American Experience” opened last week at John F. Kennedy University’s Arts & Consciousness Gallery in Berkeley. It offers a unique portrayal of Japanese American identity through the lens of Sansei, or third-generation Japanese Americans. With more than 70 works of art, the four artists — Reiko Fujii, Lucien Kubo, Shizue [...]
What came first, the chicken or the egg? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the chicken unless you subscribe to the theory of Spontaneous Generation, where a rock shaped like a chicken eventually turned into a chicken. I’m pretty sure the original form of chickens looked more like the egg with a central core like the [...]
President Obama has picked Daphne Kwok of San Francisco to chair the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, a job that carries the responsibility of “being the eyes and ears of the community,” as Kwok puts it. The 48-year-old Chinese American will continue to stay in her current job as executive director [...]
NEW YORK — More than 40 former Japan Exchange and Teaching Program alumni from across the United States recently holed themselves up in a Manhattan hotel to figure out how to sell their organization’s value to the Japanese government as potential budget cuts loom large. “I think the Japan Exchange and Teaching Alumni Association of [...]
SACRAMENTO — The California state Legislature on Aug. 24 passed Assembly Bill 1775, which would establish Jan. 30 as Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution. The bill is headed to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s desk for his signature. The bill uses the wrongful conviction of Fred Korematsu during World War II to emphasize [...]
Through most of the film “The Harimaya Bridge,” protagonist Daniel Holder wears a sullen, stone-faced stare, communicating profound distaste for his surroundings. He simmers with hostility while tromping around Japan, and understandably so — this is the land where first his father and then his son perished. Daniel (played by veteran actor Ben Guillory) has [...]
On Aug. 8, more than 150 people gathered at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California (JCCCNC) in San Francisco’s Japantown to hear Arnold Hiura, author of “Kau Kau: Cuisine and Culture in the Hawaiian Islands,” give a lecture on Hawai‘i’s food. Part cookbook, part coffee table and history book, “Kau Kau,” released [...]
Commentary: Three generations visit former Granada camp
Recently in July I visited the Amache (formally known as Granada) internment camp in Granada, Colo., along with 12 other family members. We represented three generations (Sansei, Yonsei and Gosei) coming from multiple cities (Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco). Three people in our group were former internees — including both my parents and my [...]