One of the burdens of my work as a historian of Japanese Americans is the continuing sense of time passing. I have a continuing need to find people before they move out of reach, due to death or disability. Now, I realize that, on one level, I have less ground for complaint than most. After […]
History
THE GREAT UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWN GREAT: A behind-the-scenes glimpse at a historian’s work documenting JA stories
July 20, 2017 by Leave a Comment
THE GREAT UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWN GREAT: Biracial MIS veteran Clarke Kawakami’s multifaceted legacy
January 1, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Clarke Hiroshi Kawakami, a man who made his mark in many different fields, was born in Momence, Ill. in 1909. His mother was Mildred Clarke, a white American, and his father was the well-known Issei author and journalist Kiyoshi Karl Kawakami. Kiyoshi Kawakami was born in Yonezawa, Japan in the 1870s (most early sources claim […]
NIKKEI ANGEL ISLAND CHRONICLES: Nikkei family makes historic visit to see ancestor’s inscription on Angel Island
September 3, 2015 by Leave a Comment
「廣島縣安ä½éƒ¡å·å…§æ‘町溫井ミヤモト å››å五年〠“Miyamoto Nukui Community, Kawauchi Village, Asa District, Hiroshima Prefecture 45th Year†The characters above are carved on a wall on the second floor of the former Angel Island immigration station. On Aug. 7, a group of 16 descendants of Masaru Miyamoto gathered on Angel Island with San Francisco State University Professor Charles Egan to […]
THE GREAT UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWN GREAT: The incarceration of Indonesians in the United States: An untold story
January 22, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part series. As the Pacific War drew to a close, the War of Independence broke out in Indonesia. Javanese sailors working on British and Dutch ships, who faced deportation once the war ended, became fearful that they would be sent back on the ships to carry arms […]
NIKKEI ANGEL ISLAND CHRONICLES: Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans on Angel Island
January 1, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The Oct. 4, 2014 Nikkei Angel Island Pilgrimage — presented by the Nichi Bei Foundation in partnership with the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation and National Japanese American Historical Society — sparked a lot of interest among Japanese Americans in their potential Angel Island roots, either immigrant ancestors or those who may have been briefly […]
THE GREAT UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWN GREAT: Queer non-Nikkei figures in Japanese American history (Part IV)
June 12, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Editor’s Note: This is the fourth and final part of an ongoing series. Monika Kehoe’s wartime position as director of adult education at the Gila River War Relocation Authority concentration camp led to a postwar career that took her around the world, pursuing interests in multiple fields and working variously as instructor, athletics coach, administrator, […]
THE GREAT UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWN GREAT: Queer non-Nikkei figures in Japanese American history (part II)
April 17, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Editor’s Note: This is the second part of an ongoing series. Monika Kehoe’s experience with Japanese Americans served as a foundation for her later career, which involved working as an administrator and teaching English to diverse international populations (a point that will be discussed in depth later on). As she noted in the introduction to […]
THE GREAT UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWN GREAT: Queer non-Nikkei figures in Japanese American history
April 3, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Editor’s Note: This is the first part in an ongoing series. Ever since I began writing “The Great Unknown†in 2007, I have had the pleasure of contributing an annual queer heritage column, which explores the nature of sexuality and the experience of lesbians and gays in Japanese American history. This year’s installment recounts the […]
THE GREAT UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWN GREAT: Advertising executive and market researcher Arthur Hirose’s surprisingly successful career
March 6, 2014 by Leave a Comment
This is the second half of a two-part series on the Hirose family, a pair of exceptional hapa brothers who grew up in New York at the turn of the 20th century. While older brother George Hirose (see the Nov. 7, 2013 issue of the Nichi Bei Weekly), as mentioned, became a clerk at a […]
THE GREAT UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWN GREAT: Nisei literary artists in NY made their mark post-WWII
February 20, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Throughout much of the 20th century, a unique feature of the West Coast Nikkei community press was the New Year’s supplement. These special holiday issues contained several additional pages in both English and Japanese. Most of the contents, at least in the English sections, were made up of advertisements from local businesses and columns of […]
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