After enduring a year’s worth of treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Paul Ota decided to fly home to the Bay Area to pick up his universal passport. A universal passport is a document that symbolizes a person’s goal to travel the world. He had been on the waitlist for one since before he was diagnosed with […]
ELUSIVE DREAMS: Proud hapa finds marrow match but loses cancer battle
May 23, 2019 by Leave a Comment
A Match for Bay: Eight-year-old Nikkei battles leukemia
July 26, 2014 by Leave a Comment
While most children play outside this summer, 8-year-old Baylor “Bay” Nihei Fredrickson from Albany, Calif engages in Nerf gun battles with nurses in between chemotherapy rounds. Baylor, who is of Japanese and German descent, was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia in February 2012 at 5 years old. According to his mother, Shari Nihei Fredrickson, Baylor […]
THE GREAT UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWN GREAT: The conflicted and self-destructive life of Tim Osato
January 9, 2014 by 2 Comments
Amid all the joys of working on the historical sketches of “The Great Unknown,” one of my favorite pleasures is hearing from readers. I am gratified to see that my recent article on the dancer/activist Sono Osato attracted some positive attention. In gratitude, I am inspired to present another Osato “great unknown” — the unsung […]
FULL COUNT: Are Rex Walters and the Dons tournament bound this year?
January 1, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The University of San Francisco Dons Men’s Basketball team went into winter break with a winning yet disappointing 5-4 record for head coach Rex Walters, who began the season with his deepest squad since taking the reins in 2008 and early on looked like they could be serious contenders for the West Coast Conference crown. […]
THE GREAT UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWN GREAT: The life and writings of hapa poet Ambrose Amadeus Uchiyamada
September 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
This week’s column traces some of the history of a hapa poet and journalist with the magnificent name Ambrose Amadeus Uchiyamada, who grew up under rather unusual circumstances. His father Thomas Morkiyo Uchiyamada, a university-trained engineer from Japan who came to the United States for further schooling in the first years of the 20th century, […]
FIGHT FOR MIKE: 19-year-old Michael Sakata’s battle against leukemia
July 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment
ROSEVILLE, Calif. — Despite the scorching 100-degree weather, Los Angeles Clippers forward Matt Barnes and former Sacramento Kings point guard Bobby Jackson joined about 45 other people to play in a golf tournament at the Woodcreek Golf Club in Roseville, Calif. on June 30 to raise money for 19-year-old leukemia patient Michael Sakata. Barnes, who […]
Multiracial, multiethnic patients struggle to find marrow matches
July 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Because Michael Sakata is of Japanese and Mexican ancestry, the need for new donors to register is crucial. Unlike blood donations, bone marrow matches depend more on the ethnicity of the individual donating their marrow and the individual receiving the transplant. According to Carol Gillespie, Asian American Donor Program’s executive director, it will be difficult […]
A comprehensive and complex look at multiethnic Asian American identities
January 1, 2013 by 1 Comment
WHEN HALF IS WHOLE: MULTIETHNIC ASIAN AMERICAN IDENTITIES By Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2012, 248 pp., $21.95, paperback) The whole spectrum of the mixed race, multiethnic Asian American experience could never be contained in a single book. That said, Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu’s new book, “When Half is Whole,” comes pretty close (without […]
New JANM exec expands focus to attract younger generations
January 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
LOS ANGELES — Symbolizing the evolution of Japanese America is Dr. G.W. (Greg) Kimura, a Yonsei (fourth generation Japanese American) of mixed race, who will soon observe his one-year anniversary as chief executive officer at the Japanese American National Museum. The fourth-generation Alaskan took over on Jan. 20, 2012 from Dr. Akemi Kikumura Yano, who […]
Film to highlight need for multiethnic donors
March 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The award-winning team behind “Mixed Match,” a feature-length documentary about the difficulties multiethnic patients with deadly blood diseases face when searching for bone marrow donors, has launched an online fundraising campaign to raise $25,000 to support its production and post-production work. Jeff Chiba Stearns is the director and executive producer of […]
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