On Sept. 2, 2019 the Nichi Bei Foundation will hold an online fundraising event, a celebration to mark the 10th anniversary of its founding, as well as the 120th anniversary of the Nichi Bei Shimbun, founded by Kyutaro Abiko. For more about the celebration, which will include hourly raffles and gifts for contributors, see www.nichibei.org/give2nichibei. […]
LASTING COMMITMENTS: Give generously to the Nichi Bei, onegai shimasu
August 29, 2019 by Leave a Comment
Historian ‘illuminates’ JA history
January 1, 2017 by Leave a Comment
THE GREAT UNKNOWN: JAPANESE AMERICAN SKETCHES By Greg Robinson (Boulder, Colo.: University Press of Colorado, 2016, 400 pp., $45, hardcover) In Kenji Taguma’s resplendent foreword to this latest of historian Greg Robinson’s cavalcade of exemplary volumes devoted to illuminating the Japanese American experience, he rightly observes that “The Great Unknown” is a work that “epitomizes […]
Nichi Bei Foundation awarded $30,000 grant from Takahashi Foundation
October 13, 2016 by Leave a Comment
The Nichi Bei Foundation, an educational nonprofit organization that publishes the Nichi Bei Weekly Japanese American community newspaper, was awarded a $30,000 grant from The Tomoye and Henri Takahashi Charitable Foundation, the organization said. The grant will fund “ongoing administrative costs,” said an Oct. 3 letter from Masako Takahashi, chair of The Henri and Tomoye […]
Brenda Wong Aoki to present true ‘Forbidden Love’ story in San Francisco
May 12, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Storyteller and writer Brenda Wong Aoki will perform “Uncle Gunjiro’s Girlfriend: A True Story of Forbidden Love” with Emmy Award-winning composer Mark Izu and koto artist Shoko Hikage as part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival starting Thursday, May 19 at the Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture in San Francisco. “In my […]
SoCal JA newspaper at ‘crisis point’
April 14, 2016 by Leave a Comment
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles-based Japanese American newspaper The Rafu Shimpo is in danger of closing, its Publisher and President Michael Komai wrote in an open letter that was posted March 25. The Little Tokyo newspaper, whose origins date back to 1903, is currently at a “crisis point,” Komai wrote. “For the last three […]
Japanese community papers in fierce battle in U.S.
December 18, 2014 by Leave a Comment
NEW YORK — Often available for free at Japanese supermarkets and restaurants in major U.S. cities, Japanese community papers are competing hard with Internet media including bloggers for readers and struggling with generating ad revenues. The rise of community papers, meanwhile, has been partly responsible for at least two conventional paid newspapers serving the Japanese […]
Reinventing an ethnic newspaper as a cultural institution
November 6, 2014 by Leave a Comment
While daily newspapers across the country battle for their lives, a scrappy little ethnic newspaper in San Francisco’s Japantown is discovering new ways to survive. It is the Nichi Bei Weekly, and it’s become my poster child for the special role that ethnic news media can play in their communities. The elements of success […]
The evolving face of Nikkei media
November 6, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The media landscape was forever changed in the 21st century as readership increasingly moved online and economic hardships in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis rocked the world. Media outlets serving Japanese speakers and Japanese Americans did not escape the turmoil either. Within the last five years, the San Francisco Bay Area has […]
Special Announcement: Nichi Bei Foundation receives its own 501(c)(3) status
June 26, 2014 by Leave a Comment
On behalf of the board and staff of the Nichi Bei Foundation, we are pleased to announce that we have finally received our own 501(c)(3) tax exempt status from the IRS. This means that we can now receive contribution checks made out to the “Nichi Bei Foundation,” and not to a fiscal sponsor, which typically […]
Help us grow with our Membership Drive!
There is much news about Japanese American newspapers facing difficult challenges, threatening our collective existence, given the general downturn in advertising in today’s print media and a shift to more online sources. Here at the Nichi Bei Foundation and Nichi Bei Weekly, we have been at the forefront at how community media faces these challenges, […]